It took a while, but the BioShock 2 Short Script is finally up. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and while its story wasn’t as engaging as that of its predecessor, its gameplay mechanics felt a lot more solid and worked out. This once again underlines the importance of putting gameplay before story. BioShock 2 has been called “a most unnecessary sequel”, but I think 2K Marin did an admirable job. Had it been the original game, the enthusiasm of 2007 would have been no lesser.

It struck me as an inspired design choice how the choices the player makes in the game resonate through a dedicated character. Eleanor Lamb’s entire persona is shaped in a “lead by example” fashion, where she ends up making the same choices the player did. While still considerably dualistic (she can either be a merciful saint or a vengeful monster), the player’s behaviour towards certain NPCs is also introduced as a variable which leads to a set of possible endings that don’t necessarily fall into one end of the moral spectrum. All in all, it’s a good way to make a player’s choices feel like they have an immediate and lasting effect, even if it still comes down to a simplified grasp on quantifiable morality.

The gathering mechanic (where the player has to protect a Little Sister from hoards of Splicers while she extracts ADAM from a corpse) introduces a consistent element of area defence to the gameplay. That type of gameplay is usually hit-or-miss, but BioShock 2 provides a vast array of weapons and tools to make these battles fiercely enjoyable. Especially the interactions between different plasmids and the possibility for combinations demonstrate that 2K Marin finetuned these set pieces with a spirit of accountability, where each experiment is seemingly covered.

With the recent announcement of BioShock: Infinite, which has Ken Levine back at the helm, I’m curious to see if he can now push through some of the elements he had to alter or drop from BioShock. I definitely noticed some elements from BioShock’s original design document being picked up for BioShock 2 (like the religious cult and increased potential for player customisation). You can find that document here. It’s a very interesting read, precisely because the scant details currently known about BioShock: Infinite make it seem like Levine is now closely adhering to his original vision. Just compare their respective premises:

BioShock (original pitch): “Carlos Cuello, a cult deprogrammer, is sent to an island to find and rescue a wealthy heiress, who is in the thrall of a religious group there.”

BioShock: Infinite: “Booker Dewitt, a former Pinkerton agent, is sent to a city in the clouds to find and rescue Elizabeth, who is at the centre of a conflict there.”

‘Nuff said.

Who needs character development when there are EXPLOSIONS!

There’s a great deal of articles floating around which deal with the gap between story and gameplay and the efforts made to bridge it. Having assimilated quite a few of them, I’d like to see if I can’t synthesise a common denominator to build on.

The main point of contention which returns pretty much everywhere is the diametrical opposition of what story and gameplay want to do. The authors of this article mention that “a game writer looks for brief moments — cutscene or otherwise — when she can take control of the game so that she can create throughlines, pacing, conflicts, character development, plot twists and thematic meaning, while a game designer looks for ways to give control — not to the writer, but to the player”. Henry Jenkins confirms that opposition in this publication, which opens with a selection of quotes illustrating the different approaches to games: “Ludologists want to see the focus shift onto the mechanics of game play, while the Narratologists are interested in studying games alongside other storytelling media”.

Let’s first attest that not all games require a story. Tetris would not benefit from a compelling narrative that lends its simple yet effective gameplay mechanics a social commentary on fitting in. With casual gaming now rapidly becoming a defining force in the industry, the proliferation of games that all but forgo any story will only increase. While this relates more to demographics and target groups, it nevertheless affects the entire playing field. Proof thereof lies in this year’s E3 conference, which was dominated largely by motion control and handheld gaming. However, those are still subsets, no matter how prolific. Not all games may require a story, but it plays a large role in those that benefit from it. In this post, I’m limiting myself to games where story is, if anything, a factor.

One of the key points is something that has cropped up under a wide variety of names, the most prominent of which is “interactivity”. In and of itself, it has been repeatedly touted as the singular aspect of games that separates them from and elevates them above other media (worded more effectively here). One of its firmer proponents is Clint Hocking, former creative director at Ubisoft. In his essays (most recently this one), he goes one step further and claims that players should be given free reign within a game world, to the point where the developers should practically efface themselves (fitting Hocking’s denouncement of auteurship in game development). If a player performs a certain act in a game and thinks himself clever for figuring it out rather than thinking the developers clever for covering the eventuality of performing that act, then according to Hocking, the developers have succeeded. He calls this “agency”, the player’s ability to effect his decisions inside the game world.

