Category: game lists

IF Comp 2011: Overview

I’m now done with my comp play-through, though some games in the not-recommended pile that will not be reviewed because they don’t list beta-testers. If you have reason to believe I’ve placed something in that category in error, or you know that there were testers even if they weren’t listed, feel free to let me know.

What follows is a non-spoilery list of recommendations and non-recommendations. I’ve been adding to it as I played, but now that I’ve finished the whole field, I’ve redistributed a bit, mostly to try to help people find things they’re most likely to enjoy; that means I’ve taken away the “Must Play” category and replaced it with subcategories.

But some general points: this year sees a lot of entrants and a lot of high-quality work. The proportion of flatly unplayable stuff is low, and many of the mid-range games nonetheless demonstrate interesting ideas and a lot of authorial talent. There are a variety of experiments with user interface — that probably deserves its own compare-and-contrast column; games that explore morality and complicity from several philosophical angles; and every flavor of noir you can imagine. If you like wearing a fedora, this is the comp year for you.

You will find a bunch of other reviews linked here.

Continue reading “IF Comp 2011: Overview”

Narrativist Games

I recently got this question (slightly rephrased for brevity):

Off the top of your head, what are the key [narrativist] games one should know about? Do any particularly stand out? Any recent games I should rush to read? I am thinking primarily in terms of GNS, or — even more loosely — along the lines of games like My Life With Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, Stalin’s Story, and Little Fears. But I’m not dogmatic here.

This is a different question from the big storytelling games thread we had a couple years back — and in any case new stuff comes out all the time. So I thought I’d put some of my own thoughts here but also solicit feedback from the community, because I’m sure I’m missing a lot.

The wikipedia page on GNS theory defines narrativist play as follows:

Narrativist play relies heavily on outlining or developing motives for the characters, putting them into situations where those motives come into mutual conflict, and making their decisions in the face of such stress the main driving force behind events.

…and I’d say these features are fairly uncommon in IF and in video games in general, perhaps because it’s not easy to come up with mechanics that specify protagonist motivation. The Baron and Fate are obvious exceptions, with The Baron in particular stopping frequently to ask the player why he’s chosen to do something. Arguably Rameses also belongs in this category, because the player’s interaction is almost entirely about specifying what he wishes the protagonist had the guts to do, before Rameses’ neuroticism quashes the impulse.

A softer approach to this problem is to ask the player interpretive choices without extensively acting on the answers. Echo Bazaar occasionally asks the player to reflect back on a past event or action, or to express an attitude or intended action for the future. The “Free of Surface Ties” card, for instance, asks the player to choose an attitude towards the current game situation. The Countess storyline involves a similar choice. When the player’s decisions here don’t affect the gameplay but purely express motive, EBZ’s authors refer to this phenomenon as reflective choice. Very occasionally in the later stages of the game, however, motives do come into direct conflict: for instance, if the player builds up a lot of connection with two opposed social groups, he may encounter a card that demands him to pick sides. Still, a lot of this content is optional and it makes up a small percentage of the plotlines in the EBZ universe. So I wouldn’t say that the story is mostly driven forward by conflict between motives that the player has been able to select.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Bioware has also done some storylines in which the player makes some choices about affinity or loyalty and then is challenged on those as the story unfolds. I haven’t had time to take in anything as enormous as Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age II lately, but that sounds like the kind of territory they might be exploring.

So what do people think? Are there other games (IF or otherwise) that really qualify as “narrativist” in this sense? I’m sort of mulling over my own alternative taxonomy of interaction in computer-mediated storytelling, but I’d be curious to hear thoughts about the GNS approach.

IF Comp 2009: Overview

What follows the break will be a discussion of which games I liked best overall this year, and a couple of other comments on the competition. This is necessarily very lightly spoilery.

But first, I would like to tell you about pie. Pie is delicious. Pumpkin pie is especially delicious. People in many parts of the world do not eat pumpkin pie, but they are really missing out. Pumpkin pie filling has a complex spicy flavor and aroma, with cinnamon and sometimes nutmeg. It is all smooth and silky in texture, with a glossy upper surface which, incidentally, is an excellent receptacle of whipped cream. Then you have the crust, which should be pleasantly flaky. Unlike other kinds of pie, pumpkin pie is hardly ever too sweet or too tart, and it does not leave tiny seeds or skin or fibers stuck between your teeth. Though the best pumpkin pie is homemade, you can also get some very nice frozen or store-baked pumpkin pies. Finally, if you don’t finish the whole pumpkin pie at dessert, you can have some more for breakfast the next morning. It is just as delicious before noon.

(And that should just about do it for the RSS feed.)

Continue reading “IF Comp 2009: Overview”

Interactive Storytelling Must-Play List

A few days ago Skye Nathaniel took me to task in comments for “[making] a point of playing Portal when there is science to do elsewhere”. I don’t regret playing Portal — it was awesome. But this makes me wonder about other things that I’m missing. What belongs on the “must play to understand interactive storytelling” list?

Here’s my own list to start with. It is, I know, both woefully incomplete and IF-slanted (and that even though I was fairly sparing about what IF I allowed on the list). I’m probably also forgetting a bunch of things that I’m planning to play myself. But that’s why I’m posting. Input?

