Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Walking simulators aka "Notgame" Thread

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
I guess enjoyment of titles like this depends somewhat on the expectations you start with. I was aware of the nature of some of these when I took a look. I think Dear Esther was one of the earlier ones I tried, but I had already been warned that this was not a game. I was nevertheless a little bit surprised that there were actually no interactive elements at all, you could just walk around, swim, and look around. Anyway, I accepted that this was not a game and just went with it. I guess I'm the only one in this thread who didn't see his time in there as a waste. It was slightly long-winded for what it wanted to achieve, but in the end, I liked it well enough. Just don't listen to that crap about the "future of gaming". It certainly isn't anything like that.

Proteus had a bit more interactivity. It doesn't overstay its welcome. I liked the colorful style and the associated music, there are a few things to discover and try out, so I was quite happy with this. I only paid a few cents, so who cares.

As long as you don't wade into the debate whether that's a game or not and just take them for what they are, these titles can be quite enjoyable. If you know what to expect, you won't probably even try them if that's not anything you are interested in. Most of the outrage I've seen stems from the meta-discussion about some pretentious statements from people about whose opinions I just don't care. Just leave the baggage at the door and pretend it's some slightly more interactive TV show.
 

GrainWetski

Arcane
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
5,080
Damn, the guy is so anti-mainstream that he ditched glasses in favor of a goddamn monocle chained to his earring. Even JRPG designers can't come up with look-how-unique-I-am bullshit like that.

Holy shit. I lost it when he was looking at paintings with a fucking monocle on.

Would make a great Kickstarter video for a proper new Doom. Add in Doomguy showing up and blowing that guy's head off halfway through the video and exclaiming that Hell has unleashed a new type of creature, then cut to gameplay.
 

Cassidy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2007
Messages
7,922
Location
Vault City
The combined bowel movements from all Thief: The Dark Project developers during the time they were actively working on it were a greater contribution to gaming than any "Notgame" can ever dream of being.

Tech demos used to be showcases for new 3d engines and nothing more until all these pretentious and corrupt idiots known as "game journalists" decided to help their buddies without any intellectual and creative competence to develop real games to earn easy money in exchange of blowjobs. Now it's like postmodern art: worthless, meaningless, by hipsters for hipsters. The result of semiotics and relativistic newspeak bullshit values applied on gaming with the occasional seasoning of retarded identity politics doublethink. I can't wait for the day this "I don't do games, I do art *tips scarf*" fad will die a certain death not with a bang, but in a whimper.

Obviously, I never "played" one of these pretentious hackjobs and never will.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Wasn't this crap invented by Myst and hugely trendy back in late 90s?

And virtual museums? Fucksakes, Cryo interactive has spammed the marked with them back in the day. Egypt, Versailles, how is that new?

Yeah, I remember virtual museums being a thing in the 1990s, too.

I disagree about Myst-likes, though. Myst had about as much gameplay as any other adventure game: clicking on things and solving puzzles. Myst-like games have had some really great puzzles, actually. Riven had a great sense of pacing and a full-fledged narrative, too.

In walking simulators, puzzles are anathematized for ideological / conceptual reasons. They are either done away with completely or reduced to the most basic and easily solved ones.
 
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
1,875,971
Location
Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
Kairo is alright. There are puzzles but they are Zelda-tier (pretty simple - drag block to hole, match patterns, spin dials). I played it at night with headphones and the atmosphere was p. cool. It's already cheap but you can get it for peanuts on a steam sale.
 

JudasIscariot

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Messages
2,001
Location
IV Republic of Polandia
Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014
A write-up on The Beginner's Guide's "material-narrative dissonance”: http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2015/10/the-beginners-guide-by-davey-wreden-et.html



Emily Short on The Beginner's Guide -- this one's more interesting because well, this is Emily Short: https://emshort.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/the-beginners-guide-davey-wreden-and-intimacy-inside-games/



I must say, after The Magic Circle, encountering another gamedev character named Coda was a bit surprising. The name does bear the obvious connotations, but to see it in two meta-games almost at once? I wonder if that perhaps isn't just a coincidence.