As I see it, the aspect of agency as articulated by Hocking is more a result of emergent behaviour in gameplay and has little bearing on (shaping) the story. Every player will experiment with the game mechanics he’s presented with, if only to see what would happen. There are many instances of players trying things that the developers hadn’t foreseen. One of the more well-known examples is “mine climbing” in Deus Ex, which Harvey Smith uses to illustrate the success of implementing a degree of player freedom (as mentioned here). More often than not, such things break the flow of the game and are not meaningful when seen in the context of an overarching narrative, which doesn’t react accordingly.

But there is a subset of games that actively encourages such experimentation. Sandbox games present the player with an expansive world and a set of tools and then set him free. However, sandbox games often suffer from poor stories that exist only to justify the gameplay. While not entirely unnecessary, such stories fail to engage the player because they really don’t need to. Just Cause 2 is a game that fully understood this. But sometimes, stories designed for sandbox games try to be more than they need to be, which often leads to a disconnect specifically between what the player does and what the character embodied by the player does. I already touched upon this in this post, using Uncharted’s Nathan Drake as an example. While a highly linear game, the same disconnect can be applied more broadly to sandbox games which specifically attempt to depict their protagonist as a moral individual.

Take Grand Theft Auto IV‘s Niko Bellic. In cutscenes, he is shown to be a sympathetic person who cares deeply for those who matter to him. But this characterisation does not dovetail with how the player is allowed to behave. Wantonly running over pedestrians while evading the police only so Niko can be on time for a date (thank you again, Penny Arcade) is a perfect manifestation of this narrative dissonance. Prototype is an even worse offender. Alex Mercer brutally kills scores of people in ever more imaginative and over-the-top ways, yet in cutscenes he’s made out to be compassionate and remorseful (get out of my head, Penny Arcade). In this regard, Just Cause 2 simply isn’t kidding itself.

Nevertheless, the relative freedom on offer in sandbox games still has to take a backseat if the main storyline is to be played out. In all the cases mentioned above, a player can screw around all he wants, but if he wishes to see the story unfold, he’ll have to reel himself in and do as he’s told. While the how of it is then up to the player, the what is definitely not. However, there are games where the story is largely, if not fully reactive to a great deal of the player’s inputs. The Civilization series allows for stories to naturally emerge from a gameplay model that has no predetermined definition for victory or failure. Also, indie games like Sleep Is Death or Dwarf Fortress permit the player to generate a story of his own making (in a sense, stories told as games and not in them).

Pictured: Dwarf Fortress. I think.

But games like Dwarf Fortress are too overwhelming to provide general accessibility. A fully dynamic story is something that’s impossible to attain in a more mainstream game. Heavy Rain comes to mind as a valiant effort, but it’s still less about what the player wants to do and more what the developers allow him to do. Those two can be the same if the developers did their job with a modicum of foresight, but it remains a compromise at best. So where does this leave us?

On one end, we have highly linear games which (can) tell profound stories but fail to offer the player meaningful gameplay choices. On the other end, we have sandbox games which give the player a profound level of freedom but fail to marry that to a meaningful story. Games like Deus Ex, BioShock and Mass Effect represent the middle ground on that spectrum, albeit with variations of their own. For instance, BioShock provides more gameplay options than Mass Effect, but has a much less reactive story (although Mass Effect seems to be more reactive to what the player decides to do first rather than what he decides to do). But does it all come down to a precarious balance between story and gameplay?

Not quite. While story is a factor that merits more of the attention it’s currently getting, it cannot overshadow gameplay. Because in most cases, gameplay is the story. A story shouldn’t dictate the type of game it needs. A story can be a good one on its own, but once inserted into a game, it can either shine or suffer, depending on how it is implemented into the gameplay it contextualises. So in the end, gameplay comes first and foremost. And not to beat a dead horse, but that is exactly the reason why story needs be a consideration from the get-go.

