Comments on: To Deconstruct a Story

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:34:41 +0000

An addendum to this would be that Spore is a pretty fun game with something of an arc to it, but again, it’s very simplified and built entirely from interaction. It’s a fairly successful demonstration of Wil’s point. It still doesn’t make for particularly compelling narrative, but then, he obviously figures (and rightly so) that people will be happy enough writing their own stories.

I don’t know if I equate it so much with fanfic, which uses known stories and builds off of them, so much as it reminds me of the kind of fiction we were told to write in grade school. It’s that level of narrative skill we’re talking about. Fun on an individual, experiential level, but not really all that great for a recap. It would be like sitting and watching the family vacation slide show: to enjoy it properly, you really had to be there.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:54:24 +0000

I think Mory probably has the best take on it. Wil’s not a storyteller, and the limited means of cause and effect in his games are really tailored to exactly what he does and nothing more. I find it a fundamental failure of the medium, but as a tool or toy, it’s charming in its own way. That said, i stopped using Sims II quite a while ago. After you’ve built a handful of strange places, the limitations of the tools just get in the way, even with copious hacks.

In the end, Wil makes games. Pure interactivity is a good goal in itself, and so long as there are people out there like Wil, we need never fear for that end of the pool. Frees me up to think about other things for the medium.

By: Mory Buckman

Mory Buckman — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:22:31 +0000

Keep in mind, Will Wright is not a storyteller. He is a toolmaker. His field is simulation strategy games, big complex systems which he lets the player mess around with. He is not capable of making an adventure game or a movie. But at what he does he’s brilliant, and his positions on such things as stories only need to be applicable to that medium.

From that perspective, his argument is a good one. He wants to inspire fan-fiction because he’s creating tools with which fan-fiction can be created. He doesn’t want to impose his own limited characters, because it’ll clash with how the player sees things.

By: TwinMoon

TwinMoon — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:09:23 +0000

Easily deconstructed stories are not the best, they’re the easiest to write for a game designer.

Using archetypes can be useful in the beginning since the audience immediately knows how that character behaves, but I’d be offended if there wouldn’t be some depth added later on.

In my opinion the best games are those in which you always know what you’re supposed to do, but have multiple things to do.
Like your own “Game that Takes Place on a Cruise Ship” (although the mission “Enjoy yourself on a cruise ship” isn’t a very strong assignment). Other examples are GTA and Monkey Island 1 & 2.

And fanfiction… well. Fans generally write bad stories, since they’re too much in love with their subject.

By: Giligan

Giligan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:51:38 +0000

I agree, but only because I’m heavily biased against any game that doesn’t have a linear story. Sandbox games tend to have little or no story, the exception being recent games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Oblivion, because the outcome of the story in both of those games was the same regardless of the player’s actions. Even when I was beta-testing Chivalry is Not Dead, I found that the multiple outcomes in each sitation destroyed the narrative for me, and that goes for any game that doesn’t progress in a 1-2-3 manner. Sanbox games are especially true of this, so it’s easy to see how a sandbox game designer would think that way. It’s the only way he can think, really, if he wants to keep his job.

By: SSH

SSH — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:12:52 +0000

Squnks, you’re just showing off again that YOU don’t need “advice on how to get into the game industry”

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:01:30 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. I can see why he’s come to the conclusion he has; it’s simply easier to make big interactive fiction if you can do so with standardised narrative building blocks. In the same way physics and graphics engine middle-ware make it easier for developers to furnish huge and detailed virtual worlds. But the trade off is the same, you’ll never get the best out of the hardware with off the shelf components and you’ll never get the best out of the human imagination with interchangeable story blocks.

The Darth Vader vs Voldemort idea kind of highlights the problem, even though they’re both pretty generic characters taking them out of their context – the logicaly consistent fantasy universes they inhabit – makes no sense, both characters are a product of the history and environment of their different generic fantasy worlds. Removing them from that context just makes them ciphers.

(c.f. putting Darth Vader in Soul Calibur: Ruins the consistency of the Soul Calibur world and aesthetic, not really a problem for a game like that where narrative is background but for a game seriously trying to tell a story it would be pure poison)

By: Max Battcher

Max Battcher — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:46:37 +0000

I don’t find deconstructionist toolkits like The Sims all that useful for emergent storytelling. Interesting tools for machinima artists certainly, but I certainly don’t think Spore will revolutionize storytelling. Sounds like Wright’s been spending too much time in his own sandboxes and too little time with great literature…

By: CloudStrifeNBHM

CloudStrifeNBHM — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:21:27 +0000

I think Mr. Wright’s position makes sense in the context of his current project (spore). I don’t know what he mentioned at the talk you were at, but he also is a big proponent of the “player story” vs. the “designer story”. So if it sounds like he enjoys fan fiction, you can see why; he seems to be in favor of universal, “every man” sort of experiences. Maybe he’s just tired of stories which tend to leave the majority of the population lost? Better mediocre than priggish? *shrugs*

By: The Management

The Management — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:38:33 +0000

Answer, ComradeNarf: When somebody asks me to.

Edmundo: He actually told them to make lots of games, which is exactly what I would have said (and exactly what I did). A point of agreement, for once. Still, your suggestion’s probably more realistic.