Have played and consider relevant

Commercial

  • Planescape: Torment. Didn’t come close to finishing, but played enough to be impressed.
  • Portal. despite Skye’s comments, I did think it was worth playing through, for the characterization of GlaDOS if nothing else. And it’s popular enough that it provides a good example for discussing any of the techniques it does use — because people are likely to know about them.
  • Something in the Myst series, as a milestone of atmosphere and development. I liked Riven best for its overall structure and gameplay. But I’d include it more as source of history to understand than because it’s currently cutting-edge.

Indie but not freeware

  • The Path. I really don’t know whether I liked it or not, but I played to a finish. I thought it was both broken and kind of brilliant, and whatever you think about it, it will really stick with you. I have a Homer in Silicon column on this to come, though probably not for a while.
  • Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble. Very unusual gameplay in many respects, and there are some semi-boring patches in places, but it’s taking on issues and ideas that are worth discussing. (HiS column)

Persuasive

Casual

  • Miss Management. Gamelab’s excellent time management game with memorable characters and a distinct plot arc. (HiS column)
  • Emerald City Confidential. It’s really a graphical adventure, but it puts itself in the casual category via its marketing, sort of. Categories are hazy, did I mention? Anyway, it’s not too formally innovative except in its attempts to make a graphical adventure accessible to a casual audience (and even there, it’s adopting a new set of genre conventions more than inventing); but it does take the story to some places that aren’t completely common in adventure games. (HiS column.)

IF (long more because I know about it than because I’m making some statement about its relative importance)

  • Anchorhead, for the complexity and extent of the plot and the uniformly high quality of writing and atmosphere.
  • Photopia, as an exploration of linearity.
  • Rameses, as a classic example of the value of complicity.
  • Shade, for the changing player/protagonist relationship.
  • The Baron, for adventures in protagonist motivation and the value of choice and philosophical thinking in an interactive story.
  • Varicella, for its development of the accretive protagonist.
  • Slouching Towards Bedlam, for its excellent articulation of the different choices available to the player, and the sense of true freedom within the story.
  • Everybody Dies, for its inventive combination of image and text to accomplish subjective effects, and because it’s an especially strong use of multiple, differently-voiced protagonists (though see also Being Andrew Plotkin).
  • Blue Lacuna, or exploring player reaction and expressiveness as well as player choice; for the experiment in drama management, even though I think said drama management does not always work to keep the pacing tight.
  • For historical reasons, probably Trinity and AMFV; possibly also Deadline, Plundered Hearts, and Wishbringer. Maybe The Hobbit, though honestly it drove me insane when I tried to play it. I don’t get the impression it was a terribly successful adaptation as narrative, but that people really enjoyed getting the NPCs to do weird things.

Ren’Py… I don’t know. I have no specific recommendations here about works that were too awesome to miss, and yet I think a knowledge of the form doesn’t hurt. I’ve played a few of these, especially by Tycoon Games and Hanako Games, but I’d be interested in any suggestions if there are Ren’Py games with really fabulous stories that I’ve missed.

Various games in the newly emergent retro/art genre

  • Passage. Because it gets talked about so much. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I feel like it’s kind of necessary to know about.
  • Don’t Look Back. Terry Cavanagh’s platformer version of the Orpheus and Eurydice story, for its use of the challenge and frustration of gaming in service of the story.
  • Cavanagh also collaborated on Judith, which rediscovers some of Photopia’s techniques — temporal reordering, inevitability, narrowing of interactivity — but in a different medium. So, from my point of view, most of what this game does with interactive storytelling techniques has actually been done better and earlier in IF, but it may have introduced the ideas to a new audience, which is good.
  • (I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors. My favorite, I think, in this game line: it’s intuitive and moving and unique.
  • I Wish I Were the Moon and perhaps also Storyteller (same place) for the way that they allow the player to select elements that should go into a story, rather than controlling any of the characters.

Other/unclassifiable

  • Façade. Unique and entirely obligatory, though far from perfect.
  • Ruben and Lullaby. Uses touch and gesture on the iPhone as a way to communicate feelings to the protagonist. For my taste the actual story aspect is a bit vague, but it’s a fascinating attempt and worth a look. (HiS column.)

Want to play (some of them rather old)

  • The Blackwell Legacy. While I have a dual-booting Mac laptop, I don’t have a two-button mouse for it, which makes some games unplayable. I know, I could fix that for about $20, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
  • Neverwinter Nights. Again, I just need a $20 two-button mouse to make this go on my Windows boot partition, so it’s probably going to happen sooner than the others; I know it’s old, but I’m particularly interested in exploring the player-designed content aspect, and I’ve just never gotten around to playing with it. (I know there’s also a Mac version, but as far as I could tell it didn’t come with the editor, which makes it vastly less interesting to me.)
  • Half-Life 2. I don’t have anything up to running this.
  • Bioshock. Ditto.
  • The Mighty Jill-Off.
  • Braid. Planning to play it when it’s available for the Mac.
  • Ico.
  • Shadow of the Colossus.
  • The Longest Journey.
  • Fable. I have the impression that people were disappointed, but I’m still curious about what it attempted, perhaps unsuccessfully, to do.
  • The Witcher.