The BioShock 2 Short Script has taken a bit of a backseat, since I simply couldn’t resist writing one for Splinter Cell: Conviction while playing it. There was more than enough for me to work with, to say the least. Most of my frustrations with the game stemmed from the nature of the PC version, which is prone to uneven performance and framerate issues. A quick Google search reveals a plethora of users suffering similar problems. At times I found it to be a genuine chore to play through the game, and while I finish all games I purchase on principle alone, I dare say it was the accompanying Short Script that helped to propel me to the end. It’s a shame, because the game does get a lot of things right.

First of all, the game’s cinematic direction is ace. The recent proliferation of hand-held cameras in movies (most evident in the Jason Bourne movies directed by Paul Greengrass) is used to great effect in Conviction’s cut-scenes. Moreover, with no actual physical camera to consider, the developers were free to rotate, pan, weave, and zoom as much as they desired, and the result is a dynamic and consistent visual style which also provides a seamless method of switching from cut-scene to gameplay. And that’s exactly why the game’s poor performance stuck out like a sore thumb.

I’ve seen enough footage of Conviction on consoles to know that it can play smoothly, but its apparent lack of optimisation on the PC provided a very consistent stutter. The gameplay in and of itself is quite easy, even on the hardest difficulty, but it was made infinitely more challenging by framerate issues which made any encounters with more than three enemies a struggle. Combined with some very poorly placed checkpoints, which sometimes forced me to replay entire stretches of the game, this often provided ample frustration. My PC isn’t top of the line, but it handles most recent games quite well. Yet even with all visual options turned down, I couldn’t get Conviction to run properly.

Another thing that struck me was the game’s audio. While the music is decent in that it underlines the action without ever overshadowing it and the voice work is excellent throughout (with special mention to Michael Ironside who continues to nail Sam Fisher’s gritty tones), the game’s use of sound really shines, especially in cut-scenes. Every action gets an appropriate sound effect, something which most games neglect. One set piece stood out especially, namely the point where Anna Grímsdóttir informs Sam why his daughter’s death was faked (you can view it here). The use of DJ Shadow’s well-known track Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt is also a great asset.

Conviction’s story is not a very original one (this Penny Arcade comic pretty much sums it up), but it is handled very efficiently. I’ve always enjoyed the writing of the Splinter Cell games, and Conviction doesn’t disappoint. Most dialogues are engaging, yet concise — as long as they’re not being shouted by a guard (again nicely illustrated by Penny Arcade). What really helps in bringing the story across is the game’s presentation, as mentioned above.

I myself had no problems with the game’s DRM, in that I never got bumped from the game because of a lost connection. The most trouble I had was the fact that I had to set up a Ubisoft profile to play the game when I’m generally wary of any such addition. For instance, Games For Windows Live remains an obtrusive but manageable hassle in every game that employs it. I can only imagine the problems and resulting irritation those without a consistent internet connection must have experienced (as evidenced by this post at Rock, Paper, Shotgun).

Sam Fisher violently interrupts a local breakdancing competition.

While I applaud Ubisoft Montréal’s courage to take the Splinter Cell series in a new direction, I can’t help but wonder what kind of game we’d be playing had they stuck to their original design. Splinter Cell is a franchise I hold dear (Chaos Theory remains one of my favourite games ever), so Conviction doesn’t really come across as the next entry in the series, but as a new iteration of it. But in the end, isn’t that what every new entry in any series is supposed to do?

In this post, I’ve already touched upon the differences in gameplay between Mass Effect 1 and 2. After having completed Mass Effect 2 a second time (without importing a character this time), I can safely say that I don’t have to go back on my words. Its Short Script is now available, and it manages to eclipse its predecessor’s in length, but only just. It helps if you’ve read the Mass Effect script first.

Mass Effect 2 strikes me as the streamlined version of the experiment its predecessor put forth, in terms of all its design aspects (story, gameplay and graphics). Being the middle entry in the series, the narrative has to make some concessions, as it must account for Mass Effect 3 wrapping up the story arc. However, Mass Effect 2 still manages to tell a story that both exists on its own and feeds into the overarching progression. This is best exemplified by the addition of the Collectors, who are essentially the Reapers’ “Plan B”. Now that they too have failed, the Reapers have decided to start the cycle of extinction on their on accord, setting the stage for Mass Effect 3.

