surf dtoid with 
Rising (10+)
People you follow
Although I do enjoy the newer generation of games with their beautiful graphics that leave little to the imagination, I tend to prefer older games and retro-influenced indie games, pretty much for all of the reasons you described above. Nice write-up!
What do you think about less realistic styled games, such as Okami for instance, where the characters don't really have very many facial expressions? Those kinds of games sort of ask the same thing of you, coming up with the reactions or expressions of certain characters, although to a much lesser extent I suppose.
What do you think about less realistic styled games, such as Okami for instance, where the characters don't really have very many facial expressions? Those kinds of games sort of ask the same thing of you, coming up with the reactions or expressions of certain characters, although to a much lesser extent I suppose.
It feels too much like the books vs movies discussion. Sure you need to use more of your imagination with a book, but to me, it do not take away the entertaiment of a movie. Same goes to games. Sure the silent protagonist allow you to put yourself in the game, but taking a ride with Nathan Drake can be as good as.
I'll admit that I'm a graphics junkie and have no love of the retro graphics. I lived through all that and got to see graphics gradually evolve and I have no wish to go backward from "more" to "less". That being said, the graphics can still be simple yet lovely. Limbo was a fantastic example of beautiful graphics, but they were still very simple with being retro in any way.
I think that indie devs can create new ways of using graphics without simply imitating something that is from the past. Many of the iOS games seem to have interesting ways to use graphics that don't rely on 8 bit imitation. I don't need full CGI movie quality graphics - but something unique that is "new" is just far more impressive to me than "retro inspired". I do agree that the use of imagination is nice, which we tend to get with the older games because the graphics were so generalized... but this can still be done nowadays using simple but artful styles.
I think that indie devs can create new ways of using graphics without simply imitating something that is from the past. Many of the iOS games seem to have interesting ways to use graphics that don't rely on 8 bit imitation. I don't need full CGI movie quality graphics - but something unique that is "new" is just far more impressive to me than "retro inspired". I do agree that the use of imagination is nice, which we tend to get with the older games because the graphics were so generalized... but this can still be done nowadays using simple but artful styles.
I could personally care less about the tech involved, as long as it looks good. That being said, the fact that imagination has disappeared in console gaming is getting a bit much. People forget that you don't need everything to be worn on your sleeve and this has led to a severe quality drop in titles like JRPGs that have always used distractions to increase the gameplay.
I can't get behind the notion that I am the protagonist in anything I play. I just can't accept that someone with a personality like me is someone anyone in a JRPG would want to associate with, let alone trust me to make strategic decisions of any kind.
This doesn't have to do with graphics filling in the blanks, but it reminds me of that part in FFXIII when you get to Oerba. There were these info message thingies scattered around objects that you could read and they explained what stuff in the town was used for, or what life in Oerba was like before shit happened.
I would've preferred they left those out of the game. It was the one area in the game that had a slight modern appearance with some real world elements so I could relate to it. But those messages explaining stuff didn't leave much to the imagination and it felt less personal to me as a result (like the rest of the game).
@Excel-2011
Because of that, in games where I'm the protagonist I prefer to play as a female character if I have a choice. Then it's obvious that that person isn't me and I can role play easier without accidentally making the character be like me. And as an added bonus I'll have a character that's more appealing to look at during my playthough. *cough*
I would've preferred they left those out of the game. It was the one area in the game that had a slight modern appearance with some real world elements so I could relate to it. But those messages explaining stuff didn't leave much to the imagination and it felt less personal to me as a result (like the rest of the game).
@Excel-2011
Because of that, in games where I'm the protagonist I prefer to play as a female character if I have a choice. Then it's obvious that that person isn't me and I can role play easier without accidentally making the character be like me. And as an added bonus I'll have a character that's more appealing to look at during my playthough. *cough*
Great post. Some of the most touching moments I can remember in games featured barely moving sprite art with strategic use of blinking, shaking, and maybe holding an arm out. Secret of Mana anyone?
I've hyped it before, but this type of story telling was one of the reasons I loved L4D1 so much. It took a storm of zombie and action movie tropes, stuck you and 3 friends into the middle of an undead nightmare and gave you the simple instruction of getting out alive. Rather than lengthy exposition they let the characters wear their personalities and histories on their sleeves instead of breaking down a history or back-story for them. The cause of the zombie pandemic is never explained and not really the main concern. If you are inquisitive and attentive to detail and replay the game multiple times, a skeleton of a more cohesive story comes into shape, but its still very vague and leaves a lot of L4D's world and details up to the players imagination to hash through.
