First Class Reading Post

Coming from an English background, the topic of narration in video games as brought up in the first 12 pages of An Introduction to Game Studies interested me. One of the things I look for when playing a game is whether or not it tells a good story, and that people are developing a field for studying narrative in video games intrigues me. However, the narrative in the game shouldn't be simply a result of what some writer puts together for players to slog through; it should be directly linked to the gameplay itself, which is what the book seemed to be getting at.

For example, First Person Shooters, at first, weren't much more than a bunch of levels that a player would run through while killing hordes of identical monsters. Half-Life showed that it was possible to mesh scripted events with the gameplay, giving players a sense of being in a breathing world, however contrived.

Considering writing, I hope that dialogue and plotting out for these games gets better as more and more writers see digital entertainment as a viable art medium. Honestly, I think video games are an even better medium to work in, because the immersion factor and need to suspend disbelief provides a writer with more challenges and opportunities. Look at Shadow of the Colossus; an aesthetically gorgeous game with a minimalist brand of storytelling that got across perfectly anything you needed to know as far as back story, while being fun in the process. I knew why Wander was killing these Colossi, and I knew something was very bad, but I kept playing because I had to know what happened, much like a good book. The difference was I was part of the story; I was the reason the events were happening.