Good examples of this ludonarrative stuff

[Silva]

Oh and I was watching a Senua's Sacrifice playthrough and that game seems to do some crazy things Ludo-wise:

See, your character is supposedly a squizophrenic (or something) girl in the viking age. She fights norseman warriors through a Souls-like fighting game, and each damage she takes makes this black smudge that she has in her arm grow more and more toward her head. It's explained that this black smudge represents darkness (or death?), and that if it reaches her head - the "seat of the soul" in norse myth - she will die and be sent to Helheim, the norse afterlife, and it's game over for the player and THE WHOLE PROGRESS WILL BE DELETED. But in truth what she is really fighting is the sickness in her brain, and with each defeat it approaches the point of no return when she will be a permanent schizoprhenic. I don't know if that's true really (the deleting your progress thing) but regardless this seems to be exactly the intent of the game - putting the player in a situation of constant danger where he fears for his life/saved progress, without knowing what's true or lie (there are also this baziliion voices in your head that sometimes give you tips, other times shout and scare you, it's bizarre).

Don't know if the game is actually good (I dropped the playthrough), but between this, Automata, Papers Please!, Soulsborne, etc. it just reinforces my theory that this stuff is being observed more by the devs these days.

 

[Althorion]

Elaborate? I love Dead Space 1 (the others are popamole garbage) but can't remember anything of note in that respect.

Things like health pool or your gun’s ammo were displayed on the suit/gun itself, AFAIR.

 

[Silva]

Oh cool, didn't remember that.

Was System Shock really the first to do this trick with the HUD?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

why all the focus on death mechanics?

dying and reloading a save has been part and parcel of video games since forever; calling a game death and subsequent reload as 'breaking the ludonarrative' is just silly; in fact, its a key part of the building blocks of resonance

along with well realised game worlds, consistent systems, difficulty, tone and adherence to genre


best example i can think of right now is stalker:soc, my 2nd favourite game. Player death-wise its nothing special but the NPC deaths are interesting; the game world is re-populated with NPCs when you kill them and the explanation given is coherent (artifact hunters, the wishgranter).

deus ex as well comes to mind; the story is as mad as a cut snake but it is delivered competently and the lore is consistent throughout.

there are many many more examples i am sure

 

[Master]

Elaborate? I love Dead Space 1 (the others are popamole garbage) but can't remember anything of note in that respect.

Things like health pool or your gun’s ammo were displayed on the suit/gun itself, AFAIR.

 

[Zarniwoop]

What the FUCK?

Dark Souls fusing gameplay and narrative as a coherent whole????????

Like every fucking game in history hasn't done that?

Eat shit and die, horrible millennial.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

The good thing about Dark Souls is that it lets gameplay fags ignore the fucking story while at the same time offering more intricate lore to story-fags than even most crpgs. That ludonarrative whatever sounds like shit from the typical hipster who has no idea what s/h/it's talking about when it comes to games. Or alternatively common sense. But I guess calling it ludonarrative (dissonance) makes them feel more sophisticated.

 

[Zarniwoop]

The good thing about Dark Souls is that it lets gameplay fags ignore the fucking story while at the same time offering more intricate lore to story-fags than even most crpgs. That ludonarrative whatever sounds like shit from the typical hipster who has no idea what s/h/it's talking about when it comes to games. Or alternatively common sense. But I gues calling it ludonarrative makes them feel more sophisticated.

Millenyuls gonna millenyul basically.

 

[Silva]

The good thing about Dark Souls is that it lets gameplay fags ignore the fucking story while at the same time offering more intricate lore to story-fags than even most crpgs.

Thats because it tells its story through environment and subtle clues, instead of the usual, boring, walls of texts.

Just another proof of the genius of SoulsBorne.

 

[Sigourn]

Do you seriously think the souls in Dark Souls are anything more than a very abstract XP system (that also doubles as a currency system for buying and upgrading items)? We are talking about a game where you can eat the soul of one special person to instantly get thousands of 'normal' souls

It isn't an XP system though. You don't get experience from killing enemies, you get their souls. And with their souls you can do a multitude of things that simple "Experience" wouldn't let you do. Also, I take it the latter is just a gameplay convenience: it's more along the lines of "the soul of this special person is so powerful it is the equivalent of a thousand of weaker souls".

That aside, I don't believe standard XP systems are bad in any way or form. The basic concept makes sense; it's the implementation that quite often doesn't: for instance, how does killing mutants makes you able to raise your non-combat related skills?

why all the focus on death mechanics?

dying and reloading a save has been part and parcel of video games since forever; calling a game death and subsequent reload as 'breaking the ludonarrative' is just silly

Agree. Dark Souls offers an explanation as to why you can keep playing after dying. But if every game was like that, it would become stale fucking fast, not to mention it wouldn't make any sense in 99% of already existing games.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Death mechanics aren't really dissonant since the gameplay doesn't usually acknowledge the player's death either.

Actual dissonance is really only present in story games where the story and gameplay are clearly made by different teams. In The Last of Us, the gameplay has you gun down hundreds of armed men yet the story wants you to believe humanity is on its last dregs and there's not enough bullets to go around, huh.

 

[HanoverF]

Did the trigger the codex thread really need a spin-off?