This week I wanted to talk about Ludonarrative games. Games that allow the narrative structure of the game to flow in harmony with the gameplay aspect of a game. In contrast a game that is not ludonarrative but experiencing "ludonarrative dissonance" is for example Uncharted 1, where in the game's story, Nathan Drake is portrayed as a cocky wise-cracking protagonist but gameplay requires you to massacre dozens of goons every five minutes with no emotional effect on his character. This for example is comparable to the Last of Us, where Joel whilst still likeable as a protagonist, is shown in the story of the game to be much darker with his personality providing narrative justification for why he must kill hundreds of NPC humans. However I want to discuss an overlooked genre of video games that is a silentmaster of ludonarrative game design. The humble Point-And-Click Adventure game. Point-And-Click Adventures games took form as some of the first story driven PC games (The first King's Quest) and were largely perfected and pioneered by Lucas Arts Studios (Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones). Point-And-Click Adventure games are often widely drive by the story, the narrative providing scenarios, locations, characters, puzzles and items that they player must interact with and often to progress through the story. Players must participate in branching dialogue paths, and collect items for their inventory trying to figure out how it all fits together to reach the next chapter of the story or character development. These games often provide a really good example of Ludonarrative game design. In Monkey Island 3, the whole game is designed with the aesthetics of a Disney Film, or at least that of a saturday morning cartoon. You play as Guybrush Threepwood walking around gathering items to solver puzzles. The game features very minimal menus and user interfaces. Every action Guybrush commits is the player's choice and fits into the story of the game. Did Guybrush's story immediately unfold with him finding the Chicken with the Pulley in the middle straight away at the International House of Voodoo? Or did it take you an hour of walking around and talking to all the characters? Guybrush's journey as part of the player's actions and choices becomes the player-canon version of the story as every action is part of the game, with the exception of some cutscenes. Items and characters in the game are not just there to interact with or gun down, they each placed as part of a story to interactive with and learn from. Similar another Lucas Art's adventure game, Grim Fandango. In Tim Schafer's audio commentary of the "remastered" edition of Grim Fandango, he talks heavily about how the game was designed to "have no metaphors". Unlike some other point-and-click adventure games that used heavy onscreen action input interfaces due to limited graphics representation, all actions in Grim Fandango are performed within the logic of the game, with no menus or components representing actions in the game world. Even Manny Calavera's inventory system is represented storywise by items he fits into his jacket that you cycle through. His head also tracks objects of interested in the environment, without the game having to highlight them. One final example of a point and click adventure game that follows through with the idea of the narrative in tune with the gameplay is recent 2015 re-imagining of King's Quest. This episodic game is told from the perspective of an aged King Graham (voiced by Christopher LLoyd) who in the game's meta-story recounts tales of his youth that act as the true game's setting and gameplay. As the gameplay is all the story told by the king, the player's actions and route through the multipath gameplay become the canon version of the story that King Graham is telling his granddaughter Gwendolynne. This is interesting because the first episode of King's Quest offers three different methods of progressing through the story based on player choices and action. Depending on path you take gameplay-wise through the story affects the story King Graham tells and that ultimately affects Gwen. If you teach her to use strength to solve puzzles she'll rely on her brawn in the meta story. If you teach her to use her heart, she will show kindness.
In conclusion, when reflecting on what style of gaming I felt best resonated with Ludonarrative games. I couldn't move past the good old school point-and-click genre. It's a great example of how a game's narrative can be portrayed literally without metaphors breaking up the flow of story and gameplay. References: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.389092-Essay-Ludonarrative-Dissonance-Explained-and-Expanded http://v2.razputin.net/index.html@page=razputin%252Ffeatures%252Ftimwords.html Grim Fandango: Remastered Director In-Game Commentary.
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AuthorBen Spanos is currently playing Undertale, Uncharted: Among Thieves and Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes. Archives
March 2018
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