TotalBiscuit: discussion of gameplay and narrative

[Damascus Rose]

This video TotalBiscuit recently made which mentions Brothers, Dear Esther, AMFP, Heavy Rain etc. in a discussion about gameplay and narrative.





Personally I think that he understands what classifies a game and what a game should try to accomplish very well. He's right that games are in an awkward teenage stage where we aren't sure what they should try to accomplish and how to combine gameplay and narrative. His examples are very good (Bioshock Infinite with its gameplay vs. narrative thing), he has interesting points.

My rant on the dear esther/amfp thing:

Spoiler below!

But more importantly (for me), he voiced my frustrations with the way chineseroom designs their games in a way that I was struggling to understand myself.The whole thing that gameplay is core to the experience, you need to feel like you have an effect or you just feel like a spectator. This was my biggest problem when chineseroom get upset when people critisize their lack of gameplay. We all know the chinese room focus on telling a story, but I think they have overlooked a huge factor in games storytelling; that gameplay is actually critical to tell a story in a game. I enjoyed Dear Esther for what it was, which is a short self-contained experience on an island with linear exploration, voice-overs and beautiful environments. The only way I was able to force myself to walk painstakingly slowly through the whole thing is because the environments were so beautiful and enticing. But it was ineffective because I really just felt like a spectator who's sole purpose is to hold down W, it could've been done in more effective ways.

Dear Esther was fine for a 2 hour experience, something to do while relaxing but if anything taken from this and was put in any other game, it would fail miserably. The example being AMFP. It felt like a jumble of poor design decisions to me, a game that wanted desperately to be Dear Esther but was forced to have Amnesia elements because it's a sequel. It was like Dear Esther had this strange virus where it got a bunch of unnecessary puzzles only created to waste time, had pigs running off in the distance just out of reach, and was forced to put all of its monologues into notes. The gameplay removed, (with some exceptions), only serves to detract from the experience, leaving a hole where meaningful player experience used to be. I'm not saying the whole game is like this but this is my overall feel. This gameplay, while flawed, was crucial to the dark descent. You felt immersed in the story because you feel in control of his destiny. His fate is determined by your decisions. Thomas grip mentions this in his tweets which I agree with: https://twitter.com/ThomasGrip/status/39...4383709185
https://twitter.com/ThomasGrip/status/39...0677861377
So, gameplay is definitely something that should be critisized in a game because it has a huge effect on player experience. The way to create a meaningful player experience, or even tell a good story is not to remove as much gameplay as possible, but to blend gameplay and narrative in a creative way. The solution is not to simply remove gameplay.

Yeah so, what are your thoughts on all of this? I'm interested to see what others think/feel.