As much as I enjoyed L4D2, I think the addition of more story elements took something away from that. I really enjoyed the very loose structure of the first, and I think the more archetypical characters were oddly enough stronger than the cast of L4D2.
I've hyped it before, but this type of story telling was one of the reasons I loved L4D1 so much. It took a storm of zombie and action movie tropes, stuck you and 3 friends into the middle of an undead nightmare and gave you the simple instruction of getting out alive. Rather than lengthy exposition they let the characters wear their personalities and histories on their sleeves instead of breaking down a history or back-story for them. The cause of the zombie pandemic is never explained and not really the main concern. If you are inquisitive and attentive to detail and replay the game multiple times, a skeleton of a more cohesive story comes into shape, but its still very vague and leaves a lot of L4D's world and details up to the players imagination to hash through.
As much as I enjoyed L4D2, I think the addition of more story elements took something away from that. I really enjoyed the very loose structure of the first, and I think the more archetypical characters were oddly enough stronger than the cast of L4D2.
promo'd! Cool! :D
@ Elsa
I can say that, even as a person that appreciates the 8bit style, it can be overused and can com off as really disingenuous or otherwise tired. Many indie goto styles can do this. Something about Fancy Pants Adventures irks me to no end! I can't really explain that!
I think its a good goto shorthand, the 8bit/16bit look. There's a bit of a language in the style that makes art done by not so arty (but skilled at code) people easier to produce, without compromising too much in effectiveness. Not to say any art is easy, but its potentially less time consumed for something that looks enough like something to get the message across.
Flash helps a bit, too. :)
@ Elsa
I can say that, even as a person that appreciates the 8bit style, it can be overused and can com off as really disingenuous or otherwise tired. Many indie goto styles can do this. Something about Fancy Pants Adventures irks me to no end! I can't really explain that!
I think its a good goto shorthand, the 8bit/16bit look. There's a bit of a language in the style that makes art done by not so arty (but skilled at code) people easier to produce, without compromising too much in effectiveness. Not to say any art is easy, but its potentially less time consumed for something that looks enough like something to get the message across.
Flash helps a bit, too. :)
I don't think this is the sort of thing I can point to and say "the narrative is impeding on my imagination". I play D&D in addition to video games, and I'm also a (very) amateur writer.
If I'm sitting down to *play* an RPG, (be it pen and paper or digital), I'm doing so because I want to be told a story. I want the experience that the writers intended for me. If I *have* to create my own stories to go along with the game then the writers have failed.
Now, there *are* times when it works. I just started another playthrough of Oblivion a couple of weeks ago, and it's a world that completely pulls me in. Yet, at no point does the game ever touch on my character's background, motivations, personality, emotions or beliefs. I'm free to play *who*ever I want without it in anyway hindering the overall narrative.
At the same time, I can also be completely pulled into a game like Final Fantasy X or XII. I don't get to chose what emotions my character feels, who they fall in love with or what their motivations are. I'm being given a chance to look into the life of somebody completely different and I don't have to "work" for it.
There *are* modern games that allow the player to infer as much or as little detail they want on their character; The Elder Scrolls; Fallout; Borderlands; World of Warcraft; Diablo, the list goes on. I wouldn't call it a "forgotten art".
If I'm sitting down to *play* an RPG, (be it pen and paper or digital), I'm doing so because I want to be told a story. I want the experience that the writers intended for me. If I *have* to create my own stories to go along with the game then the writers have failed.
Now, there *are* times when it works. I just started another playthrough of Oblivion a couple of weeks ago, and it's a world that completely pulls me in. Yet, at no point does the game ever touch on my character's background, motivations, personality, emotions or beliefs. I'm free to play *who*ever I want without it in anyway hindering the overall narrative.
At the same time, I can also be completely pulled into a game like Final Fantasy X or XII. I don't get to chose what emotions my character feels, who they fall in love with or what their motivations are. I'm being given a chance to look into the life of somebody completely different and I don't have to "work" for it.
There *are* modern games that allow the player to infer as much or as little detail they want on their character; The Elder Scrolls; Fallout; Borderlands; World of Warcraft; Diablo, the list goes on. I wouldn't call it a "forgotten art".
