Comments on: Guest Blog: Story, Characterization and Tim

By: GyRo567

GyRo567 — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:37:55 +0000

The problem with Dreamfall Chapters’ episodic release is that it’s a continuous story, and you might break the pacing if you stagger the release. If you make it even a monthly thing, you’re more likely to already be done with the game anyway, so there is indeed very little point to it.

Phoenix Wright remains my golden standard for episodic release – and it doesn’t even get published that way. Valve might qualify, but they’re only releasing expansion packs, not episodes. The name was just free PR.

That leads to another important point though. Dreamfall Chapters, like the Half-Life 2 Episodes, will work only because they are actually expansion packs with an incorrect name. There’s no real problem releasing a smaller version of a sequel, but you do have to release the full game first.

So until developers come to their senses, I suppose I’ll just keeping buying Half-Life 2 expansions, keep waiting for Dreamfall Chapters to pass judgement, keep waiting for a Sam & Max Season to be released as a single package, and keep buying Phoenix Wright games as they come out, packaged together.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 05:06:40 +0000

I posted this elsewhere, but the chapter format of TLJ and Dreamfall could in itself be a very good indication that episodic gaming could work with the series, especially if on a weekly basis ala 24, Lost, Heroes; whatever. The problem is that I can’t see it ever being released on a weekly basis like that. If lots of content was done at once, then the releases would still likely be staggered to the same degree to mantain continuity of release. Besides this, on the offchance the whole game was done at once, there’d be little reason to release each chapter weekly – it’d make more sense to release all at once. The only real reason to do it weekly in that situation would be to let people try it out, and I just can’t see it happening, which I think is a bit of a shame.

Mind you, that all assumes it’s one chapter at a time. If it’s “genuine” episodic gaming as we’ve seen so far, it’ll likely be two or three chapters at once, and then several months of waiting for the next.

I could go on for awhile about how wonderful I think Dreamfall is, and how anyone who likes a good story should play TLJ (although perhaps with a walkthrough) and then Dreamfall, but I’m not sure this is the right place for me to launch into that diatribe again. Hopefully we won’t have to wait years for the next release, but if Dreamfall Chapters uses the same engine (as the name at least somewhat implies) then my hunger for narrative might be sated sooner than I’d hoped.

By: GyRo567

GyRo567 — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:25:13 +0000

In defense of Dreamfall, it really was Zoe’s story, and right now she’s probably my favourite fictional character in all the world. I doubt I’m telling you anything you don’t already know, but the April and Kian sections smacked of being there solely to elaborate on the necessary plot, and nothing more. If Dreamfall is genuinely the first part of a duology, then the sequel will presumably expound more on their roles, and I’d love to be able to treat Dreamfall as just the first half of one game rather than something stand-alone. It’s odd that I’m defending it so much when I’d normally slate anything that tried that, but I guess that’s just a sign of its quality. I’m glad someone else likes it as much as I do, at least!

Oh, it makes perfect sense. I’ve delved into the theories about Dreamfall, and we’ve all (well, all of us who are sane & rational) come to the conclusion that the happenings in Arcadia were part of the overall saga, while the events in Stark (which almost make Zoe seem like a plot device whenever she’s in Arcadia, though she fortunately does have a purpose there in the long run I think [speaking of which, there were a lot of almost cliche plot devices, but I like how Dreamfall makes unique use of almost all of them] – apologizes for too many tangents) were the only ones that related to the plot of Dreamfall itself. Quite frankly, I loved the ending, and I loved the “game” (the part that mattered – I hate the gameplay; I think it should be more like self-paced machinima if Dreamfall Chapters uses the same basic formula) but my nostalgic tendencies make me want to see more of the overall arc.

I’m so incoherent today it could make you gouge your eyes out. Apologies for all spelling errors.

By: Corvus

Corvus — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:12:13 +0000

Tim: The link is to my blog, where I talk about the HoneyComb Engine plans, my ideas about Story and storytelling and generally rage against the machine. I’ll be publishing a white paper this summer which will address the underlying premise behind my approach to participatory storytelling.

By: Alan

Alan — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:37:33 +0000

So my complaint really stems from the fact that many people will inevitably cite the FF7 Aeris “incident” as an powerful gameplay moment, except that it isn’t a gameplay moment at all, it’s a cutscene that occurs regardless of player involvement. In fact, it may as well be a scene in a non-interactive movie. The same applies to many “memorable moments” that people cite when they talk about the narrative impact of games. The irony is that those sorts of moment have nothing to do with the gameplay at all and instead rely on the writing/scripting. This is why a lot of the “emotion-based narrative” hype is way overrated; writers have been doing this stuff for centuries. It’s the interactive component that makes it interesting.

The reason the “blurry” area is blurry is because the realities of game development mean that narrative must be tied to scripted events in order to control the scope of player consequences. This is why you end up with the familiar inverted-hourglass shape of narrative design, maybe with a couple of larger arcs if you’re lucky. Narrative design is well understood, and there’s nothing wrong with using it. Still, the challenge is to create compelling gameplay moments, because ultimately that’s what makes or breaks the experience.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 05:27:31 +0000

Ye gods. That turned out much longer than expected.