Comments on: A new lecture about story and game design.

By: flickeringcolours v2 » A Riposte to Blunt Criticism

flickeringcolours v2 » A Riposte to Blunt Criticism — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:21:00 +0000

[…] happens as a result) with increasing tightness to the narrative. See Clint Hocking, Ian Bogost and Jonathan Blow for these kind of ideas. So, a game called Theif should be about hiding and sneaking, not running […]

By: Nikola Shekerev

Nikola Shekerev — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:48:27 +0000

Hello

This was the most beautiful lection I ever listened to. It provoked a lot of thought back then. So now I put a link to it in an article I recently wrote:

http://shekerevunderstanding.blogspot.com/2010/10/beyond-shalloware-thoughts-on-game.html

I hope you do not mind ?

By: burningeko

burningeko — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:08:06 +0000

just listened to the talk, excellent! I am a board game designer and everything Johnathon said rings true. there is no story telling in a board game, you might have a little exposition in the beginning of your rule book but all that does is set a little bit of atmosphere.
the stories come about by the way the players interact with each other through the medium of the rules. the best games create a story unto themselves. Listening to players after a game you could swear that they had all just watched a movie together with highs and lows,
with certain pieces that were exactly the same as every other piece on the board except that they were cut off from their counterparts and then made a string of lucky rolls to keep them on the board being held in as high esteem as a Hollywood actor overcoming an alien brood.
luckily for me, my medium does not have an obsession with being something that it is not

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:33:34 +0000

Hey there, Mr. Blow!

I really enjoyed your lecture on the conflicts in game design and it covered some very good points. (some of which have been floating around my head for some time)

However, while scrounging for midnight snacks in the kitchen, I thought about difficult in general it is to present good meaningful games.

And then it occurred to me: Why present this in a linear powerpoint format? Wouldn’t it be funny if you demonstrated your points in a video game? Powerpoint is so drab, anyways.

I don’t know how stupid this sounds right now, as I am typing late at night when my mind has turned to veggie chips. I just wanted to share a little thought that I had.

By: Tucker Whitney

Tucker Whitney — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:48:57 +0000

Also these intense packages are, as it is so often said, easily accessable; One does not even have to be very literate to understand most games, one simply must be able to THINK, sometimes sub/unconsciously (I’ll never be able to spell that) to derive meaning, wether it be universal or very personal, what the game creator(s) intended or not.

By: Tucker Whitney

Tucker Whitney — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:29:54 +0000

I think that video games have the potential to convey the most dynamic meaning of possibly all current mediums simply because they can bequeath text, sound,and (moving) image, and at the same time require the expiriencer’s imput, a more physicall form of interpretation of what the game is delivering, as if the game is an algabreic function wich requires gamer input, and based on that input potentially delivers entirely differant output, but to those more expirienced, in a predictable fashion. Gamers not being able to directly see the equation and make their own calculations will often be surprised when they are given some strange outputs belonging to some bizzare unfamiliar function, but as they plot more points (in keeping with the metaphor) they begin to discover a new pattern, andeventually realize that the function wasn’t as complicated or arbitrary as it might have seemed, but instead some brilliantly simplistic amalgymation of more simple functions.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:03:45 +0000

Wow. I’m new to the whole indie gaming scene (more specifically the indie game design world) but have been playing games since I was born. That was superb, I listened to the entire lecture along with the slides and it was very well thought out, and I will never look at a game the same way again.

Thanks.

By: Bryan Rayner

Bryan Rayner — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:16:37 +0000

Just a comment/question, regarding an article that was recently put up in Gamasutra (granted, I didn’t read it all yet, but one thought popped out at me – carrying on with this.)

You said (rather truthfully) in your talk that story will never be able to be done in videogames. I agree. We might as well just make a movie. (Might be fun…)

But what about having some sort of story, that exists outside of the influence of the character? The story is just going along, you have this world around you, and the characters (be they robot, human, or polygon) are reacting to this outside force. Thing is, you don’t drive the characters. They continue on with this regardless of the character. Any interaction with them would have to be something that conveyed the message in it’s dynamic, or something that asked the player with a question.

I dunno – what’s your opinion on that? Games that present a worldview, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. Some way of functioning. Like how Shakespeare did his work – everything just went along to one central theme, one central message, and it was all contained in this worldview. You’d have subplots going on with the minor characters, each one fleshing out a different component to Shakespeare’s opinion on the subject.

I dunno – would games be able to do the same thing? Subject a player to a new way of thinking, and use the story to tie the other characters together? Allow the player see what happens in this world when they touch it in a certain way?

Anyway, just a thought.

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:22:37 +0000

Yeah, I still plan to do it sometime, haven’t done it yet… I have a lot going on right now!

By: Bryant

Bryant — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:17:41 +0000

Hi Jon! Love your work…I’m just wondering if you’re still planning on releasing the GDC lecture you mentioned in this post. I’m looking forward to it 🙂