

On video games and storytelling - mitmads
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/03/gears-of-war-writer-tom-bissell-on-video-games-and-storytelling.html

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kybernetikos
I have Andrew Glassner's _Interactive Storytelling_ which I found very
interesting on the topic of storytelling in video games. He ultimately comes
to the conclusion that the process of story telling and creating good games
are in tension, since games are about giving the player power while good story
telling requires authorial power.

[That conflict actually gave me an idea for a game in itself : one where the
player is the god who is creating a legend by exercising their power over the
life of computer controlled individuals. That makes the player into the author
and shifts that exact authorial/player tension into the purpose of the game.
Your score is in two parts: 1. the fame of the chosen hero, 2. the happiness
of the chosen hero. The end game is that in order to get the highest score in
fame, the hero must become aware of your influence in their lives (much of
which will have been negative) and gain enough power to destroy you. That's
the fun of games, you can often switch around conflicts and make them
interesting mechanics.]

There are a number of games I find interesting from a story telling or
literary view

* Sleep Is Death <http://sleepisdeath.net/>

* Passage <http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/>

* Dear Esther <http://dear-esther.com/> (which sounds a lot like one of the games described in the article).

* Every day the same dream [http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydayt...](http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html)

These are mainly 'art games', and some, like _Dear Esther_ aren't really games
at all, but it's interesting to see more mainstream games getting better
storylines and taking emotional engagement more seriously too.

It's been interesting how some recent games like Bastion and Sword and
Sworcery have really played with the concept of the narrator.

Eve Online <http://www.eveonline.com/> is particuarly exciting from the
politics side of story telling, because I've always been hopeful for the
possibilities of developers creating a rich enough, persistent universe that
players create their own meaningful, epic storylines, and Eve seems to the be
the only MMO that has actually managed to pull that off (despite the fact that
I find the actual gameplay unbearably dull, as is so often the case with
MMOs).

For emotional engagement, simply searching for 'games that made me cry' turns
up quite a few stories of strong emotional reactions. _The Walking Dead_ ,
talked about in the article gets quite a few mentions.