My decisions during the final suicide mission ended up saving my entire team, but I ironically didn’t make them with that specific outcome in mind. I chose Legion for the technical aspect of the mission not because he was ostensibly the best hacker, but because I saw him as expendable as opposed to Tali. I genuinly considered Legion more as an “it”, a tool to be expended rather than an actual person to be sacrificed. Next I chose Mordin to escort the captured crew back to the Normandy not because I would need the best fighters to hold the line later on (which I didn’t even know at the time), but because I thought of Mordin as an intriguing character and wanted him to survive on this playthrough so he’d still be around in Mass Effect 3.

In other news, I’m currently working on the BioShock 2 script, after having recently finished a second playthrough of the game.

As I mentioned in this post, I recently played both Mass Effect and its sequel back-to-back. Having now finished both games, I present the Short Script of the first entry in the series, which is currently the longest one on the blog by a wide margin. This is a testament to the amount of content in the game, especially when considering all the things I cut or didn’t put in. Casually talking to Wrex about saving his species after destroying the cure to the genophage on Virmire, some flying turrets looking like three sticks glued together, Matriarch Benezia’s overacted melancholy… all aspects that were initially included but ultimately removed for pacing reasons.

Mass Effect had a decent story with interesting RPG elements, but its combat felt somewhat strained and weak, which threw off many players approaching it as a shooter. Bioware took this into consideration and finetuned the combat mechanics for Mass Effect 2 — at the expense of its RPG elements, which, depending on one’s point of view, were either streamlined or watered down. This makes the game more accessible to mainstream gamers, but also robs it of its predecessor’s depth (at least in terms of gameplay). While the inventory management was something of a hassle in Mass Effect, it allowed players to mold their entire team to their exact specifications. Mass Effect 2 largely eliminates that aspect in favour of a simpler, less cumbersome approach.

The Mass Effect 2 Short Script is well underway, and I’m currently replaying the game to expand on what’s currently there. I’ll give my full thoughts on the game in its accompanying post.

After 18 seasons, David Caruso just had retractable sunglasses grafted onto his face.

Some new information regarding the third entry in the Deus Ex series has recently surfaced. Eschewing the standard tradition of naming sequels, the game is now called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I don’t have to tell you how much I love the first game, so my interest is more than piqued. With regards to Deus Ex: Invisible War, many fans of the original would like to pretend that it doesn’t exist. The Deus Ex: HR developers jokingly do the same, as mentioned in this article: “Going back to the original was very, very important. We all started playing [Deus Ex] thoroughly, and then somebody voluntarily played the second one, just to make sure”.

I managed to enjoy Deus Ex: IW, but it was more out of a sense of nostalgia rather than on its own merits. In the first few levels, you’re walking around in cities and interacting with a wide variety of NPCs who all give you conflicting goals on both a microlevel (collecting evidence on a corrupt senator or helping him out for cash) and a macrolevel (aligning yourself with one of the game’s central factions against the others). This evoked a familiar sentiment, which was subsequently snuffed out as the game moved forward to generic bases and uninspired set pieces where the stunted combat mechanics became more apparent.

Regarding Deus Ex: HR, a new (CGI) trailer was recently shown at the GDC (available here). What I like about it is how they show that the biomechanical implants are unsightly and cumbersome. They significantly alter a person’s appearance and are designed for combat, which makes certain everyday tasks difficult (as shown by the glass cracking), which was an aspect that Deus Ex focused on with the characters of Gunther Hermann and Anna Navarre (especially when explicitly contrasted with JC’s augmentations).

I remember that during BioShock’s development, it was stated that the player’s humanity would suffer under repeated splicing, but in the game itself, this was quickly swept under the rug. The gruesome effects the plasmids had on the body (for instance, charred skin with Incinerate and a beehive for an arm with Insect Swarm) were temporary, and the question of “sacrificing one’s humanity” was left by the wayside.

I mention this because it would be interesting if Deus Ex: HR introduced this aspect in full. I like how Deus Ex subtly illustrated the stigma layed upon those who chose biomechanical implements over social acceptance. And although the trailer shows a protagonist already rife with robotic limbs, there is nothing in the preview coverage to indicate that he starts out this way. Just because he is a “private security officer with a company that specialises in these augmentations”, there’s no need for him to have already dipped his pen in the company ink.

