Did you know that Pikachu was… female..? [via]

One of the key points in Indigo Prophecy was the idea of getting interactivity and narration to work together. Most games oppose these two concepts or rather, they develop them in turn: a cut scene to advance the narration, then an action scene, then another cut scene for the narration. The structure of this narrative process is very close to that of porn movies.

Director / writer of the game ‘Indigo Prophecy’ / ‘Fahrenheit’, David Cage, talks about his experiences with creating one of the - in my humble opinion - best games in recent years, in this excellent article on Gamasutra.

The article discusses among other things the movie-like qualities and the theoretical work, that engulfed the development of the game. How the narrative, should blend in with the gameplay, not be a secondary part of it, how the auteur-driven process came to be and he discusses what potentials these philosophies could end up giving the game industry, in terms of innovation.

This goes very well in hand with my thoughts about game development as movie development, and furthermore gives it the dimension I lacked in one of my previous posts. The idea of developing a storyline, that blends together with the game mechanics, immerses the player and gives an emotional response towards the plot and its characters, which makes the game medium an extremely strong player against not only traditional gameplay but also against movies in general.

Take for instance this storytelling scenario: You are riding a rollercoaster. It’s a fun ride. Afterwards you go tell your friend about the experience and he joins you on another ride. This almost sums up the criticism from the quote above regarding cut scenes: Action > Reaction (storytelling or cut scene). Now take this scenario: You loose your long-time companion, whom has been an integral part of your life for a long time, and you feel deeply moved by this horrible act. How do you get this across - game-wise? This has been the strong points of movies, creating emotional responses, derived from a compelling story line, where you as a spectator react with your own personal experiences. What if you could also act upon the story, thereby creating even stronger emotions? You can. The scenario above actually exist. Play Shadow of the Colossus, and you’ll know what I mean. Indigo Prophecy is no exception.

In my personal development it constitutes an important stage toward making video games not just simple toys but a veritable form of expression. I hope it has given other more talented people the desire to explore interactive narration and the formidable capacity of this new medium to create emotion.

As Palle points out, there is a dispute regarding this. He pointed me towards this article, where Will Wright talks about games not being able to become a narration. This is the current battle between game mechanics (non-linearity) and storytelling (linearity). My point is, that we need to find a middle ground between these two opposite poles. Shadow of the Colossus and ICO utilises time in an almost non-linear environment to get the gamer emotionally involved with its characters - especially the supporting characters (the horse and the little girl respectively). Indigo Prophecy involves the player emotionally and psychologically through dilemmas that needs to be addressed intuitively by time locks and blends character psychology with joypad controls. For instance where you need to control claustrophobia through the use of repetitive combinations on the joypad’s joysticks, while navigating through a level. By finding this middle ground - not as a definite concept in itself - but as a base for the game’s initial story and idea will be the key to developing much more immersive games in general. Don’t just throw people into a sandbox - move them, make them think and feel. Don’t make porn movies (they will always be there anyway), make statements and get people involved while they are having fun.

By integrating conventional story development with game elements, and blending these together in an active environment, that not only utilises people’s emotional experiences, but even challenges them, I believe is the key to taking games into the next step. There has been too much focus on looks and mechanics, and the game industry needs to make the immersive story count much more than we have seen before. This especially also goes for the publishers, who needs to embrace such bold moves in the game creation arena. Not until then will we see games that truly can be regarded as a medium that is at par with - or even can surpass - the other arts out there.

On this day...

... in 2006: Yay!
... in 2004: 31 Winters, 30 Summers (and counting)
... in 2002: Ha ha ha!