Ken Levine: Computer game plots must be stupid

[alanschu]

Do you know how to play the game?

 

What game? Did it come with an instruction manual?

 

 

Ah, if it is the game you want to play...all I can say is that you did not play it right. Look close and you should see. I know how to play the game. I just ask...do you?

[Guest The Hero of 1001 Faces]

As a matter of fact, I do,

but I don't like it, alanschu.

It's about time I say adieu,

yet I have more words for you.

I am a racist, and don't like your hue,

but don't worry, I haven't sent a crew.

I have far too much to do,

and this whole poem blew.

[aries101]

I think you probably are mistaken 'simple plots' for 'easy to understand plots'. I mean, if you look at the plot for say PS: Torment, the plot reallys very simple. A guy wakes up in a mortuary on slap. He has no knowledge of how he came to be in this mortuary or who he is. His task is now to find out all of this. And in doing the plot unfold into something deeper and very complex. The same goes for Baldur's Gate 1. In this game, BG1, your task is to find out who you are, and in doing so, you just happen to, nearly by accident, stumble across some problems in Nashkell and the Forgotten Realms.

 

As for the comments about STALKER's ending, I will just point to the ending in the first Fallout 1 and something in the latest COD-installment; CoD4.

Huge spoiler ahead - read at your own risk:

 

 

The ending in the first Fallout is actually one of the most gripping and touching as well as one of the most moving endings I've seen in a game, movie or book.

 

The game ends with your banishment from Vault 13, since the experience you've had during your travels in the wastelands has changed you so much that you won't really be able to adjust to life in Vault 13.

 

It is a very moving scene in which you as the player character leaves Vault 13.

 

Oh, and as for the player's character dying, I think that in the latest Call Of Duty game (cod4), the player's character dies a horrible death in the outskirts of a nuclear explosion.

 

 

 

 

To me, having the player die in STALKER seems logically enough. Afterall, you've been walking through radioactive zones in the game most of the time. Realistically, this will kill you. But it does seem to kill any future adventures in Chernonyl land - with the same character.

 

Ken Levine mentions, I think, that you have to keep things simple. I agree a lot with this statement, especially if it means that you, as the developer, makes sure that the player and his character have a reason why they're doing what they're doing. A bad example of how not to do this is actually Oblivion. I feel that

I don't have a hook or feel the necessity to be doing the game's main quest. It just seems to be going through the motions of deliver thing, find this person etc. etc. I don't feel as emotionally involved as I did in BG1 or even Diablo 1+2 and certainly not as much as I did in PS: Torment.

 

If you look at like Drew Karpyshyn does here:

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=186193

 

you will see that Drew (from Bioware) thinks that Bioware and videogames are just finding their forms of telling interactive stories; their own way of narrating a game, both in form of the technology used as well as in the form of telling (great) stories.

 

In this, Drew is also saying that he thinks that video games need to find their own voices, their own conventions on how to write a game as well as finding their conventions on how games ought to (or should) develop. I have to say that I actually agree with Drew on this. First, I think the game writers tried to as the books told stories, then how movies told stories. Given that games are sort of different from both books and movies in that the player actually interacts with the world and that his, or rather his character's decisions, is able to change the world, it makes sense to develop certain game conventions on how games ought to be made - both techwise as well as storywise.

[Spider]

I think you probably are mistaken 'simple plots' for 'easy to understand plots'. I mean, if you look at the plot for say PS: Torment, the plot reallys very simple. A guy wakes up in a mortuary on slap. He has no knowledge of how he came to be in this mortuary or who he is. His task is now to find out all of this. And in doing the plot unfold into something deeper and very complex.

 

I think the term "simple plot" needs to be defined in this discussion. Because I just can't see how a plot that "unfolds into something deeper and very complex" can be called simple. Does it start with a simple premise? Fair enough, amnesia is not a very advanced story hook. But as the plot grows it becomes increasingly advanced. Not hard to follow for the most part, but increasingly complex in where it takes you.

 

Baldur's Gate on the other hand, really does have a very simple plot.

 

To me, having the player die in STALKER seems logically enough. Afterall, you've been walking through radioactive zones in the game most of the time. Realistically, this will kill you. But it does seem to kill any future adventures in Chernonyl land - with the same character.

 

Except that's not what kills you. You get killed by accomplishing your goal. And completely without warning in a very What the?! kind of way. The ending in Fallout was tragic, the one in Stalker just stupid (at least the ones where you just die, they did add endings where you lived as well before release).

[Blarghagh]

I can firmly state that the vast majority of gamers are utter mouth-breathers.

 

That's not fair. I have nose-problems that usually force me to breathe through my mouth.

[Musopticon?]

To me, having the player die in STALKER seems logically enough. Afterall, you've been walking through radioactive zones in the game most of the time. Realistically, this will kill you. But it does seem to kill any future adventures in Chernonyl land - with the same character.

 

Except that's not what kills you. You get killed by accomplishing your goal. And completely without warning in a very What the?! kind of way. The ending in Fallout was tragic, the one in Stalker just stupid (at least the ones where you just die, they did add endings where you lived as well before release).

From what I've gathered, it's player's fault if he doesn't follow the story and ends up being fooled by the Monolith. Were the player to go through the plot thoroughly, they'd survive because it'd be obvious that the Monolith is a trap.

[Spider]

I don't know. I think I went through it fairly thoroughly and I didn't know it was a trap (and iirc it wasn't a trap either, just an event that had somewhat unpredictable consequences). By luck I happened to take the other route in the end and got the other ending, but I might just have well turned left instead of right (and did later because I wanted to see both versions).

 

Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention, I don't know.

[aries101]

My point is this:

 

I like open endings or endings that are not the very cliche endings. I like these endings both in movies, in films and in games as well. And the Stalker ending or the CoD4 thing happening seems just like a very good way to end things or even a good mid point in the game. I like things that aren't mainstream...

[Pop]

STALKER was so muddled plot-wise (probably due to weird translation, but that can't account for all of it) that it'd be difficult to fault at least some players for getting bad endings.