Basically, what if Deus Ex: HR were like this?

From left to right: not me, not me, me, not me.

I was a participant in this year’s Global Game Jam (GGJ), which is an annual event organised simultaneously by many countries. It marked the second time that Belgium participated, and this year’s attendance of 40 more than tripled that of last year. GGJ’s goal is to create a functional game based on a single theme in a timespan of 48 hours (this year the theme was “deception”). At first I was somewhat daunted as the room slowly filled up with programmers and 2D/3D artists. Introducing myself as an aspiring Narrative Designer elicited some worries in a “getting-picked-last-at-gym” sort of way, but fortunately enough I was quick to glom onto a team in which all necessary skills were accounted for.

I really got the feeling that I experienced the entire cycle of game production over the course of 48 hours (albeit on a much smaller scale, of course). The initial brainstorm (concept) was followed by forming a group (hiring) and working out the game mechanics in conjunction with the story (pre-production). Then we got to actually creating the game (production), all the while allowing others to sample early versions (quality assurance) and working within a set of rules, confines and themes (publisher oversight). In the last few hours before the deadline, the code needed to be finalised to incorporate all visual assets (post-production), after which the whole game was compiled and uploaded (release). Admittedly, the game I helped create didn’t make it to completion in time for the deadline, but a playable version was ready to be presented.

All through this process, I was confronted first-hand with many hurdles a Narrative Designer has to deal with, including but not limited to:

• crafting a story suited to gameplay mechanics (and vice-versa)
• adapting that story to fit technical constraints
• repurposing story elements to support existing assets
• cooperation with different departments (represented by single individuals in this case)
• rapidly responding to dynamic situations (more so when approaching the deadline)

In the end, GGJ proved to be an invaluable experience, mostly because I met and interacted with a great deal of like-minded individuals. Not that my desire to become a Narrative Designer needed any more affirmation, but if it did, GGJ provided that and more. There were many photos taken during the event, and I’ll post some here once/if they get uploaded.

To celebrate the release of BioShock 2, I present the Short Script of its predecessor. BioShock is an example of a very specific type of story which lends itself exceptionally well to being told through the medium of videogames: an aftermath story. This typically involves the player being thrust into a game world where many things have happened which are not immediately made clear, but are responsible for leaving said game world in its current state. The System Shock series, to which BioShock is a spiritual successor, also uses this story model. It allows for many different narrative techniques, from obvious means (audio logs, wall scrawlings, survivors) to less than obvious ones (the appearance of certain rooms, corpses). In this case, dead men do tell tales.

Players can uncover an aftermath story at their own pace, or even leave it by the wayside on their way to shoot the next horribly deformed monster in the face (if it even has one). It therefore perfectly fits the concept of opt-in depth, which was elaborated upon in this post. It doesn’t even have to be spread over an entire game; one specific level can also tell a self-contained aftermath story (just think of the Ocean Lab in Deus Ex or Ravenholm in Half-Life 2). The Left 4 Dead games tell aftermath stories in a multiplayer environment.

BioShock 2 is now on store shelves (though that expression is on its last legs, at least when it comes to PC games), and I soon hope to find the time to play it and write a Short Script for it. Currently I’m working my way through Mass Effect again. I started up its sequel recently, but since I had lost my save games in a format, I couldn’t jump in with the character I had created. I think Mass Effect 2′s experience can be vastly different when playing with a character that’s already been invested in, especially when playing both games back-to-back. So that’s what I’m doing now, also in part to make writing their Short Scripts easier.

The title is a combination of two terms: playthrough and throughline. A playthrough is a gaming session from the beginning of the story to its conclusion, though not necessarily a continuous one. A throughline is generally regarded as the spine of a story in the field of narratology. As such the title combines my interest in both games and story and segues nicely into the field of Narrative Design.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my good friend Matei “Ambient.Impact” Stanca. When I mentioned to him that I had the intention of starting up a blog, he graciously offered to not only host one on his server, but to adapt and tailor it as well. He designed the look and then fitted in the scripts I eventually decided to add. These Short Scripts now benefit from a very authentic format, in part derived from those on The Editing Room. I’d like to thank Rod Hilton as well for not being too pissed off with me being inspired by his approach.