Crypt of the NecroDancer has a character named Coda but I am not sure he/she/it is a gamedev in COTN's world, though :P
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/258342/The_game_dev_letters_A_series_on_The_Beginners_Guide.php

The game dev letters: A series on The Beginner's Guide

Sentris developer Samantha Kalman and Insomniac Games designer Liz England exchange fascinating insights on Davey Wreden and Everything Unlimited's thought-provoking game The Beginner's Guide, and what it means to be a creator who happens to makes games.

To: Samantha Kalman
From: Liz England
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

Hey Samantha,
I'm dying to talk about The Beginner's Guide but honestly I have no clue where to even start. I have nothing to compare it to.

Like, I'm tempted to compare it (obviously) to The Stanley Parable but it has none of that humorous wink-wink nudge-nudge affectation. I've been scraping my brain but I can't think of a game that breaks the fourth wall so consistently without also being dredged in humor. The Beginner's Guide doesn't play it as a gag. It’s so sincere. Even as a work of fiction I feel like the message is terribly honest.

I think the reason I have trouble figuring out how to even start discussing The Beginner’s Guide is that the game is just a bottomless well of stuff to talk about. You can approach it as a series of art games, as a master class in level design, as a metaphor for the creative process, as a work blurring the line between fiction and reality, as a discussion of the relationship between a creator and its audience and who really owns creative work once you released it in the wild - all wrapped up into one short, two hour game. I could easily spend ten times that length just talking about it.

And even though I want to talk about it, I had to think pretty hard about whether I wanted to actually write about the game, you know? The game kind of resists interpretation - by digging for meaning, we’re perilously close to committing its cardinal sin. I don’t want to be a "Davey" (the character, not developer) confusing familiarity with a creative work with intimacy and friendship with its creator, a "Coda". I’ve seen that kind of troubled one-sided relationship in celebrity fandom, but (luckily) never experienced it myself. I definitely know what it’s like to have my work in the hands of players and critics as they assume all kinds of intent behind even the most innocuous choices. It’s weird to watch creative control over a work get lost once it’s in the player’s hands. I think this is the first time I’ve seen the topic actually addressed in a game - though obviously it's not the only topic in there.

Anyway, I totally intended on just talking about some of my initial thoughts but it’s so hard to keep to a surface level discussion of the game. I spent a good amount of time after I finished it reading what other people had to say about it - mostly gamers, critics, and journalists, but pretty much nothing from developers. I’m super curious what a fellow dev has to say about it (and not just because there’s some awesome craftsmanship going on behind the scenes).

-Liz

To: Liz England
From: Samantha Kalman
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

Hi Liz! I'm also so glad to for this chance to dig into Beginner's Guide with another developer. It's a work that contains many layers to sift through, and I kind of want to remark on all of them. You bring up some great points to start with~~

There are certainly similarities between BG and Stanley. Its mechanics, narrator, the weight of its detailed static environments all seem deliberately evocative of Stanley. It brings to mind the chapter where Coda was making many similar prison games in succession. That seems like a funny parallel to me. Like the game is in some incredibly recursive way, commenting on itself. Or, maybe I'm reading too much into it and that relationship wasn't intentional. Have you ever experienced any kind of pressure to follow up a project with something very similar?

I suspect even by drawing this parallel I've already committed the game's cardinal sin; how could I possibly draw any real conclusions about what the creator intended? I can only interpret the work through the lens of my own experiences. "Davey" does this over and over again while talking about Coda's work. He appears as the voice of authority, forcing his own opinion about each piece onto the player. It's almost rude how he, in the game, doesn't allow the player to interpret Coda's pieces without biasing us with his own perspectives. He's influencing the way we experience the games before we can see each in their entirety. I wonder if this is commentary on the tendency for players to seek out authorial intent rather than find satisfaction with their own interpretations? I'd like to think it is, but that's because I'm actively committing this sin right now.

Liz, what's your opinion on the importance of authorial intent? Is it difficult or delightful when you see players misinterpret your games?

