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MinibarMatchman posted:I've found the best games writing comes from total madmen, like Suda51, Yoko Taro, or SWERY. I'd put Kojima on there as well, solely because he attempts to do things with storytelling in games you otherwise could never do with other mediums. There are great traditional storytellers of course but the guys who really stretch what's only possible in an interactive setting do some very fun things. The Zero Escape/Ever17 guy is cool
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Mar 23, 2017 21:06
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aw yeah... that vintage exquisite tea degradation of gamers posting i needed. hit me with that Everything is Bad Unless I Like It next 
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Mar 23, 2017 21:07
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MinibarMatchman posted:I've found the best games writing comes from total madmen, like Suda51, Yoko Taro, or SWERY. I'd put Kojima on there as well, solely because he attempts to do things with storytelling in games you otherwise could never do with other mediums. There are great traditional storytellers of course but the guys who really stretch what's only possible in an interactive setting do some very fun things. I think for good or ill this is true in that they genuine want to do weird things with the medium and are less interested in telling traditional stories so they're not suffering from the flaws of the genre. That said something to say about all three of them is that they make games about games and so they take advantage of that fact to write around things with 'this is intentional, it's a video game." Which isn't at all a bad thing but means they get to neatly sidestep some of the big problems of game writing by embracing the fact they are explicitly discussing video games.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:08
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On video game writers, I gotta say that guy Sam Lake is awesome, love Max Payne. Plus he looks like Max Payne! In High School that game got me into film noir and whatnot, I still think Lake has a very fun voice and in general is a great writer. Also a Kojima fan of course.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:10
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RPGs in particular keep doing the most annoying thing in the world, which is when you meet someone and then you have between 5 (Bioware) and 10 (Obsidian) conversation options which all boil down to "So who are you?" I don't know who in the world likes clicking on all of them in a row, or why none of them have tried to streamline it by editing down all the  into one compelling dialogue chunk instead of several bite size "Why'd you join?" "OK, where's your family?" "OK, what are your goals?" type things. It's something I had to specifically call out as something I would really prefer not to do and they reacted as if I was crazy until I went at it for 30 minutes on Why It's Bad.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:11
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exquisite tea posted:And then at the end of the day, you're writing for an audience of mostly idiots who have turned their brains to mush playing video games and wouldn't even recognize good writing if they saw it.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:11
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video games are good gamers are incredibly, ridiculously dumb and emotional, collectively speaking the two statements don't contradict each other
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Mar 23, 2017 21:12
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I don't think it's a coincidence that the games that tend to be cited as having the best writing either have awful gameplay (Planescape) or have writing and gameplay largely segregated (MGS).
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Mar 23, 2017 21:13
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Endorph posted:video games are good, tho? Shakepeare said it best - playing games is the thing!
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Mar 23, 2017 21:13
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Snak posted:A rocket propelled grenade exhibits composition: it "Has a" rocket. A rocket fired from a rocket launcher exhibits inheritance, it "Is a" rocket. RPG doesn't actually stand for "rocket-propelled grenade", that's a backronym.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:14
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https://twitter.com/radiostarkiller/status/844988588257370112 revenge for the guy that posted realistic foot kirby earlier mutata posted:CJacobs, come to the 3DCG thread in CreativeConvention we will help you. I might do that!
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Mar 23, 2017 21:14
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i can't wait for yooka-laylee even more now and i hope Jontron get hung at a gas station with children throwing stones at his dead body. i want his voice replaced by Danny from gamegrumps to piss off his shity fans. Cyron fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 21:14
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exquisite tea posted:And then at the end of the day, you're writing for an audience of mostly idiots who have turned their brains to mush playing video games and wouldn't even recognize good writing if they saw it. This
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Mar 23, 2017 21:15
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haveblue posted:I don't think it's a coincidence that the games that tend to be cited as having the best writing either have awful gameplay (Planescape) or have writing and gameplay largely segregated (MGS). Because of the medium we get into a gray area of describing creative roles. If it wasn't somewhat segmented, as in the gameplay/interacting tells the story, you'd probably credit the direction more than the writing right? Even though it's all connected with games. It's just easier to cite a game that has a lot of good dialogue or a solid plot. Granted sure, you can tell a solid plot without much dialogue or cutscenes.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:15
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fridge corn posted:This is stupid, agreed.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:17
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precision posted:RPGs in particular keep doing the most annoying thing in the world, which is when you meet someone and then you have between 5 (Bioware) and 10 (Obsidian) conversation options which all boil down to "So who are you?" a lot of older games do that to pad out poo poo and it's really quite worthless, it should just flat out run that question on autopilot and move on to other viable dialogue choices. even worse is when you are REQUIRED to go through all 4 choices ANYWAY so it's even more pointless.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:16
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Reposting this because it was an end of the page edit.  mutata posted:
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Mar 23, 2017 21:17
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Also for the record, I am technically a published writer
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Mar 23, 2017 21:17
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haveblue posted:I don't think it's a coincidence that the games that tend to be cited as having the best writing either have awful gameplay (Planescape) or have writing and gameplay largely segregated (MGS). MGS is a weird choice because that's a game I'd point to where writing and gameplay are inextricably intertwined.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:18
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fridge corn posted:Also for the record, I am technically a published writer fanfiction.net doesn't count
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Mar 23, 2017 21:19
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Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building?