I think games like L4D and Portal (the first) hit storytelling perfectly. You only know what your character knows, nothing except what you stumble across. It makes a really engrossing style. In the recent FF games, I feel more like I'm watching a movie, but in Portal I felt like *I* was truly the one fighting. Scraps fed to me a bit at a time to make the overall picture is so much better than a 20 page back story to read.
Games in the current-gen fight a battle between realism and cartooning without realizing it.
Cartooning, for those who don't know, is one of the most basic concepts of character art. The more you simplify a character, the more emotion of the viewer is required to make them real. We project ourselves into everything to make them more real. For example, a simple smiley face is just a circle with two dots and a curved line...but for some reason, our brains turn that into a human being with a happy expression. This is exactly what we did to sprite in old school games.
If you have a character that looks 100% realistic, the viewer doesn't use ANY of their creativity to make them real (because they don't have to). Which can be effective, especially for villains and characters who you don't want the viewer to relate to. But these days, almost all of our characters look realistic.
Game developers need to realize that deep, character-driven stories just aren't as effective when you're using realistic-looking characters. It's difficult if not impossible to relate to them.
Cartooning, for those who don't know, is one of the most basic concepts of character art. The more you simplify a character, the more emotion of the viewer is required to make them real. We project ourselves into everything to make them more real. For example, a simple smiley face is just a circle with two dots and a curved line...but for some reason, our brains turn that into a human being with a happy expression. This is exactly what we did to sprite in old school games.
If you have a character that looks 100% realistic, the viewer doesn't use ANY of their creativity to make them real (because they don't have to). Which can be effective, especially for villains and characters who you don't want the viewer to relate to. But these days, almost all of our characters look realistic.
Game developers need to realize that deep, character-driven stories just aren't as effective when you're using realistic-looking characters. It's difficult if not impossible to relate to them.
I think this is a classic problem concerning "RPG's". When it comes down to it, it's Narrative versus Roleplay. Let's put an FF style game at one end, and roguelikes on the other. Of course, there are many games in between, and perhaps even further beyond these examples.
Making a narrative heavy game is easy. Ensuring the quality of that narrative is tough, but I still think it's much easier than inducing response and emotion using the roleplaying method. I think this is largely because the experience gained from playing a pure roleplaying game depends heavily on the player's imagination. As a designer, you can't help it if your audience has a sucky imagination.
Then again, there are still many techniques a good designer can use to elicit engagement and attachment.
Take for example, Hemingway's shortest story, clocking in at just 6 words.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Creating art by omission is really something. When done properly, it must be deliberate and tactful.
Making a narrative heavy game is easy. Ensuring the quality of that narrative is tough, but I still think it's much easier than inducing response and emotion using the roleplaying method. I think this is largely because the experience gained from playing a pure roleplaying game depends heavily on the player's imagination. As a designer, you can't help it if your audience has a sucky imagination.
Then again, there are still many techniques a good designer can use to elicit engagement and attachment.
Take for example, Hemingway's shortest story, clocking in at just 6 words.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Creating art by omission is really something. When done properly, it must be deliberate and tactful.
Less is more, as they say! Personally, I'm a big fan of the minimalist/retro style, and this manner of storytelling.
I wrote a long comment but my point got lost somewhere. Great read!
I wrote a long comment but my point got lost somewhere. Great read!
Great read. I have also zero love for fancy pants. None.
I do have MANY loves for cheung and Blendo. Go play Atom Zombie Smasher if you haven't yet, same absurdist humor in a wonderful strategy game. I think it exemplifies your point, as well; humans and zombies are merely dots.
I do have MANY loves for cheung and Blendo. Go play Atom Zombie Smasher if you haven't yet, same absurdist humor in a wonderful strategy game. I think it exemplifies your point, as well; humans and zombies are merely dots.
Lots of psychological perception mechanisms also explain why something that wasn't really there could be imagined or, more often than we think, was perceived as actually seen. This doesn't ring true just for the visual apparatus, but also for every other sense we have and leads to the theory, that our mind desperately longs for continuity. There's a storyteller sitting right in our heads who always works anyway, so why not make use of him?
Inferred narrative is something that's unfortunately lost on many of those newer to gaming. They're drawn in by narrative and even convince themselves into believing the like that "RPGs are about story."