The other question on my mind at this point in the conversation relates to an early narration in the game. Davey said Coda never intended to release these games anywhere...that perhaps the act of making them was more important than the act of playing them. This sits tumultuously on my mind. What's the value of making a game that isn't intended to be played by anyone? What purpose does that serve? I'd offer my own opinion but I'm still not quite sure yet.

To: Samantha Kalman
From: Liz England
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

Hey Samantha-
I haven't played anything else by Davey Wreden except for Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide so it's hard for me to judge how much is one imitating the other, and how much it is just his style. I tend to side with style, to be honest. I hadn't actually put together the idea that Stanley Parable is a big prison for the player. I feel a little sheepish admitting that now. It's so obvious in retrospect.

I loved that you asked about authorial intent. Once upon a time I was a literature student and all the authors I studied were long since dead, so no one was around to really care about "intent." I learned to study works for what they had to say about themselves, regardless of what the author might have intended. I still think that's totally fine, that a book - or a game - can be evaluated on its own merits and doesn't need a creator to tell you how to interpret it. But… once I became a developer myself I started to realize where the line stood, and how so many people would mix up "what the work means" and "what the creator means." I wouldn't say it's difficult so much as frustrating to read, especially since it's everywhere once you start to notice it. A lot of times it's players ascribing deep meaning to something that was, I don't know, a band-aid used to hide asset streaming. At that point the things players say about why a developer did 'X' just sound completely absurd, you know?

So there's one question I have for you that I wanted to bring up: Who is Davey and who is Coda? (The characters I mean). Maybe it's just me, but when I first played it I immediately assumed Davey and Coda were the same person and it was completely metaphorical. I mean, we have the developer inserting himself into his own game, and then telling you the game just HAPPENS to be made by some fictional character who can't talk to you. This really primed me to think of the game as about a relationship between an artist's outward side and their inner side, a kind of tug-of-war between the ego and the id. I latched onto the idea that Coda was the muse that could only ever speak through art, and Davey was the logical part of the brain trying to make sense of it, explain it to the press, and edit it to be more commercial (accessible, usable, player-friendly, etc.). My first time through I totally missed the more literal interpretation that this was about a relationship between a player and a developer. What about you? Same/different? I have a tendency to miss the forest for the trees sometimes...

I totally want to grapple with your last point though - whether games can have value without being played. Maybe in a follow-up email, since I've written a ton already. Have you read Robert Yang's commentary to this?

"It's more important to witness a game than to play it." I really liked his approach to this, with the idea that games can be experienced without being played (whether we like it or not) and those experiences might be totally different than the real thing (and we should learn to be okay with that). I'd be curious what your thoughts are on it - it's a complex subject, for sure.

I've tried my own hand at making 'unplayable' games but my inner game designer just won't let me go there. I can't not put lamp posts in my levels.

-Liz

To: Liz England
From: Samantha Kalman
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

Hi Liz!

I never really thought about Stanley as a prison, either. Maybe it's a strange hybrid of a prison and a funhouse. It's the only other game of Davey's I played too, but I feel okay about picking up the similarities and calling it "Davey's style." Part of me hopes he rebels and breaks his style in future work. Another part finds comfort in the idea that he continues to strengthen his established style without deviating much from it.

I love what you're bringing up about how players ascribe meaning where none may have been intended. To me, this is the Yin to the Yang of the game's cardinal sin. Though we may never know the truth about what a work was intended to say, finding places to project (inject?) meaning makes the connection between us and the work more personal. I think about how many people feel ownership of the media they love -- music, television, films, games -- and how upset they get when a work does something different than those who love it and feel like they own it would have wanted it to be. Analytics-based game design practices operate under the pretense that giving the players what they want is the way to make the best games. Is that more important than carving out our creative path in the direction we feel drawn to? What does "best" even mean in this case?

