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[PATV] Monday, August 1, 2011 - Extra Credits Season 1, Ep. 1: Bad Writing
So I've seen a couple of these episodes and I've decided to start from the beginning. You make some good points about narrative in games, but I feel like you haven't answered a very important question: Are games even necessarily an inherently narrative medium? Sure, to someone who isn't playing a game, they're most reminiscent of movies or TV shows, but what if that's actually not what games are about? What if games aren't like movies, or TV shows, or comics or novels, in which a narrative is the driving force behind everything? What if they're actually more like paintings or music, where narrative is not central or even necessary to the art form?
@Htown: You present the question: Are games even necessarily an inherently narrative medium? That really all depends on whether or not we define story as a "sequence of events". If you call anything definitive that happens in any game an event, and you recognize that game events occur in a sequential (and logically progressive) manner, the very act of playing a game is to experience the telling of a story. You could then argue (which I will) that every component of a game that is "good" is only good because it is effective in helping to convey the story to the player. Granted, the story might be about multi-colored blocks that are somehow deathly allergic to other blocks of their same color...
Don't know how I found this site, but this is one of those shows that really makes the internet worth while. After skipping around all the episodes that immediately caught my interest, I've decided, "Okay, these guys know their stuff, and they're entertaining, let's watch 'em all!"
Good video. After recently playing the PSN game "Journey," I'm going to go right out and say that proper narrative doesn't need a single spoken or written word to be compelling and engrossing. Some of these games put TOO much stock in their writing and the gameplay is just standard fare hack and slash with various skins laid on top. The trope of "show, don't tell" comes to mind, which many developers don't seem to grasp.
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