fileplanet.com — Everyone wants more stories in games -- at least they say they do. But what does that really mean? And how do you create a meaningful story in an interactive medium? Fargo takes a look at the differences between Hollywood and games, the techniques developers can use to tell stories in games, and what we'll see in the future.
May 9, 2007 View in Crawl 4
scooby0110May 11, 2007
good read.
darthfrodoMay 14, 2007
Fargo,As a writer, gamer and industry watcher I found your article dealt with most of the territory that the industry conversation covers. I've been to some of those GDC roundtable discussions of story vs. gameplay and I think you've layed out the pieces of the puzzle nicely. (And great charts also.)I would add one more category that as of yet hasn't achieved widespread use; that is directed gaming. The prime example of this is the DM function in Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2. As a long-time tabletop role player, I salivated at the thought of this enhancement. Unfortunately I've never gotten it to work correctly and I haven't seen much community around it. The other example is the one you spoke about last month, the virtual RPG tabletop. My gaming group and I are in the beginning phases of using Fantasy Grounds and it works. It's difficult to set up a story, but the functionality is there. So what these give us is the means to have a sandbox game with an open-ended storyline. What I call 'interactive storytelling'. I think that this medium will reach it's true potential when you can add story elements on the fly from a resource box. Sort of like reaching into your D&D minis box and pulling out a Dire Bear because the PC's walked into a cave and you rolled up a random encounter. peace,Rennie 'darthfrodo'