Are any of Coda's games "good"? Is the answer even important in the context of the game? Why does Davey feel so compelled to spread Coda's games around, when he was supposedly content operating in isolation? It's super interesting to me that you interpreted Davey and Coda to be the same person! I took that relationship at face-value: Coda is just a guy making strange games as he likes, and Davey is another point of observation that perceives worth in the work and wants to share it on Coda's behalf, even without his permission. If Davey and Coda are the same person, then The Beginner's Guide becomes more about cowardice. The shameful feeling of wanting to create something for selfish reasons but being too embarrassed to do so. Davey had to create an alter-ego; a straw man to bear the brunt of the praise and the abuse alike. If they're different people, then the game becomes more about violation of trust. Coda asked Davey to not do a thing, Davey did that thing, and Coda had to cut all ties. I'm curious about Coda's compulsion to remain invisible. How many Codas are out in the world in 2015, coding away on personal experiments with zero desire to be seen? It's an overwhelming thought, especially right now with the number of games being made that have a strong desire to be seen.

This train of thought leads me to Schrödinger's work and quantum theory -- an atom transforms simply as a result of being observed. Maybe the game is a simple story about a person who changes as a result of his work being observed. The interesting part is how it's told -- by demonstrating the changing person through their work, filtered through the perspective of the person doing the observing. It makes my brain hurt. After reading Robert's piece that you shared, I have to think even more about the role of observation, broadly, creatively.

Speaking of the work, I'd like to ask what you think about the game's one recurring puzzle -- the dark space between two doors. I've been thinking about it so much but I want to hear your thoughts before I share my own interpretation.

Until the next lamp post,
Samantha

To: Samantha Kalman
From: Liz England
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

> Are any of Coda's games "good"?
Okay, look, I know this was a rhetorical question but I just want to say (again, I think, but you can never say it too much) that I adored every single one of those little vignettes attributed to Coda. Each one was an excellent art game in its own right and I am just really humbled by Wreden's skill that he's able to bring together not only an amazing game in The Beginner's Guide but that each part of that greater whole is so, so good.

Anyway, you asked about the dark space between the two doors. I may be completely wrong but I think it's meaningless. I think it’s a deliberate red herring.

I think that so-called space between doors is an example of Davey reading far too much into everything. I feel like this puzzle returns each time to remind us that this is a game, and that games often have these weird incongruous gameplay elements built into them for arbitrary reasons. I don’t think -- at least from the fictional Coda’s point of view -- that there’s any reason for it.
But it’s so interesting how Davey latches onto it and tell us how important it is. The door puzzle is easily the least meaningful thing in anything Coda makes and yet Davey is thrilled by it. Why? Do you remember the game where you clean house? It’s likewise meaningless busywork -- fun because, I guess, it’s interactive in a way that most of Coda’s work is a very passive experience for the player. It’s a repetitive grind that is oddly satisfying. Davey adores it but it’s completely meaningless. It lacks all the subtle (and not-so-subtle) art that Coda puts into the rest of his work. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the clean house game occurs entirely in the space between those two doors.

I'd love to know if you have a different impression. There's a lot of emphasis on that space in the game, but my takeaway was that it was a lie, a fake-out, a trap for us to fall into when we try to look for meaning when there is none (and that obviously manifests as a literal trap for Davey within the game).

Somehow I just spent two paragraphs talking about how something in the game has no meaning. This is one of the things I love-hate about The Beginner’s Guide. Like I said in my first email -- the game preemptively judges you for trying to interpret it and yet it dangles all this juicy metaphorical detail in front of you daring to figure it out. I feel like we’ve barely touched on the game, to be honest. When I initially finished it, I felt wonderfully satisfied by the experience but the longer I think about it (and the more I talk about it with you) the more unsatisfied I am by it, the more I want to dig into it and find out what all the different parts mean. I wonder if Wreden knew that would happen when he made the game... but I suspect I'll never know.

