Jeff Vogel Soapbox Thread

[Tweed]

I just wonder if Crawford is happy now that there's lots of these godawful touchy feely and "slice of life" games he seemed to be alluding to so long ago. Has anyone shown him Undertale or Disco Elysium?

That was never what he was arguing for. I've read his Interactive Storytelling, and his objective was to create some kind of simulation based on a thematic logic (maybe we could call it story logic or dramatic logic) where the player could influence how the story would go in a real manner. I don't know if he ever actually managed to do something he would consider actual interactive storytelling (apparently he has been busy lately with something called "Le Morte D'Arthur"). But if you look at his Erasmatazz system, you can see his goal is higher than just making story games with a couple of well determined outcomes.

Sounds like the sort of thing AI could be doing in a few years, if it isn't completely hamstringed first.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I just wonder if Crawford is happy now that there's lots of these godawful touchy feely and "slice of life" games he seemed to be alluding to so long ago. Has anyone shown him Undertale or Disco Elysium?

That was never what he was arguing for. I've read his Interactive Storytelling, and his objective was to create some kind of simulation based on a thematic logic (maybe we could call it story logic or dramatic logic) where the player could influence how the story would go in a real manner. I don't know if he ever actually managed to do something he would consider actual interactive storytelling (apparently he has been busy lately with something called "Le Morte D'Arthur"). But if you look at his Erasmatazz system, you can see his goal is higher than just making story games with a couple of well determined outcomes.

Sounds like the sort of thing AI could be doing in a few years, if it isn't completely hamstringed first.

There used to be this extremely simple game where you'd meet this miner and he'll tell you things written by other players. For instance, when you meet him, he could be like "let me out of here", but if you played through the section later, he could say whatever, like "lol xd". This requires human input though. The only viable way to implement AI storytelling in games will inevitably be tied to Radiant tier stuff, I'm afraid.

 

[almondblight]

What I find funny is that Jeff constantly rails against developing the game of your dreams, or pursuing gamedev as art, instead treating it as a pure business venture.

This coming from a guy who makes hyperniche RPGs with clipart level graphics.



I have a lot of respect for what he does, but also personally feel like Jeff would've been happier if he made something like Vampire Survivors, made a ton of cash, and then just retired to spend it on drugs and hookers.

You have to remember the pre-Steam world Vogel came from. Jeff had plenty of peers when he started - Cythera, Realmz, Jewel of Arabia: Dreamers, Odyssey, Mission: Thunderbolt. And that's just naming some of the RPGs, there were a ton of "shareware" games outside of RPGs. Most developers fizzled out after one game. Almost none lasted for more than a decade. Even the successful shareware publishers, like Ambrosia and Freeverse, didn't manage to last nearly as long as him.

Vogel survived by cultivating a small but loyal fanbase and pumping out games for them on a yearly basis. Pre-steam there wasn't much else he could do to survive (he did dabble in publishing other games for a bit, but it didn't seem too successful).

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Vogel's stuff is contemporary to Ultima and Might and Magic, and the guy's been able to survive even the worst days of the crpg genre... so I'd say he's done alright.

 

[Tyranicon]

What I find funny is that Jeff constantly rails against developing the game of your dreams, or pursuing gamedev as art, instead treating it as a pure business venture.

This coming from a guy who makes hyperniche RPGs with clipart level graphics.



I have a lot of respect for what he does, but also personally feel like Jeff would've been happier if he made something like Vampire Survivors, made a ton of cash, and then just retired to spend it on drugs and hookers.

You have to remember the pre-Steam world Vogel came from. Jeff had plenty of peers when he started - Cythera, Realmz, Jewel of Arabia: Dreamers, Odyssey, Mission: Thunderbolt. And that's just naming some of the RPGs, there were a ton of "shareware" games outside of RPGs. Most developers fizzled out after one game. Almost none lasted for more than a decade. Even the successful shareware publishers, like Ambrosia and Freeverse, didn't manage to last nearly as long as him.

Vogel survived by cultivating a small but loyal fanbase and pumping out games for them on a yearly basis. Pre-steam there wasn't much else he could do to survive (he did dabble in publishing other games for a bit, but it didn't seem too successful).

You're right, Jeff is almost an unparalleled success. I can't think of any other solo gamedev who's been in the industry as long as him. He knows it too.

Still, from reading his blogs and what he says about other games, I can't help but read into it a little.

I don't think it's jealousy per se (although it would be natural and I'm certainly jealous of way more successful people), but maybe a slight regret for not rolling the dice a bit?

I dunno, maybe I just have some fantastical wish that he would hire a competent team and make one of those indie Unity RPGs, but good.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Well, grass is greener and etc. I think Vogel makes competent games. He always has. The issue is that while being an outsider is all cool when you're young, when you get older the inevitable regrets start creeping in, even if you've had a good life and a successful career.