You take a game like Limbo, Ico, Super Metroid and give it to newer gamers and in general they just haven't developed the ability to interpret what's going on and how they feel about it. And some just cannot for the life of them roleplay a character because they have to make walls built on how they socialize already.
Example: The guy that "can't" play as a female characters. I think its because to be placed in the shoes of that character they must embrace everything about being a woman or something, which is usually not the case at all.
I played through Metroid II several time as a 12 year-old and seeing her spare the hatchling was one of those profound moments in inferred narrative. Samus had completed the mission, but she disobeyed orders and spared the hatchling and brought it with her.
She did kill its mother, so there was a twinge of guilt. The hatchling imprinted on her, showing that these feared creatures could have innocence. I didn't infer maternal instincts when Samus took it with her, I inferred a senee of guilt within a human soul.
And that moment where it later attacked he in Super Metroid, you could sense its shame. It didn't have an expressive face, it was now huge and overfed; but how it pulled back, how it sort of expressed its sense of guilt before fleeing and later sacrificed itself for Samus were all profound emotional moments.
Retro Studios knew it impacted them in a similar way, so they didn't dare try to follow that act, it was too personal to the player, Instead they created an original storyline and kept the essence of games like it within its own inferred narrative. I don't have to read all the logs an dig out all the lore, but reading it rather than being told it directly adds a sense of desolation and that world feeling a little haunted. The authors are dead and if they're space pirates, well, they'll die. Morbid either way.
Sakamoto didn't understand how Super Metroid affected players to that extent and while I have to concede Metroid Fusion has some influence on what happens in Metroid Other M, Sakamoto gave us a lot more than we needed to know and too many characters to interact with.
The actors did their best, but the writing, direction and editing just weren't there and didn't connect with the fans. Sadly this even seeps into the gameplay, as it became far more rigid and the illusion of freedom was diminished by a forced narrative.
Retro knew what worked and preserved it, Sakamoto didn't.
You take a game like Limbo, Ico, Super Metroid and give it to newer gamers and in general they just haven't developed the ability to interpret what's going on and how they feel about it. And some just cannot for the life of them roleplay a character because they have to make walls built on how they socialize already.
Example: The guy that "can't" play as a female characters. I think its because to be placed in the shoes of that character they must embrace everything about being a woman or something, which is usually not the case at all.
I played through Metroid II several time as a 12 year-old and seeing her spare the hatchling was one of those profound moments in inferred narrative. Samus had completed the mission, but she disobeyed orders and spared the hatchling and brought it with her.
She did kill its mother, so there was a twinge of guilt. The hatchling imprinted on her, showing that these feared creatures could have innocence. I didn't infer maternal instincts when Samus took it with her, I inferred a senee of guilt within a human soul.
And that moment where it later attacked he in Super Metroid, you could sense its shame. It didn't have an expressive face, it was now huge and overfed; but how it pulled back, how it sort of expressed its sense of guilt before fleeing and later sacrificed itself for Samus were all profound emotional moments.
Retro Studios knew it impacted them in a similar way, so they didn't dare try to follow that act, it was too personal to the player, Instead they created an original storyline and kept the essence of games like it within its own inferred narrative. I don't have to read all the logs an dig out all the lore, but reading it rather than being told it directly adds a sense of desolation and that world feeling a little haunted. The authors are dead and if they're space pirates, well, they'll die. Morbid either way.
Sakamoto didn't understand how Super Metroid affected players to that extent and while I have to concede Metroid Fusion has some influence on what happens in Metroid Other M, Sakamoto gave us a lot more than we needed to know and too many characters to interact with.
The actors did their best, but the writing, direction and editing just weren't there and didn't connect with the fans. Sadly this even seeps into the gameplay, as it became far more rigid and the illusion of freedom was diminished by a forced narrative.
Retro knew what worked and preserved it, Sakamoto didn't.
looking at the picture from a jrpg, i assumed that this article was about the need for subtlety in storytelling instead of massive amounts of exposition. Someone should write an article about that instead, it would be way better.
Awesome! I think they appeal in different ways and to different people , imagination games and pretty games there is, but I'm definitely getting what you are saying. What's funny is that I'm playing FFXIII right now and I'm gushing over the beautiful vistas and the super detailed character animations, but like you say it leaves next to nothing to the imagination. And that's one reason why literature is still so appealing. Great job man and I wish you the best when you try out your own ideas!