-Liz

To: Liz England
From: Samantha Kalman
Subject: The Beginner's Guide

Liz,

This has been an incredible exchange that's been very thought-provoking for me. Thank you for the conversation. One of the beats I take away from The Beginner's Guide is the unstable nature of friendships between highly creative people. This is a case where two people who literally didn't know each other before are having a deep conversation that's manifested a connection which didn't exist before. Whether or not we become friends and stay in touch after this is over is yet to be seen. Like Davey in the game, I've had unexpected conflicts drive a wedge between me and people I admire. I think that aspect of relationships is revealed in the game in an incredibly honest way, even if it's a little heavy handed. Making friends with like-minded people is super important to me as someone who works (mostly) alone. When we began this exchange I looked up your games and played many of them. I almost want to ask you about your decisions and intentions with the games to find out if my assumptions were intentional decisions. But I believe at this point it would be a terrible idea to ask. So I'll just say I admire your work and I'm looking forward to your future projects. I'm glad we both did this letter series so I had a chance to learn about your perspectives.

In service of revealing truths, I'll admit that I know Davey (the person, not the character) and I was privileged to play an unfinished version of Beginner's Guide earlier this year. In the game's credits my name is in the Special Thanks section. I can't say for sure if playing that unfinished version influenced the final product, or skews my perceptions about how the game turned out in the end. I can say it strikes me as an incredibly honest story about creativity, people, vulnerability, self-worth, and self-protection. These days so many vocal people are negative, sarcastic, cynical, dismissive, and outright cruel to others who do intensely difficult and creative work. It's important to me to balance that voice with a positive outlook. I believe that all human expression is valuable, and our nature to step on each other, and claim ownership of something we like that somebody else made needs to be surfaced. It's important for us to speak with honesty about these issues, so that we may understand ourselves and others a little better. Steve Jobs never wrote a line of code that powers the iPhone, but culturally he's considered the inventor. What's up with that?

To finish, I want to talk about the space between the two doors. From a literal perspective, the two doors are a recurring puzzle with the same solution: pull the lever to open the front door, close in and step inside before it shuts. On the other side of the closed door is another lever which opens the other door. It's a puzzle about permanently closing a gate separating you from the place you came from; from the past. It's a metaphor for time, for being unable to look back, restricting yourself to only moving forward. And it lets you take your time to sit in the dark space as long as you want to. It's hidden, like a place shut off from the world; from people, from observation, from sensory stimulus. A place to rest, peacefully until you are ready to do the only thing you can do -- move forward.

I love how the beautiful house that is filled with mundane chores and another housekeeper is situated in the dark space between the doors. It's almost like the space between everything we strive to do is a space of necessity. A single friend to talk to and a lot of simple but tedious life tasks to perform. And it's one of the most graphically rich sequences in the game. I don't know about you, but I get so lost in my thoughts while writing code -- "does this work?" ~ "what would make this better?" ~ "how do I communicate this to players" ~ "will people find this fun?" -- it can be all-consuming of my consciousness and I forget about my chores, my cat, the time of day, how long it's been since I've eaten. The idea of just tending to my home in a simple way with a friend to talk to sounds like a kind of paradise. And I'm glad Davey took joy in knowing that Coda thought it was his finest work.

The first title of the credits is "For R." Who is R?

-Samantha

tl;dr It's not very interesting; mostly a bunch of cliches. One bit I did find interesting, though, is that the only interactive part of the game, a puzzle of sorts, is also the game's most meaningless and repetitive element. I do feel like that's supposed to intentionally get the anti-puzzle and anti-"progression" message across, which would be in line with the notgame ideology. I didn't notice it when I played the game, but it does make a lot of sense.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Anyway, in latest notgame news, Tale of Tales launched a KS for their next media experience:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/taleoftales/cathedral-in-the-clouds-contemplation-in-the-digit

Well, it's funded rather dramatically.

CUISX9oXIAA0kSc.png
 

Space Insect

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
868
Location
Shaggai
So I read the writeup that Tales of Tales had for their first diorama, Eve and Maria. It was painful. These people are trying to sound knowledgeable about something they clearly have no ida about: Catholicism. They try to insert their tumblr beliefs into all of it while trying to sound like they see all the inner symbolism.
inb4 "You don't know anything about Catholics" because yes, I am Catholic.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
With Her Story having won multiple awards at Geoff Keighley's show today, notgames are officially mainstream now.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
notgames are officially mainstream now.