 

[vitellus]

I just wonder if Crawford is happy now that there's lots of these godawful touchy feely and "slice of life" games he seemed to be alluding to so long ago. Has anyone shown him Undertale or Disco Elysium?

too busy making shitty text adventure 'things' or whatever the flying fuck this is:

http://www.erasmatazz.com/LeMorteDArthur.html

 

[almondblight]

Still, from reading his blogs and what he says about other games, I can't help but read into it a little.

I don't think it's jealousy per se (although it would be natural and I'm certainly jealous of way more successful people), but maybe a slight regret for not rolling the dice a bit?

I dunno, maybe I just have some fantastical wish that he would hire a competent team and make one of those indie Unity RPGs, but good.

He did - kind of. Nethergate was a pretty big change in a number of ways (isometric, playing the story from two different sides, historical RPG). Geneforge was also a big change. If I recall correctly, Nethergate did so poorly he almost shut down. I wouldn't be surprised if that spooked him a bit. It was right after Nethergate that he made his first remake.

This was Vogel in 1997, right before he made Nethergate:

Exile IV would do well and make a lot of money, but I couldn’t stand to make it. There are several locations that I keep designing and redesigning for each new
game. I couldn’t wake up in the morning and get out of bed knowing I had to redesign the Tower of Magi for the fourth time.

I want the world to be actually 3D. So you’d walk into a tree- level house, climb up to the roof, and use a fly spell to get up to the floating cloud upon which the giant’s castle is. Or have a dungeon that, instead of being 64 x 64 spaces in one level and one space high, is 20 X 20 spaces and 20 levels deep, with most of your movement up and down. It would have a weird, vertiginous feel to it. There’s a much greater variety in the sorts of situations I can throw at you. At the same time, it should maintain the depth of plot, story, and dialogue that made the games so popular.

 

[OSK]

Exile IV would do well and make a lot of money, but I couldn’t stand to make it. There are several locations that I keep designing and redesigning for each new
game. I couldn’t wake up in the morning and get out of bed knowing I had to redesign the Tower of Magi for the fourth time.

He did redesign the Tower of Magi for a fourth time in Avernum IV!

 

[Infinitron]

https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/god-of-war-ragnarok-five-game-systems

God of War Ragnarok: Five Game Systems In One Bag​

In which I call for designing less and arguing more.​

This item gives a chance to, with high Luck, get more Luck.

It took some doing, but I finished God of War Ragnarok. In my traditional way, I'm posting about it months after everyone forgot it existed.

It's an OK game. Flawed, but with a certain amount of fun in there. Its flaws are interesting flaws. I'm a nobody on the outside, looking at a giant development monolith and trying to figure out how this game could possibly have ended up where it did.

I don't want to write a review. I think a very solid, fair review is here.

That frees me up to spend a few posts pointing out teachable moments in God of War Ragnarok. Places where things went wrong, so others can learn from it.



My favorite part was watching every girl find a way to tell Loki they just want to be friends. But in a, you know, Norse way.
Standard Disclaimer

This game is a huge success in every way, and I am an ant.

It got great reviews. (Though God help any foolish reviewer who tries to give an AAA game less than 9/10.) Sold a ton. Looking at the achievement percentages on my PS5, over 40% of players finished the game, which is a great rate.

So when I make my little criticisms, bear in mind I'm a crank. However, if you did play this game and find it was unsatisfying and you can’t quite articulate why, maybe I can help. It seems to be something I do well lately.

My Grand Theory of God of War Ragnarok

This game was worked on by a LOT of people. Including seven people for "Player Investment Design", which is a new one on me.

But every element of God of War Ragnarok (GoWR from here on) feels like there was no debate about it, no second drafts. It feels like everyone went off into their own domain, made a bunch of stuff on their own, and it was all jammed together without some authority looking down at it and going, "Does this work?"

As a result, a lot of the design seems like it was put into the game to defend itself from the work of other developers. (Bear with me. I'll go into more detail on this in a future post, because I think it's really interesting. But if you are playing a game where every ledge you can jump to is marked with a big, bright yellow streak, you’ve experienced this.)

Games like this are a hugely collaborative process. There are lots of moving parts, and they all have to work together. At the same time, it's being made by artists, and artists tend to be passionate and opinionated.

When making a game like this, there should be lots of debate. Does this system work? Is that new mechanic fun? Is this character's dialogue working? Is this line funny? Does it make sense what we're trying to do?

These debates don't happen in big meetings, nor should they. They happen when someone plays something, doesn't like it, and asks someone about it in the hallway. "That fight really stomped me." "Do those runes actually do anything?" "Was that line meant to be a joke?"

Designers are sensitive and can generally pick up non-verbal cues. When I watch someone play one of my games, I can pick up when they switch from enchanted to annoyed.

It just feels like, for much of this game, these discussions and debates never happened, they got cut off at some point, and a bunch of random, incompatible parts got jammed together to make the game.

This is a weird, nebulous accusation, so I definitely need to give a concrete example.



Loki in mythology is a master trickster, full of cunning, confidence, callousness, and charisma. I was really hoping to see this emerge in GoWR.
How God of War Gameplay Used To Work

Man, but I love God of War games. Have since their beginning.

