Story Collectibles & Method (Gaming)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, January 29, 2022, 13:55 (1053 days ago) @ Vortech

Vortech: Because it's rarely Gone Home, or Edith Finch. It's usually not integrated into the playing, but a fully separate "bonus DVD content" vibe on a screen that's far too low resolution to be the preferred place for me to read.

(note that I have not played Control and I'm speaking generally here)

Cody Miller: I think this is a good way to put it. In fact, this is the key issue.

A lot of these things are games wanting the benefits of making an RPG, but without actually making one. Look at Deus Ex. It's an RPG, so all of these modes of interaction and play make sense and are actually a part of the game. Control is an action game, where none of this stuff is actually integrated into the way you play. The language of the game is about moving and killing. But the language of Deus Ex is far greater. Which is why speaking to people or hacking a computer and reading emails feels okay.

I don't think the folks making games have really appreciated or even really seem to understand, that to tell the stories they want to tell with games the way they are, you have to make an RPG instead. Then lean into elements of whatever other genre you want, and boom.

Put it in the movie, not on the DVD extras, as you say.

Vortech: I Don't think it needs to be an RPG, at least not the way I think of how that term is defined. I think it can fit in very well in a walking simulator (previously mentioned Gone Home), A puzzle game (Papers, please), an adventure game (Life is strange, Myst) or in ARGs (I Love Bees). The primary motivation of the characters needs to be aligned to world exploration and inductive analysis and the pacing of the game needs to be slower than most action games can allow for.

ODST is an interesting example to consider because it separated out the game into two separate modes and put the audio logs into the slower exploration parts. But, then with ILB being so enormously personally important to me I know I can't be objective about them so maybe I'm just making excuses?

Why have neither of you recognized EffortlessFury or cheapLEY? mmm? I think they've answered these points quite well. Ah well, lets risk some more redundancy.

For my first observation folks, you suggest genre! So I suppose Pokémon really was ahead of its time! Take in-part one of the given examples, Gone Home. Technically, yes it does have story collectables, but that's because the game IS the collectables. There is little other gameplay otherwise. It's not fair to use it as an example to grade all other usage. To do so is honestly reductive (hey this must be a Cody thread), and even silly. Gone Home is great and all but I don't think Control should be Gone Home. Or Bioshock. Or Destiny #.

But this is also about an exact demand in method, a game language as Cody put it. I've already essentially implied (though it had been more (ಥ﹏ಥ)) that in a government building, endless stacks of papers (and videos and audio, both in outdated formats) that end up helping tell you what happens before you got there makes perfect sense. In other words, thank you for your Dues Ex example (which I underlined for you above) Cody. I'm glad we all agree.

...

EffortlessFury: I can understand the distaste. When you come to a game to experience the game, breaking away from the interactive elements can be off-putting. In the specific case of Control, however, the character's impetus from the start of the game is seeking to understand all this weirdness, and reading documents found throughout the world is totally in keeping with that impetus.

...

BUT CONTROL IS AN ACTION GAME! Ok... well what do you want the message to be made out of? Morse code in explosions? This is the major problem in the proposal, as there is so much just saying what it should be that in posting there was no time made to figure out what it is you are actually proposing. It's a problem looking for its proof that it was ever there. I ask you; Should the language in Controls game play override its environment and it's theme? Would you rather have the Old House not have ANY documents at all? No reading, no audio, no video. Geeze, is it just me or does the just hurt to read?

Goodness, in this simulation, all there is to tell story as outlined, as described, are the objects of power and nothing else. The same thing, changed a little, for the entire game. No break up, no little story snacks as you move point to point, just go here then go there, boom boom boom. Ugh... well ya did it, you made the game to where even the psychic blowing shit up actually feels pointlessly droll now. What the fuck ya thinking? All you've done is create fatigue on a fanatic premise. Even action MOVIES need to stop now and again.

...I'mma stop there, this hurts, ugh...

Man.

And on the flip side you have the game FORCING these things. Which I suppose the game surely could I do but... help me out here EffortlessFury...

EffortlessFury: Some details can't be experienced first-hand, like an audio log recorded thousands of years ago (Halo) or like a report on a paranormal event that has occurred and since passed (Control). It adds flavor to the world, and it gives you a better sense of what the greater world is capable of.

---

In the movies, the only collectables are its props deemed necessary by the story as writ or sometimes as improvised by its actors... so, the brilliance in-part of Gone Home. Everything is a remix. But the most important thing (for the sake of what we speak of), AS ANY GOOD EDITOR KNOWS, is the rhythm of its edits. Pacing. How and much a story is delivered. You need to make sure the consumer of the content does not grow fatigued.

In video games, we're all its actors. We're all improvising. This when and where and pattern of the beats is always a major problem in every videogame with a true story to tell. SO HOW DO YOU EDIT THAT?... in a shooter or an action game, and without making everything like Gone Home? Prevent fatigue, but create an entertaining pace? Well, fortunately, since it's a given that humans are playing video games (and maybe the occasional cat), there exists an option that all(?) folks whom can play such game have.

Curiosity and wonder. So while you are playing a videogame, such aspects becomes aimed upon the gameworld as you move from play-space to play-space. Destiny #, Bioshock, Control... each are their own worlds, with their own game and styles of play. Each with collectables that act in different ways as mortar to the larger story beats, be it history of a before-you-entered, or a pending warning of what is yet to come. Curiosity should be rewarded, should it not?

The edit in the down time,where the player is free in a space, must come from somewhere other than explosions. You can't risk that fatigue. So in the game, on that down time, you have curiosity and wonder to work with. That's why it's SO IMPORTANT to have story collectables in these games where story are often intrinsically part of the game. Control does it well. You learn of the world without becoming fatigued of it, which in turn help increases the enjoyment of it, and so you get this loop. A cycle. Seconds of fun, if you will. Fun from X then fun from Y. And one becomes more involved in the story beats. YOU ARE IN THE WORLD, and it all just works.

Ans so Cody, in short, again...

..it's you Cody. You asked.

Caveat;

cheapLEY: I think too many games rely on audio logs and diaries and shit for lore dumps. I don’t have a problem with the concept, but the execution almost always leaves me a bit baffled. Why would anyone have written or recorded this? Control didn’t have that problem—they were either memos or files that were necessary for the operations of that agency, or recordings of scientific expeditions or something. It all made sense within the world.

It would be false to conclude that we don't see the truth embedded in the spark of this myopically made white lie. Sometimes it can feel like a slog. I myself never did collect all the Riddler question marks in the Batman: Arkham Asylum series, even though it involves game play that is part of the game that I enjoyed. Sometimes you just lose interest. It happens.

But to go and say...

Cody Miller: There is lore… tons of it I'm sure. But in the most boring format. Collectables. Audio logs. I just can't. Who wants to chase down this shit when you could tell the story with sound and picture?

It's insulting to the craft that can be inferred you love so much, Cody. It's just a plan stupid statement all around. It is possible to not like something, yet not be an ass about it. Oh and while I'm here, you troll for perspectives Cody, but, instead could you not? How 'bout not be an ass and just... ask. You might even enjoy it? Actually... na. You probably won't, as the discussion would have to happen in a certain way or else it would be "wrong". ;P