There’s already a fair bit of content here, including a couple of posts on Narrative Design and three Short Scripts, with a fourth ready and waiting to be released at the opportune time. So take a look around, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

The hype surrounding Kane & Lynch: Dead Men got me genuinly excited, and while the game had an interesting story, intriguing characters and inspired set pieces, its gameplay mechanics were average at best and derivative at worst. I found myself annoyed at times and I really had to trudge through some of the later levels to see the story play out. Put simply: it wasn’t fun. And as an esteemed cohort of mine said: “A game with bad gameplay and a good story will get trumped by a game with good gameplay and a bad story”. However, Kane & Lynch’s narrative does present a few interesting traits, a few of which I’m going to delve into here.

The game’s protagonist, Kane, is a morally reprehensible criminal. You essentially play as the bad guy, accompanied by another one. Both Kane and Lynch see no problem in murdering scores of innocent people if such acts will net them what they desire. The first guy you kill in the game is a cop (and the next 40 guys are as well). Kane’s desire to get back at those who’ve wronged him is cancelled out by his own wrongdoings. But ironically enough, Kane’s attitude and background act as a moral justification for all the people he kills, albeit on the opposite end of the moral spectrum and only within the game world.

In most games, we play protagonists who are righteous individuals taking morally upstanding actions in the name of a worthy cause. More often than not, the enemies in games with such protagonists are not human. They are either aliens (Halo) or converted or former humans (Dead Space, Half-Life 2, pretty much every zombie game) and therefore dehumanized. Their deaths do not affect the player’s moral compass in a “fire-Goddamnit-that’s-not-Johnson-anymore!” way. In games where the majority of enemies are human, it is often made explicit that they all subscribe to some form of evil, which justifies their deaths at the hands of the player. This is the case in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and its sequel. But that is not enough when looking at its protagonist, Nathan Drake.

Hey, someone tries to kill me, I try to kill 'em right back.

Kane’s character is an unconventional but very effective solution to the problem presented by Drake, who represents something of a narrative dissonance in my opinion. He is shown killing a considerable amount of people and then wittily hamming it up with the plucky blonde in cut-scenes. Admittedly, everyone he kills is out to kill him too, but even with a plea of self-defence, murder is not an act to be taken lightly. Drake’s character seems too jocular when confronted with such situations. This is even touched upon by Uncharted 2′s villain, Zoran Lazarevic, who falls back on a (very clichéd) line when faced down by Drake: “You think I am a monster. But you’re no different from me, Drake. How many men have you killed? How many – just today?”.

The flipside is that, as opposed to Kane, Drake is someone we can relate to. He is portrayed as a likable everyman thrust into unconventional situations, which justifies his actions (up to a point). He might still be a thief who’s mostly in it for his own gain, but in both the games he stars in, his ultimate goal is to safeguard humanity from a great evil. Kane, on the other hand, is difficult to relate to. He antagonizes everybody he encounters and betrays them when it suits his goal, which is to save his daughter’s life. While this goal is admirable in and of itself, it does not outweigh the suffering he causes in order to achieve it. This tells me that the ending where Kane abandons his men in order to safely extract his daughter is the canonical one, since it seems implausible that he would risk the very thing he has finally accomplished only for a misguided attempt at redemption.

IO Interactive has apparently come to the same conclusion, as the sequel they are currently developing (Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days) flows from the ending where Lynch is left to burn by Kane. In addition, their roles will be switched, with Lynch as the character controlled by the player. This makes me curious about how they’ll implement his background into the gameplay mechanics, seeing as how Lynch, much like Kane, is imbued with an unconventional justification for all the people he kills. His mental instability causes him to experience outbursts of violence over which he has no control. In Kane & Lynch’s cooperative mode, this was represented by Lynch seeing innocent civilians as police officers trying to shoot him, giving him no alternative but to return fire. This was a very inspired design decision which wonderfully merged story and gameplay at a fundamental level. And in a way it makes Lynch less of a bad guy than Kane, because Kane can’t ascribe his crimes to a medical condition, but only to his own greed.