Back In The Day (tm), God of War was pure, streamlined carnage. You had one weapon, with a slow and fast attack. By tapping different combinations of these, you could do some cool combos, but button mashing was generally adequate. There was also a rage bar, and when it filled up you could go crazy for a while.

This system was enough to carry three classics. (Also, there isn't much more to do in combat in Elden Ring, which is an absolute banger.)

How God of War Ragnarok Gameplay Works

OK, here's all the systems in GoWR. (Deep breath.)

Well, there's three weapons, each with its own combos. Each can be leveled up a number of times. Each weapon has several choices for an upgrade item, each of which has a special effect on a different attack you'll probably never use, each of which needs to be leveled up. Plus a shield (for blocking, parrying, and double-tapping stuns) and add-on upgrade for that. And each weapon has two different magic attacks, a big and small one, each of which can be leveled up to have different effects. Plus three different armor slots, each of which can be leveled up and has different effects. These add varying amounts to your six statistics. And there's still a rage bar, but you can choose from three abilities for that, each of which can be leveled up. Plus a runic (bonus magic) ability to choose and level up. And don't forget your amulet, which can be slotted with TEN (!) different upgrade stones.

All of this is to support your moveset. Because each of your three weapons has a slow attack, a fast attack, a running slow attack, a running fast attack, a way to charge it up when you have time to pause in combat (you won't), a way to attack after using one of the games TWO WAYS TO DODGE and TWO WAYS TO BLOCK, a way to charge up the weapon with repeated attacks, some missile options, new combos to memorize, a way to do extra attacks by just holding down the attack button which never works because the enemy will just hit you and break it, and, for the axe, a way to do attacks by switching stances. (There are stances?) You get these by sorting through three different skill trees. Also, use the attacks a bunch of times because you can then upgrade them.

And that's just you. You also have two companions.

This means two companion skill trees, each with their own attacks and abilities. Plus several choices of a creature to summon and level up. And ways to improve your two arrow types. Plus three stones to equip and level up to add tiny improvements to these arrows. (You'll need to remember the differences between sigil, runic, and sonic arrows.) You can also have your companion shoot your target when in combat (which means spamming the Square button whenever you get a spare moment).

THERE ARE FOUR WAYS TO DODGE AND BLOCK.



Strategy tip: If it’s a passive ability, buy it. If it requires you to take time in combat to activate it, rest assured the bosses are too fast to give you time.
Did You Read All That?

I hope you didn't. It's too much. Way too much for a fun, stabby carnage game.

I understand now why this game had seven Player Investment Designers. They all went off into the wilderness and designed a game. Then they got together and combined all their systems into one behemoth. The words "maybe not" were never spoken.

I Had To Make Sure I'm Not An Idiot

There are just so many options and combos. Like, your fire blades let you mash a button to make fire stronger. I found this really hard because combat is really fast and there just wasn't time to stand there and mash the buttons. (Oh, and mashing buttons is NEVER fun, and GoWR makes you do it a lot.)

Since I wasn't using any of this banquet of abilities, I thought, "Am I just an untactical dummy?" Constantly being afraid you’re screwing up and missing out on the good stuff doesn’t make you feel powerful.

So I went onto Twitch and YouTube and watched how Serious Gamerz did the hard fights.

Turns out, yep, most of the abilities aren't really there for anything but making the skill tree look big and puffy. Good players dodged, used shield parries, and hit with the nice, bread and butter quick attacks. The fights were just too fast and chaotic for anything else, especially against the tough bosses.

They used the summons and magic abilities, sure, but they tended to just wait until a good moment and dump all of them as fast as possible. Then they went back to standard tactics and concentrating on the fight.

In other words, to play the game when it gets tough, you just have to play it as if it was old God of War. Most of the new stuff could be lost and it wouldn't change a thing about how players interact with the game.



I wrote a game called Exile 3: Ruined World with over 100 spells. It was a huge success. Maybe I was dumb to change anything.
But What About Different Builds?

The ideal for a system like this is to encourage players to have and switch between different builds and strategies. Perhaps in some battles you rely on your weapon powers, while in some fights you turtle up behind your shield. Different items could support these strategies.

Two problems with this.

First, every single thing in this game, every item, every ability, has to be leveled up, and it's expensive. In the late game, when things get tough, there's just no way to easily experiment with different strategies. Nobody wants to farm for an hour to see if this fast axe attack or that belt buckle is worthwhile.

Second, the item special abilities are too finicky and over-designed. They are all, "Gives a little more to this less-important stat and also gives a slight chance of something nice happening when you use this ability you never use."

I found a belt that gave a bonus to healing and I just used that for the whole game. It gave a clean, simple bonus, which was all I wanted.

So if I had to make suggestions, the ways items help you need to be clear, substantive, and help a specific strategy. Buying upgrades has to happen in a way that doesn't lock you into a gear set at high level. (One possibility: When you level your belt to 5, it levels all belts to 5.) And cut the number of systems by half. Like, those little stones you give your companions to make their arrows better? Completely unnecessary.