Indeed. Now there's even a Sony funded game with notgame feature.



Bound is a 3D platformer designed for people with the desire to concentrate on the narrative side of games and experience a mature story. On the other side of the spectrum, Bound is also being prepared for hardcore gamers looking for the challenge of one big puzzle that can be only solved by a community of players working together.

The result: we are going to deliver a “notgame” to you, which is also a game. It’s up to you to decide how you would like to play.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/12/03/bound-revealed-for-ps4/
 

Space Insect

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
868
Location
Shaggai
notgames are officially mainstream now.

Indeed. Now there's even a Sony funded game with notgame feature.



Bound is a 3D platformer designed for people with the desire to concentrate on the narrative side of games and experience a mature story. On the other side of the spectrum, Bound is also being prepared for hardcore gamers looking for the challenge of one big puzzle that can be only solved by a community of players working together.

The result: we are going to deliver a “notgame” to you, which is also a game. It’s up to you to decide how you would like to play.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/12/03/bound-revealed-for-ps4/

inb4 "tasteful mature ballet rape"
 

AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,728
I bought a Gear VR from Best Buy this weekend and gave Land's End a shot. The puzzles are beyond stupid, but it confirmed my prediction that these "Interactive Experiences" are much more compelling in VR. I never would have bothered finishing that game in 2D, but with the extra immersion of a headset it was enjoyable.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
I guess enjoyment of titles like this depends somewhat on the expectations you start with. (snip...)

Indeed! If you expected to enjoy the game thing, you will be unpleasantly surprised. However, if you didn't expect to enjoy it, you won't be disappointed.
 

Longshanks

Augur
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
897
Location
Australia.
With Her Story having won multiple awards at Geoff Keighley's show today, notgames are officially mainstream now.
So I guess this means I have now played a notgame?

I've seen the argument that "Her Story", at a high level, is no different to say "Monkey Island" in its mechanics and is therefore a game. To progress in Monkey Island you need to use the right item, to progress in Her Story you need to use the right word.

http://www.theastronauts.com/2015/08/what-her-story-tells-us-about-the-current-state-of-video-games/

I don't find anything particularly wrong with this argument, even if intuitively I'd define HS as a nongame and MI as a game. There is more going on in Monkey Island than in Her Story, for sure, but if defining media as "games" or "not games" is simply a matter of degree, it's going to become a real mess. I think there needs to be more to it than that given that the distinction between "game" and "not game" is going to be given more weight than say between RPG or Action RPG. The game elements of Her Story could barely be weaker (even weaker when I stumbled on the trick to get all clips part way through), but given that they are there, I think it is still a game and that it would have been a lesser experience were it presented as a single clip.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
To give a very quick comment, as far as I understand this, "notgames" are not simply "not games" - you obviously still walk around, progress things, click on things, or input words (like in "Her Story"), and yes, the experience would be weaker in any of them if it were presented as a single clip. They do have a certain minimum of, and/or an unorthodox take on, gameplay, that's the entire point. They are notgames by virtue of deconstructing and being critical (i.e. a critique of) games as traditionally conceived, with the latter's traditional notions of challenge, player agency, story, completion ("beating" the game), etc. It's a conceptual, not just an intuitive thing or a matter of degree.
 

Cassidy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2007
Messages
7,922
Location
Vault City
There is no real deconstruction going on, for that presumes a degree of critical thought and self-critique completely nonexistent in the typical developers of such pieces of shit. It's just hipsters being hipsters, metaphorically taking a dump on a Game Maker utility and labeling it art in a circlejerk with their fellow cultists of the churches of "progressives". It's not even gaming itself, but their fake, pretentious "notgames are art" that is in a serious need of being deconstructed, ridiculed and satirized without mercy until they crawl back to their "safe spaces", only leaving to flip burgers in a fast food joint for a living, and never go beyond their tiny cliques again.

*Edit:

I see where the AAA publishers are looking at: no gameplay equals near zero risk in game development and much smaller budgets outside of hype. Just marketing, bribery for the usual shills and it's a guaranteed success given the malleable masses can be manipulated to believe such postmodernist design is the "next-gen of gaming".
 