Ooh, thanks for the lovely mention of The Wager. Having a sort of inferred story is something that we kind of like in our games, not just in the way that people might fill in the blanks like you say, but with the whole back story too. For example, in The Wager there are a lot of references to an event in the game's past called The Shattering but we deliberately didn't go into huge detail about that. I think it makes the world seem a little bit bigger when you aren't handed everything up-front. The idea that there's more to this world than what we're telling you.
As for retro graphics, the reason we use them as Surprised Man, more than anything, is that we don't really have an artist between the two of us. But, if I'm working with low res sprites I'm competent enough that I can usually come up with something acceptable. That's really all there is to it :) I'm always going onto Kieran about how we'd be a lot better off if we had an artist who was dedicated to our projects, so I could focus on music/sound and design the game with him and not have to do the dreaded task of coming up with the artwork. But it's very hard to find someone who will do art and only art, but still be as committed to our projects as we are.
As for retro graphics, the reason we use them as Surprised Man, more than anything, is that we don't really have an artist between the two of us. But, if I'm working with low res sprites I'm competent enough that I can usually come up with something acceptable. That's really all there is to it :) I'm always going onto Kieran about how we'd be a lot better off if we had an artist who was dedicated to our projects, so I could focus on music/sound and design the game with him and not have to do the dreaded task of coming up with the artwork. But it's very hard to find someone who will do art and only art, but still be as committed to our projects as we are.
I understand where you're coming from but I don't agree with you. I'll bring up ffxiii just as you did. When I finished ffxiii for the first time, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I found myself actually feeling for the characters and I was more engrossed in the story than almost any other game I've ever played. If anything, being able to see every last bit of detail on these characters is what caused me to become so engrossed in the game because I could see how much pain or happiness a character was truly feeling. Sure, I loved imagining the characters emotions, expressions, and voices when I was younger just like many other games did, but I prefer the newer games. I prefer being able to see every intricacy, I feel that it creates much more of an atmosphere for the gamer.
I fully believe that letting the player be the co-author of the story, to any extent, is a powerful form of control that designers often neglect. Unfortunately, not all players feel the same way. As evidenced by the comments here, a good percentage of the gaming population prefers everything to be spelled out for them very explicitly. There's nothing wrong with that, and there are plenty of games that benefit from doing it well. Generally, I prefer some ambiguity in my games. I enjoy letting my imagination fill in the blank spaces.
Great article! I'm an amateur game designer myself, and I would love to see more posts like this on the front page of Dtoid.
Great article! I'm an amateur game designer myself, and I would love to see more posts like this on the front page of Dtoid.
I feel cool having played both the indie games you mention.
Anyways, I think that there is merit to both strategies. One example I could think of is how in Mass Effect the male Shepard's smiling expression is completely terrifying. They tried to get the facial capture so realistic that, when they messed up, it was worse that it ever would be otherwise.
I think that it is much more important to leave the story more to the mind that the visuals, though. Like leaving the backstory of your character in an RPG open, or allowing you to fill in the blanks like many indie games do.
Anyways, I think that there is merit to both strategies. One example I could think of is how in Mass Effect the male Shepard's smiling expression is completely terrifying. They tried to get the facial capture so realistic that, when they messed up, it was worse that it ever would be otherwise.
I think that it is much more important to leave the story more to the mind that the visuals, though. Like leaving the backstory of your character in an RPG open, or allowing you to fill in the blanks like many indie games do.
While playing a game, I wanna see something pretty, I wanna feel like I'm there and everything surrounding my character is what surrounds me, I don't wanna be squinting to work out whether that's a sword on my characters back or an ariel of some form, I don't wanna interpret, I wanna experience.
I pretty much agree with this article as I was struggling to figure out how to verbalize my opinions of games vs movies vs books.
I certainly agree that forcing retro graphics on a game just because is kind of a turn off, but with the right feel, I think it can get done totally right. I like shiny graphics, but so many games these days seem to be about being movies rather than letting me imprint something onto my games. I'd even go so far as to say that voice acting has essentially ruined most current video games for me as a matter of fact...
I certainly agree that forcing retro graphics on a game just because is kind of a turn off, but with the right feel, I think it can get done totally right. I like shiny graphics, but so many games these days seem to be about being movies rather than letting me imprint something onto my games. I'd even go so far as to say that voice acting has essentially ruined most current video games for me as a matter of fact...
follow