Why is there two ways to shield block? One of them is the really hard to time parry, and the other is a double bumper button tap (!?) in response to a really bright, obvious screen prompt. Why not just have shield parries, but be the first game ever to give a clear indication of when they can be used?

The best thing they could have done is have the Player Investment Designers watch people play the game for long stretches. Any ability or game element that players usually miss or mostly ignore? Cut it.

(Side note: There is a new game called Brotato, one of those single-stick shooters that are hot now. During a run of that, you are constantly buying small upgrades. These are perfectly balanced. Each gives a small improvement, and yet you can always feel it. If you're interested in systems design, it's a very interesting title.)



My latest all-new game only had 57 skills, but all of them were useful sometimes. Very few people liked this game. Maybe, in 30 years in the business, I learned precisely zero.
But Credit Where Credit Is Due

You should always watch people play your game whenever possible. This will teach you more than anything else about what works and what doesn't.

For example, the spear they added is not particularly exciting in melee. However, you can throw spears into far off enemies and detonate them, and that is a lot of fun. The little booms bounce small enemies around. It’s hilarious. Big ups to whoever came up with that part. It's great.

Along these lines, the optional areas of the game are great. When you're in the jungle zone and you get a quest to follow a dog, be SURE to do this.

Doggo leads to an enormous, entirely optional area with tons of creative fights, fun puzzles, and neat stuff to do. I spent hours there. It was the only place where the game just took a breath and relaxed and laid off the emo drama and let me play God of War. The banter between the characters even became funny!



For our Geneforge series, I’m starting with the old number of abilities and spells and then adding more. Then buffing each one until it’s useful sometimes. Yet, at its peak, it will still only have a fraction of the stuff GoWR has.
However, My Aesthetic Is Out of Date

The suggestion to pare down a game system always makes some players angry. There is a certain aesthetic that wants as much stuff loaded into a game as possible, whether it serves a purpose or not. Lots of people like that. Which is fine. People like what they like.

As I grow older, I find I want to strip the unnecessary out of my game designs. The Barter skill in RPGs is always useless, and I don't put one in. I want every rule and ability in every one of my games to have a good use somewhere. If it doesn't have one, I want it out.

My games used to have HUGE spell lists, but most of the spells had little value. This drives me crazy, so I cut down the number of spells in the remasters. I still angry complaints about this choice.

Now, when I remaster an old game, I've learned to be very careful with what I remove. Players still like lots of choices and options. (Kickstarter for our new remaster going now!)

This is one area where I'm definitely out of touch and need to be very careful when designing new games. My Queen's Wish games got a lot of criticism for their stripped-down nature, but I enjoy playing them. Maybe it's me who is wrong.

All that being said, GoWR just has too much stuff. There are so many options it's too hard to find the fun options and the fun strategies. Cutting the choices by half, giving more freedom to explore them, and enabling substantively different builds would have made a better game.

That's It For Game Balance

Next time, I'll go into the story. The previous God of War had really sharp writing and a really good setup for the overall story. GoWR is a much more complicated situation.

 

[OSK]

Now, when I remaster an old game, I've learned to be very careful with what I remove. Players still like lots of choices and options.

Better late than never. This is why Geneforge 1 - Mutagen is his best remake yet. I think it's the first to truly surpass the original.

 

[Tavernking]

Sounds like Jeff suffered from the Deadfire effect. The first Queen's Wish game got a lot of hype and excitement and sales, but it actually wasn't a good game so nobody cared about the sequel when it was came out

 

[thesecret1]

My latest all-new game only had 57 skills, but all of them were useful sometimes. Very few people liked this game. Maybe, in 30 years in the business, I learned precisely zero.

It's not the skills, Jeff. It's Queen's Wish 1 being shit and nobody thus caring about the sequel.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I bought QW1, finished it, didn't think it was an absolutely horrid game but it's not something I'd get a sequel for either. Not hard to imagine that many people would be on the same boat. Typical of Vogel to not understand what people liked about his games, or didn't like.

 

[kuniqs]

One thing that stuck out to me in Nethergate is how many NPCs are described as "ancient, maybe even in their 30s."

 

[Rafidur]

One thing that stuck out to me in Nethergate is how many NPCs are described as "ancient, maybe even in their 30s."

Fucking anime writing!

 

[Mauman]

One thing that stuck out to me in Nethergate is how many NPCs are described as "ancient, maybe even in their 30s."

To be fair, considering when and where Nethergate took place, "in their 30s" would be pretty fucking old.

Maybe not what I'd call "ancient", but definitely past the general curve.

 

[kuniqs]

One thing that stuck out to me in Nethergate is how many NPCs are described as "ancient, maybe even in their 30s."

To be fair, considering when and where Nethergate took place, "in their 30s" would be pretty fucking old.

Maybe not what I'd call "ancient", but definitely past the general curve.

Nah, Vogel just repeated a common (at the time) misconception. Pretty fucking old during Antiquity would be 50, and after 40 you're expected to die soon from tuberculosis or tetanus because no sanitation or antibiotics.

If people really weren't expected to reach 30 then you have to wonder how did they not die out in 2-3 generations.

 

[Infinitron]

Jeff has more to say about God of War: https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/god-of-war-ragnarok-a-place-where

God of War Ragnarok: A Place Where Your Father Loves You!​

If video games were High Art, could we tolerate them?​

Never forget the product you are selling.
How can I resist breaking down the story of God of War Ragnarok? (GoWR from here on.) It's the biggest example of video game storytelling in quite some time. A lot of people have played it. It was intensely awaited.

It was also ... ummmm ... a little shaky.

As I said in my last GoWR piece (which got quite a lot of reads), it's kind of futile to critique big AAA games. They made their money. They got their acclaim. Everyone has moved on. It’s likely that if anyone who worked on GoWR reads this, they’ll leave the industry soon, because who isn't?

As many have observed, the story is really flawed. When a game is as big as this one, it's good to pick apart what made it work or not, if only for due diligence.



If you want to be honest, sometimes you must make people sad. This can even sell! To a point.
The Question of Games As Art

Video games, as an art form, are a tug of war between two factions.

On one end: Video games tend to work best as a power fantasy, a source of emotional pleasure and fulfillment for the player.

On the other end: Some dream of video games as High Art. By this, I mean works that communicate truth about what it means to be a human, even if these truths are sad and painful.

(Some also dream of using video games for political commentary. Which is easy to do and mainly results in, well, more political commentary. Sure. Because we don't get enough of that!)

The story in GoWR fascinates me because it is stuck in the middle of these two opposing factions. This game needs to be wish-fulfillment power fantasy. If it wasn't, we couldn't stand it and it wouldn’t sell.

Let's start with the basics.



SimTeenager 2023, now with more awkwardness!
The Story So Far

The God of War in God of War is Kratos. In the old games, he got angry at the Greek Gods and killed them all.

In the 2018 God of War, he is in Norseland. Kratos’ wife is dead, and he has a weenie son named Atreus. You play Kratos. The Norse gods are hunting you down. As you run for your life, Atreus gets increasingly angry and unhinged. At the end of the game, you learn his real name: Loki.

In Norse mythology, Loki is the malevolent trickster who brings about Ragnarok, the end of the world and suffers his own tragic, miserable end. So the setup for GoWR was really amazing, especially since the God of War games have a history of being tragic misery wallows.

Seriously, imagine a trilogy about Loki growing up, accepting his divine nature and an agent of chaos, and unleashing his power to get vengeance on the Norse gods, erasing them from the world. This could have been terrific and exciting and true to all of the sources it draws from.

Instead, the series ended up being awkwardly chopped off at two games, and the ending was determined to Subvert Your Expectations (tm). It ended up being a fairly wimpy piece of writing. Most of the gods have tidy happy endings, and, if it’s just going to be generic feel-good piece, that’s fine, but then it’s not God of War anymore.

I was going to write a whole piece about how weirdly structured this game is. Characters that appear and vanish with no purpose. Whole long storylines that make no sense and no difference. The whole bizarre, meaningless mask quest. The totally rushed ending. The way Ragnarok, instead of an irresistable force symbolizing the inevitability of death, is now just some big glowy monster you have to hit once. I’m not going to write that.

They wrote the game to turn it into a TV series. They got their wish. I wish a happy life in West Hollywood to them all.

I don't want to fixate on negatives and might-have-beens. In this piece, I want to focus on the best part of the new story ...



The Last of Us 2 was a bloodbath misery-wallow all the way through, and it did sell. But any sequel to Last of Us would have been a hit. I believe it cost itself a lot of customers to make an artistic point that really wasn’t all that interesting.
What Worked.

Kratos, God of War, utterly eliminated the pantheon of Greek Gods. You know how nobody worships the Greek Gods anymore? Now you know why.

In the new series, Kratos is ventilating the Norse gods. In the 2018 game, the emotional focus was on the relationship between the harsh, remote Kratos and the young, immature, eager-to-prove-himself Loki. They try to work together and understand each other while mourning Loki's recently-deceased mother. It was very affecting and well-written.

God of War performed the remarkable trick of seeking out people who have troubled relationships with their fathers (these days, nearly everyone), putting chisels in the cracks in their psyches, and splitting their heads open. It was quite effective and gave the earlier God of War a powerful and earned emotional resonance.

It's Still God of War: Daddy Issues

GoWR continues this, but Atreus/Loki is a teenager now. All of the daddy-son difficulties come along. They're rewarmed material from the previous game, somewhat one-note in the new game, but still effective.

At the end, Kratos finally sheds his gruffness and becomes the huggy, sensitive dad the audience wanted him to become. It's very sweet. It's enough to warm the heart of anyone who hasn't been worn down into an incurable crank.

But I AM a crank.