Mustawd

Guest
Is the consensus that these type of non games are not real money makers? If so, then it's interesting that this kind of experimentation is going on at all. Is it just a way to stretch the medium or a high risk venture to cash in on the increasingly cinematic make-up and interactivity of video games?

One can also argue that these walking simulators are nothing more than precursors of true Virtual Reality. Aka the Ultimate Walking simulator. Without the gameplay of course.
 

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
Location
Tampon Bay
If so, then it's interesting that this kind of experimentation is going on at all. Is it just a way to stretch the medium or a high risk venture to cash in on the increasingly cinematic make-up and interactivity of video games?

Because no idea is too stupid for someone to try it out, especially someone on the intellectual level of a child. Not games are born by people who only know how to make 3d models and put them into a sample app, but dont understand programming on a deeper level. Instead of doing something about it they decide to simply skip that superfluous stuff and make a "game" right away. A game without gameplay, an empty soulless 3d movie that only hipsters want to see.
 

Mustawd

Guest
That makes sense. I've definitely seen seen plenty of that on the blender forums. It's weird to me that these things continue being made. But like you said...it's probably easy to make a few 3D assets, drop them in somewhere, and throw in minimal hipster dialogue.

EDIT: It actually reminds me of modern art. In which plenty of "artists" were freed from the expectation of technical competency to just throw stuff on a canvas according to their feelz. If that's the case, then it seems that we're in a for a lot of shitty walking shovelware.

Hold on to your seats...

boat-faceplant.gif
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Longshanks

Augur
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
897
Location
Australia.
To give a very quick comment, as far as I understand this, "notgames" are not simply "not games" - you obviously still walk around, progress things, click on things, or input words (like in "Her Story"), and yes, the experience would be weaker in any of them if it were presented as a single clip. They do have a certain minimum of, and/or an unorthodox take on, gameplay, that's the entire point. They are notgames by virtue of deconstructing and being critical (i.e. a critique of) games as traditionally conceived, with the latter's traditional notions of challenge, player agency, story, completion ("beating" the game), etc. It's a conceptual, not just an intuitive thing or a matter of degree.
Yeah I get that notgames are more of a "movement" and Her Story may fit within that. There are however those like "Dear Esther" which are literally not games, whereas something like Her Story does have a game element to it. I think it's important to distinguish between the two.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
I might be completely off on this since I haven't played any "not games", but looking from outside I think what matters is "intent". Adventure games are about puzzles. Sure, everyone likes Guybrush, but MI is remember because it had good puzzles, not because Guybrush was cool. If you look at some interviews and discussions about old adventure games then they'll usually focus on puzzle design, how to design good puzzles, how to pace them to not overload the player, should there be "walking dead" situations and so on. Nobody is really talking about how to write cool story. Story is usually brought up only to make a point how puzzles and story shouldn't go into separate directions.

What I see in "not games" is that developers are not really interested in puzzles. They want to tell some kinda story or show something cool. Interactive elements come after that and usually not because developer wants them to add but feels that it is required - otherwise he won't be making a "game", but a movie. So puzzles and interaction are there more to "push the story forward" instead of providing gameplay.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
Looked at couple of videos of Her Story. I think its a clever idea in a way, you give bunch of short interviews that you can build into one big story. I actually like such forms of storytelling and many movies/books/comics use similar technique to tell story out of order that finally clicks together in the end. And thats really the problem, you can do same stuff in other mediums perfectly so why even bother with "game" part*? As I understand it doesn't have any verbs like old text adventures ("go north" for example), its just that each video has tags and you input keywords that either return relevant video or don't. Thats really same as me using google when I'm searching for some information, only difference that I'm usually typing more complex things than "her story".

I think it actually makes this stuff worse. In movie or a book author can control the pace at which player receives information. Here you do it on your own (I read some comments that its possible to see last clips "too early" and ruin the experience) and you are likely to get "inferior" story than what author intended.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom