Linear Vs. Interactive!

Landfish · 2003-03-05T05:43:19

Gojira Tai Mosura! All games today are either Linear or Semi-Linear. I'm am sick of people using "Linear Plot" like a dirty word. Guess what? When it comes to single player games, it will be a sad sad day when you can affect a game's story in any drastic manner. Case in point: Multiple Endings. Multiple endings kill stories. The ending is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF A STORY, no contest! To dilute the theme of a story by adding alternate endings is entirely detrimental to the meaning of the story you have constructed. Take Hamlet: If you were in control of Hamlet in that last scene with the sword fight... Let's say there were alternate endings. If you fought well enough, you'd never be hit, and thus never poisoned. You wouldn't die, and thus there would be a "happy" ending. Hence, the ENTIRE MESSAGE of sacrifice and desparation is lost! C'mon. Linear plots RULE! I sit down, and I want to recieve a well thought out, entertaining story. Even better if it gives me the ILLUSION of control (well), but the story MUST BE IN TACT! I know, I know. Why play a video game at all? Why not just watch a movie if you have no control over the outcome? There is a sympathetic reaction that you aren't usually aware of when playing a game. Especially in Linear plots. The character's adversity is your adversity, the character's failure is your failure. The story WILL NOT conitnue if you aren't involved. Most Square games have confusing, convoluted, downright shallow plots. Why do people love them? Because this Sympathetic reaction can get us obsessed with even the most shallow and cliched stories. What happens when you apply that technique to a carefully laid out, linear story? A really good one? I'll tell you. You die. When the game is over, you feel like you have lived another life, it is the single greatest thing I have ever felt (short of well, y'know). But if people continue to gravitate towards interactivity (in the sense that the user directly changes the outcome) then there will be no more games like that! Urp! Bim Bim Bim! So I say F*ck all this "You decide your Fate" crap. Give me a story in steps, where I have to get in there and make things happen to see how it ends! Flame away! I'm ready. This post was brought to you by the letter "Land", and the number "Fish!" Edited by - Landfish on 6/9/00 5:35:16 PM

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Landfish June 09, 2000 05:31 PM

187 comments, last by Landfish 21 years, 1 month ago

Fantasy Edge

122

August 14, 2000 06:05 AM

...

Die by means of the all mighty pen attack(the main character is writer and the computer provides them with inspiration. Linier o not)

{event begin bwammo
if (flag(1)=0) inflict bwammo
if (flag(0)=1) inflict basho
end bwammo event}

dwarfsoft

1,237

August 14, 2000 06:12 AM

I thought we already agreed to disagree on that? Owell

. SO the player makes their own story? Kinda like real life? A sim... sounds like a pretty boring game, unless you impose a certain number of events on them... BTW... That is INTERACTIVE -> no linearity left

Until you add in my $(2*rant/100)

*THUMP*
How about a non-linear, non-interactive game that the character just chooses their story... its called scripting

. Seriously though -> How about an interactive story that the player finds out in the end was actually linear, would be amusing to notice that they actually had NO CHOICE in the matter, but a bit hard to do effectively

. Sorry, out of ideas for tonight

*POW!* <- Haven''t seen that one in a while

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Fantasy Edge

122

August 14, 2000 07:15 AM

OK ok ok. But what if the story was linier to the point of having several main events but many ways of attaining them? What if the main characer is out to write a story thats unlike anyhing else. well through the course of the game, they would write stuff and then there book is used in the new game + for another story. You would compleate quests and gain idea blocks. the order you complete quests determins the blocks you get and when. the first time through is linier but the second time, the comp looks up your available blocks of inspiration and puts together new events that occur. narrowing the main events from to 50 in a linier order to 10 that are linier but all the others can be placed in any order of your chooseing. think of them as the time index. they all link together and create a story. hmmm, this is a lot like the world creating system in legend of mana really but a little more cutsy

But im thinking you will think this is a stupid idea..

Fantasy Edge

122

August 14, 2000 07:20 AM

Stupid god forsaken image links...

Why does my life have to be so hard in every world?

dwarfsoft

1,237

August 14, 2000 08:40 AM

Umm... I think you will find that that is called Tree-Branched non-linearity, it is still scripted and therefore not interactive, but carefully done to LOOK interactive. I believe that we mentioned it somewhere in this thread

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Paul Cunningham

122

March 05, 2003 01:47 AM

Hmmm, anyone else got something to say bout this?

neurokaotix

100

March 05, 2003 01:53 AM

Yeah, why the hell did you dig this up from the grave? This thread is almost 3 years old.

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Alpha_ProgDes

6,963

March 05, 2003 02:14 AM

quote:Original post by Paul Cunningham
Hmmm, anyone else got something to say bout this?

you realize you''re getting banned right??

bad necromancer... bad

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Sandman

2,211

March 05, 2003 05:40 AM

I don't really mind the odd bit of thread necromancy in this forum - provided some interesting discussion comes about as a result of it.

However, this is a long thread, and I don't think many people are going to read the whole thing. I think summarizing the key points in a new thread, plus a link to this one would be better.

[edited by - Sandman on March 5, 2003 6:43:16 AM]

Linear Vs. Interactive!

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