In 2016, humanity reached peak Sad Video Game. I think it will never be equaled.
The Tricky Business About the Thing

Kratos is violent, closed-off, and remote, and he has been so for centuries. Loki is immature and hungry for validation and revenge.

So.

How do you end this story? How CAN you end this story?

Think about it. There are two ways this can go. Kratos turns into what the audience wants him to, or he doesn't. He becomes a loving model dad (happy!), or he doesn't change (sad!).

Some want to think of video games as not just good fun and power fantasies, but High Art as well. The problem is that this is a 40 hour action game that wants (needs!) to make a bajillion dollars.

Movies can get away with being sad and still make a lot of money, because they're short, and you just watch them. But video games? They are far more constrained.

You can put a lot of sad stuff in a big-budget video game. Yet, I believe that watching a father truly neglect his son over the length of a full game would be too painful for the target audience. It would be rejected.

The Business of Games Is Power Fantasies

I've been writing a lot lately about how video games trade in making the player feel powerful and satisfied. There is nothing wrong with this. Life is hard, and if you sink 40 hours of your limited free time into GoWR, you should walk away feeling satisfied.

I can't honestly ask for anything else. It would be cruel.

But ... The resolution of Kratos and Loki isn't entirely honest, is it?

In my long observation, people rarely change. When they do change, it often isn't for the better.

(For a different, harder, truer take on this material, I strongly recommend the excellent movie Fences. I loved this movie, but you couldn't stand it being 40 hours long. It would kill you.)

When your parents are distant, for whatever reason, they tend to stay distant. This is the reality of aging. People often get more remote and strange as they get old, not less. Sometimes, when the kids are grown, their parents look back realize the mistakes they made with them and feel bad. Too late.

But this is how all things are for all of humanity. Humans are flawed. We will all be flawed always. Being a person means forgiving people for their flaws and finding ways to care and love despite them. Art, at its best, dives into this hard, complex reality.



I really seriously do recommend Fences, written by the late, great August Wilson.
The Crack Between Games and Art

Kratos has his gruff and angry moments, but he always quickly returns to being sensitive and huggy to Atreus. This is a Power Fantasy.

Why? Because in this situation, more players are likely to identify with Atreus. Kratos, the most firm and immovable of beings, reshapes himself to satisfy the wishes and needs of Atreus.

For the game to work, Kratos MUST become what WE want. Thus, we have power.

But That's Not How Art Works

Art, at its best, is about truth, revealing how humans are, flaws and all. Sometimes, your protagonist is unlikeable. In a movie, this can be ok, though some people hate it. In a video game, which is much longer and you are supposedly controlling the protagonist, it’s much harder.

Sometimes, people aren't likable. Yet, if you are going to spend 40 hours playing a character, that character better be at least a little likable, or you won't be able to stand playing them. Also, if you spend all that time taking a person you don't like and making that person successful, you won't feel good about yourself.

The Grand Theft Auto games have unlikeable protagonists, and they are enormously successful. However, most games don’t want to be Grand Theft Auto.

This is why Video Games will always fight with High Art. Games must be long enough to feel worth it. They must provide the feelings of power and affirmation we crave. Thus, they can never be fully honest.

Video Games Can Have Unhappy Endings

It would, of course, be foolish for me to say a successful video game has to have a happy ending. There are plenty of cases where this isn’t true. In fact, if your game is 50 hours of righteous ass-kicking, a sad ending can make it even more satisfying. It adds an artistic patina to all those hours of joyful, violent awesomeness.

However, while a game can have a sad ending, you can end up in trouble fast if it has a sad beginning or middle. Long periods of relentless trauma are not what game customers get on board for. If you are taking this route, you better be making something like The Last of Us 2, a guaranteed success sequel to a hit title. And you’ll still be losing a bunch of customers.

There Is, Of Course, a Place For Honesty In Video Games

Mainly indie games that last less than 3 hours. And, even then, if your game is a bummer, don't expect it to get good reviews and word of mouth. Or sales. I mean, they'll sell good for an indie game. And that's all.

This Is the Sort of Blog Post That Makes People Mad

Some people are very invested in video games being High Art. Anything that suggests that they are less or that it's OK for them to have other goals annoys them.

Some people get quite irked when there is a work of pop art they love and speaks to them and some rando suggests there are other worthy goals that could have been pursued.

I describe myself as a crank a lot. But honestly, I'm not. I'm a basically cheery person who tries very hard to find something to like in everything they experience.

The truth is, most works of art aren't perfect and they aren't completely horrible. Most works of art are Fine. Just Fine. And that's ok. It's fine to be Fine.

The father-son fantasy of GoWR is the thing that works, even if it strikes me as false. If it made you feel better, I'm glad you got your money's worth.

 

[Acrux]

They wrote the game to turn it into a TV series. They got their wish. I wish a happy life in West Hollywood to them all.

What an incredible insult. I can't believe Jeff wrote it.

 

[Tyranicon]

Generic game has generic writing. News at 10.