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Mar 23, 2017 21:19
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mutata posted:Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building? Yes.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:20
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mutata posted:Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building? Yes
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Mar 23, 2017 21:20
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it's badass, is what it is
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Mar 23, 2017 21:21
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mutata posted:Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building? It's an RPG maker-like
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Mar 23, 2017 21:20
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graphics, musical score, etc have really become much more sophisticated during the last few years it's interesting to see that video games are still flailing with writing, even the "strong examples" are still just okay when compared to other mediums world building on the other hand has improved in strides, so while writing in general is still meh, this one part of video game story telling is getting a lot of love lately and i think that's swell as gently caress
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Mar 23, 2017 21:21
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mutata posted:Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building? It is the words.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:21
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precision posted:RPGs in particular keep doing the most annoying thing in the world, which is when you meet someone and then you have between 5 (Bioware) and 10 (Obsidian) conversation options which all boil down to "So who are you?" That's something I noticed a lot in Horizon Zero Dawn, actually, where sometimes they break up even the same "What's your deal?" branch into multiple times where the player has to ask another question. But it's not like it branches--instead, what happens is the dialog stops, the wheel comes back up, and in place of the last question you asked is the obvious follow-up that will continue the story the person was just telling you. I wondered why they didn't just keep going and why I had to select that obvious question again. I'd get it if there was something for Aloy to react to, or a possible branch, but that wasn't it. It was sort of like an off-ramp, maybe, where I could've changed the subject there, but it really didn't feel necessary and stuck out.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:22
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A lot of good game writing also tends to be subtle. It works to make the player act in the way the writer wants and in doing so you probably don't even think about it. There's a scene late in The Last of Us where Joel busts into a room and (theoretically) murders everyone in there. It's possible not to do that but by the direction, pacing and structure of the scene a lot of players just instinctively do it without thinking, which mirrors the behavior of the character without forcing it. It doesn't work for everyone (as no writing will) but it works enough to say that a lot of people just instinctively reacted and took action themselves. You can play with illusions as long as you work to make people believe the illusion basically. If someone asked you why TLoU was well-written though people would cite the dialogue or the themes or the character arcs or whatnot which isn't untrue but also there are a lot of smaller beats which contribute to it and people gloss over because they don't even realize they are there.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:22
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mutata posted:Well let's define "video game writing". Is it dialog? Is it story beats? Is it world building? It's a sick 1080° while catching huge air off a rad playground quarter-pipe.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:24
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ImpAtom posted:A lot of good game writing also tends to be subtle. It works to make the player act in the way the writer wants and in doing so you probably don't even think about it. There's a scene late in The Last of Us where Joel busts into a room and (theoretically) murders everyone in there. It's possible not to do that but by the direction, pacing and structure of the scene a lot of players just instinctively do it without thinking, which mirrors the behavior of the character without forcing it. It doesn't work for everyone (as no writing will) but it works enough to say that a lot of people just instinctively reacted and took action themselves. You can play with illusions as long as you work to make people believe the illusion basically. The Last of Us is one of my go-to examples for game writing that uses the fact that games are interactive to tell its story without actually involving story or dialog choices. The perspective shifts are really important there, too, like how you control Ellie in the epilogue and not Joel, even though Joel is leading the action and definitely leading the conversation. It's no mistake that this happens immediately after Joel makes a decision that a lot of players (going by the online reaction at the time) vehemently disagreed with. The moment Joel is perhaps most alienated from the player is when the player stops having to be Joel at all. Naughty Dog is pretty good at that, overall, using the fact that the player is likely to identify as the character they're controlling and leveraging that for narrative or emotional effect. Mother 3 is my other go-to example, but that takes a lot longer to explain. I was clued in to look out for it because whoever you're controlling in Mother 3 is a silent protagonist, but as soon as you're controlling someone else, that character can have dialog again, even Lucas.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:28
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In Training posted:MGS is a weird choice because that's a game I'd point to where writing and gameplay are inextricably intertwined. I picked it mostly because it's the series most famous for endless noninteractive sequences.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:29
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haveblue posted:I picked it mostly because it's the series most famous for endless noninteractive sequences. maybe if you don't consider tears, laughter, cheers, exclamations, and frantic earnest nodding "interacting"
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Mar 23, 2017 21:31
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my go to example is fire emblem thracia 776 its about how leif is a useless sack of poo poo railing against an empire too powerful for him to inflict meaningful damage or losses on, so it's hard and all your units are terrible, and there are tons of chapters where the objective is to run away and you usually can only win by using stupid gimmicks involving magic
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Mar 23, 2017 21:34
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Naughty Dog games are phenomenal at having conversations which actually sound like human beings having conversations.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:34
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Guy Mann posted:RPG doesn't actually stand for "rocket-propelled grenade", that's a backronym. That's true, but still is a rocket-propelled grenade... Or at the very least, still has a rocket as part it. In Training posted:MGS is a weird choice because that's a game I'd point to where writing and gameplay are inextricably intertwined. Content-wise and thematically, sure. But the writing is presented more or less linearly. Writing for a game like MGS is fundamentally different than writing for a game like Witcher 3.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:36
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precision posted:Naughty Dog games are phenomenal at having conversations which actually sound like human beings having conversations. It's amazing what talented writers combined with good actors and actual direction can do.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:40
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oddium posted:maybe if you don't consider tears, laughter, cheers, exclamations, and frantic earnest nodding "interacting" but enough about my interactions with a dangly set of colorful plastic keys
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Mar 23, 2017 21:41
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precision posted:Naughty Dog games are phenomenal at having conversations which actually sound like human beings having conversations. I'm not a writer but why is this a difficult thing do to Aren't most of us human beings
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Mar 23, 2017 21:44
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Help Im Alive posted:I'm not a writer but why is this a difficult thing do to ah, but you see, video game characters, are not
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Mar 23, 2017 21:45
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