Jeff should try his hand at creating art in video games. He's been around the block, probably nobody is more experienced at his games than he is.

What's stopping him from writing something great and memorable?

 

[Dayyālu]

What's stopping him from writing something great and memorable?

Effort.
Skill.

But mostly, he's old and tired. Very old, very tired.

Did I say he's old?

 

[Tyranicon]

What's stopping him from writing something great and memorable?

Effort.
Skill.

But mostly, he's old and tired. Very old, very tired.

Did I say he's old?

I don't know why he constantly goes on with the old and tired stuff when the man's like 52. Fucking Chris Avellone is 51 IIRC.

 

[thesecret1]

I don't know why he constantly goes on with the old and tired stuff when the man's like 52. Fucking Chris Avellone is 51 IIRC.

You are comparing the incomparable. Chris is merely starting to be old. Jeff was born old, molded by it.

 

[Infinitron]

Rather thoughtful article about how fantasy has displaced everything: https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/fantasy-is-universal

Fantasy Is Universal​

A bunch of thoughts about the Human Default.​

Fantasy.
Sometimes I have to remind myself, with a bit of a shock, that I write fantasy for a living.

It's an easy thing to forget. Yes, I write fantasy. But I do it in a highly popular, successful, vibrant, undervalued medium (video games) instead of a respected, posh medium that nobody cares about (books). Writing books is considered much more classy and valuable, even though hardly anyone wants them anymore.

(This brings me great sadness. But it's true.)

My almost thirty year fantasy-writing career has been very prolific (18 all-new games!) and my work was generally of acceptable quality. As I age, I increasingly find myself in reflective moods. I've found myself thinking about the genre. Who likes fantasy? What makes fantasy work? How do you make it well? What does it MEAN?

For nerdy writer types like me, these are significant questions. After all, fantasy is the default mode for fiction by humans.


At last, Gandalf directly confronts Saruman.
I've Defining Fantasy Broadly Here

When you say Fantasy to most people, they'll immediately think wizards and dragons. It's understandable, even though High and Low Fantasy are not huge parts of the dramatic fiction diet these days.

But what makes fantasy fantasy is that it is fantastic. It is the stuff of human fantasies.

When a child dreams of growing up to be a fireman or astronaut (does that happen anymore?), they see themselves saving people, exploring new places, being a hero, becoming larger than life. They are fantasizing. This means that they are making fantasy.

A child's fantasies are daydreams. Fantasy in mass-market pop culture is the way our society daydreams.

The beings in fantasy fiction are works of imagination. They are fantastic, in that they don't exist. Fantasy deals with creatures who are apart from us, maybe above, maybe below, but always distinct and apart.


This trilogy has been stuck at 2 books for twelve years. Fantasy writers are not overburdened by a strong work ethic.
Humans Rely On Fantasy

We now have about five thousand years of human drama, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to present days. If you give it a scan, from the early scraps that survive to the movie and books of now, we find that humans create and crave stories of people and beings bigger than ourselves.

Human drama tells stories of gods and monsters, tragic heroes, mighty warriors, cunning villains, magic and destiny and prophecy, epic adventures.

(Note I am going to focus exclusively on drama. Comedy is an entirely different beast.)

Realistic drama, psychological studies of ordinary humans, only appears in a few slivers of known history. Even then, realistic drama about mundane people is constantly being squeezed out by tales of mighty heroes.

(Comedy, on the other hand, focuses entirely on the foibles of ordinary humans. This is the last time I'll mention comedy, but it's important to make it clear that this is a major, entirely distinct mode of fiction.)


When ordinary humans see themselves as entirely incapable of bringing change, fantasy provides our only hope.
Examples

Superheros are fantasy. They are about people or beings who are beyond our capabilities and understanding, fighting in the skies above. Batman is as much a fantasy character as Gandalf.

The tragic heroes of Ancient Greece and Shakespeare are creatures of fantasy. They are like us. They have our qualities. Yet, they are heroes. They are a more intense, purified version of humanity. Yet, for all their power, Hamlet and Macbeth and Oedipus have flaws, mighty heroic flaws, that bring them to ruin. (That we can look up at them and ponder how even the great share the flaws and final fate of normal people gives valuable hints about the purpose and power of the genre.)

Or look at something closer to home: The American Western. John Wayne (a wealthy Hollywood actor in real life) made his career portraying absolute masculine ideals. Clint Eastwood only ever played superheroes in his movies. Shane (a marvelous movie) is about an unstoppable killer who wants to be an ordinary human, only to find that he will always be forced to be who he actually is.

The anime and manga that are so popular are almost entirely fantasy. Even when it has no explicitly fantastic elements, the characters have these weird, typed, purified personalities. Like they’ve been beamed in from an alternate universe.

Horror is fantasy with an unhappy ending.

When humans make fiction, we are undeniably pulled toward the fantastic. Heroes and villains, gods and monsters.

One Way To Tell If Something Is Fantasy

Suppose a character is in a big fight. The character slips, falls at least ten feet, lands on something hard, and then gets up and continues to fight. Uninjured and unaffected.

If this happens, you are watching fantasy.


Totally fantasy. Also, really, REALLY long.
An Aside About Science Fiction

Science fiction tends to place itself between two ends of a spectrum.

One end is fiction that asks questions about how our reality can change and how humans will deal with it. It is storytelling of a curious and philosophical bent. This had a good run for a long time and is largely disappearing now. Philosophy is as boring as realism.

The other end is more fantasy, just with laser guns and teleporters and spaceships. More big guns, magic brain powers, and space gods. Good guys fighting bad guys. But. You know. In space.

Star Wars was always at the second end. Star Trek started out at the first end but has spent decades succumbing to the pull of the second end. Dune is a classic because it is so huge that it can alternate effortlessly between both ends (seriously, read the book), but it is still full of magic. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Science fiction started out as an amazing thing, and it still has intermittent periods of great thoughtfulness. Yet, it too succumbed to the gravity of fantasy.


When your science fiction is about immortal telepaths who can mind control others and see the future, it’s fantasy. Awesome, thoughtful, philosophical fantasy, yes. But still.
What Is the Pull of Fantasy?

The golden age for realistic drama for humans was the 19th and 20th century. Realistic examinations of the human condition, with flawed, mortal people in real settings, took over.

As a result of this golden age of realism, when I was a teenage nerd in the 1980s, us weirdos longed for quality fantasy content, and it just wasn't there in quantity. We settled for rewatching Star Trek and Star Wars for the millionth time. We were so desperate that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake!

How much things have changed in a few decades. The Superman movie snuck through somehow in 1978 and did great. There was a popular sci-fi or superhero movie every year or two. The big Batman movie did great in 1989. And then ... superheroes EVERYWHERE. They became inescapable and still are.

Why? What compels us to watch characters who are like us, and yet fundamentally different?

Maybe It's Best Not To Overthink It

We spend a lot of regular life feeling dumb and small and weak and confused. Even if we avoid feeling that way, we still ARE dumb and small and weak and confused.

When we watch mighty heroes on a screen, we can identify with them and thus feel less weak and small. Maybe the reason realism died off and fantasy took over the world is that the world of the 21st century is so good and efficient at making us feel weak and small.

Only comfortable people in stable situations get the luxury of art that is careful, psychological examinations of the human condition.

The soothing opiate that is power fantasy is a good part of the appeal of fantasy. And yet, it's more complicated than that. Fantasy doesn't need power to be successful. It can be dark and sad and free of hope, and yet still totally compelling. Look at Game of Thrones. Or all horror.

There is also a great appeal in feeding our imagination. It is delightful to be shown a different world, a new reality, an alien culture. Even when Game of Thrones was a misery wallow, it was still showing us a plausible alien culture and way of life. Even with the dragons and wizards, Game of Thrones was still better science fiction than most science fiction.

If someone can show us a new world and make us believe in it, we will follow until we've seen too much of it and get bored. (See: Marvel movies. Star Wars. Any IP Disney is strip-mining, really.)

Fantasy can also be used to disguise unappealing truths. If I wrote a book about high schoolers in Iowa getting para-military training with rifles to hunt terrorists, this could be a hard sell. Nobody wants to publish books about giving 9th graders AR-15s. But if I said the rifles were “wands” and the terrorists were “evil wizards”? Then I have Harry Potter and make a billion dollars.


Totally not a gun.
A Power Fantasy Is an Expression of Sadness

Power fantasies can be wonderfully soothing. Yet, there is nothing childish or happy about them. When our society mainly indulges in power fantasies, this is a sad thing. It is a way we cope with our own perceived lack of power.

You only fantasize about having things you don't already have.

I find our recent obsession with Marvel movies to be depressing. Set aside whether they are good movies. Why can we only imagine people being able to make a positive difference in their societies when they have magic powers?

Creating Fantasy Is Its Own Craft

I don't care if fantasy is great art. That's a question for posterity to decide. I only care about how to make fantasy WELL.

I often joke about how fantasy is the easiest thing in the world to make. "The world is threatened by the evil Whatsit. To kill it, you must get the magic Sword of Shmoo. To get the sword, your friends must sneak through the land of the Dinklings." And so on. And so on. HOW HARD IS THAT!?"

But nothing is easy. Fantasy reaches something primal in human beings. When you create it, you are trying to affect other humans at a base, visceral level and an intellectual level simultaneously. This is NOT EASY. Fantasy has its own rules, its own tricks and pitfalls and things that make it function.

Amazon brought insane power to bear to create its Rings of Power series. All the talent and resources in the world. With every advantage, they ended up with a show that people just didn't want. And I don't think it's hard to see why. Rings of power is an excellent case study on how NOT to create compelling Fantasy. How to make it well, I’ll take up in future articles.

This has been a meandering piece, and I'm only planning to wander more. It's a big topic. I'm planning a few blogs posts about the craft of fantasy. I'll look more in depth at how it's created these days and examine what makes it work and not work.