Deirdra Kiai Productions

How is a game different from a movie?

The Management — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:32:20 +0000

First things first: now that the deadline for artwork submissions has “passed”, so to speak, I think it’s time to give a tally of sorts. I have received a total of fifteen scenes, which will definitely be more than enough for what I need, so I won’t accept any more unless you’re really, really burning to join in on the fun, in which case I might make an exception or two. Four of these scenes have already been written, which means that there has been progress, so to speak. I can’t really give much of an estimate as to when this project will be up for public consumption, though, particularly given that I’m now working full-time at Hothead and there’s no telling how much of my creative energy this will eat up in the not-too-distant future. [1]

I will, however, reveal that the title will be Des Rêves Élastiques Avec Mille Insectes Nommés Georges, or DREAMING for short. Yes, I decided to revisit my love for obscenely long titles, last seen in TGTTPOACS, except this time you can, you know, actually pronounce the acronym. Plus, this time, the title’s in French, so you know it’s all artistic and avant-garde and stuff. Titter titter.

All right, now that the administrivia is over and done with, let’s get to the real topic of this post, which is the difference between a story-based video game and a movie. Now, this is something that’s frequently brought up whenever people discuss the role of storytelling in games. I get the impression that to most gamers, the difference is “gameplay”, e.g. dexterity challenges, logic puzzles, and anything else with rules, goals, and clear win/lose states. The argument therefore is — and forgive me in advance if I’m attacking a straw man here — that if you remove all the gameplay, all you’re left with is a “movie”, and usually one that is highly inferior to everything in your prized DVD collection, to boot.

While I won’t argue against the fact that most game storytelling is a smouldering mass of poo, I’m not quite convinced that games lose their inherent value when stripped of their gameplay. Surely, one can argue that they’re no longer “games”, but I think they’re still very much able to be “played”. For one thing, you’ll still be able to freely explore the environment you’re in, and choose the scenes you wish to visit at any given point in time. In a movie, you don’t have this luxury. You go where the camera takes you, and that’s pretty much that. The fact that I could wander around Rubacava, breathing in the sights and sounds at my own pace, taking a walk in a fictional, stylized world I couldn’t experience in real life, [2] was what made Grim Fandango special to me in a way that, say, Casablanca wasn’t able to.

And the exploration doesn’t necessarily have to be spatial, either; you have just as much potential when it comes to character interactions (just to pick one of my favourite topics). You can probe deeply into the ones you resonate with, and completely ignore the ones you don’t. Sometimes, you can also change the way they feel about you, but that’s not always necessary. [3]

So, in essence, what differentiates a “game” from a “movie”, in my mind, is the ability to explore. This isn’t “gameplay” per se, because exploration doesn’t really have any rules or pre-defined goals. This isn’t to say that I don’t like having rules and goals at all; the truth is, for someone who values exploration, I don’t play very many “sandbox”-style games. It’s more that the kinds of rule sets I prefer are those imposed by the presence of a story, which, ironically enough, are what make games more similar to movies rather than different. The goal is to uncover the story and see it to a conclusion of sorts. The difference is that I get to control how I reach that goal, rather than watch someone else do it.

Mind you, I’m not saying there’s no value in the deliberate pacing set by a skilled filmmaker. There’s obviously decades of tried-and-true theory therein, most of which I haven’t actually studied and am therefore probably only aware of subconsciously. However, there’s also the inescapable fact that pacing, among myriad other things, is not a one-size-fits-all affair; I’ve completely lost count of how many movies have put me to sleep or led me to completely lose patience and wonder when the damn thing would end already. Who knows, maybe the point of all this newfangled computational power will be to tailor storytelling experiences to the individual and to resonate personally with people in a way that we weren’t able to previously.

Just sayin’.

Footnotes:

The same applies for Stage!, except the problem is compounded by two busy schedules as opposed to just one. ↩
Reasons like these are why I tend to be so much against photorealism in games. If I want photorealism, why don’t I just go outside? And if I want to see explosions and realistic blood splatters — which the neo-hippie pacifist in me would rather not, thankyouverymuch — I can just watch the news, can’t I? ↩
Of course, I’m speaking in terms of ideals here. In practice, games succeed in spatial exploration far more than they do in character modelling. This may or may not have to do with gender biases in the industry. I enjoy both, but I find myself skewing more towards the latter in my own work, owing both to a desire to level the playing field and to a lack of formal visual arts training. ↩

So, where’s all this artwork going, anyway?

The Management — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:28:22 +0000

I’ve received nine submissions to my call for artwork so far, with a small handful of others who’ve said they plan to contribute as well. I have to admit, this is a lot more than I expected, though I suspect the project in question will be better for it — the more places to explore, the better, right? Anyway, given that so many people seem to be intrigued, I thought I’d talk a little bit about what this thing’s all about, and what you all can expect. [1]

The game’s another one of those not-really-a-game games I’ve been tinkering with lately. It’s a series of disjoint interactive conversational vignettes that all make up a single dream sequence. These vignettes are randomized into a different order each playthrough, highlighting the absence of a coherent, author-generated plot progression. Instead, much like dreams themselves, the plot becomes a creation of the player, who pieces what they’ve just seen into their own personal narrative. They have no control over the images presented to them, but it’s up to them to decide what they mean.

Where the different pieces of artwork come in is in the writing of the vignettes themselves. I am, in fact, using what people give me as prompts, similarly to how an improv theatre piece is performed. Thus, it can be said that even though I’m doing all the actual writing, you, the audience, actually have an influence on what the story turns out to be. This is the reason I didn’t ask for very many specifics in what kind of artwork I needed; I intentionally wanted the most random assortment possible.

So, yes, this is definitely my weirdest project yet. Now that I’m going to be working full-time in the industry, I’m trying to spend as much of my solo game development time as possible doing what I can’t get paid to do. Can you tell?

Footnotes:

I won’t have this luxury once I’m working on games that have NDAs attached to them, so I’d better take advantage of it while I still can! ↩

Gaming Preferences Meme

The Management — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:14:16 +0000

I came across yet another Adventure Gamers thread started by some game developer trying to solicit statistics on what people enjoy and don’t enjoy in games. While I made it clear that I don’t condone developing games based on such statistics, I later came back and decided to answer the questions anyway, changing them a bit to make it clear that the answers are my personal preferences rather than a reflection of a subgroup of “adventure gamers” as a whole. So, without further ado, here they are…

1. How important is the originality of the story to the game? Do you enjoy a more simple story with complex puzzles or do you want a more literary story that demands some “interpretation” from the player? Do you want to play a game that’s heavily laden with allegory and symbolism? Or do you feel that heavy stories are reserved for books?

First of all, I think the “heavy stories are reserved for books” sentiment is silly, mainly because most books being sold nowadays aren’t really that heavy at all. (I’m thinking Harlequin romances and airport thrillers and the like.) That being said, for all media, including games, I like there to be a broad variety of stories in existence, so that I can pick and choose what I’m in the mood for at a given moment in time. Hence, I believe that people can and should make whatever kinds of games they want, though I’m more inclined to support those who attempt something that hasn’t really been done before. Usually, this does in fact mean complex stories, but I can be just as impressed with a story that’s simple and yet profound, or a game that doesn’t have much of a story but delivers clever dialogue or a good sense of atmosphere.

As for the old “good story vs. complex puzzles” chestnut, I would also say that it depends on my mood. Generally, while puzzle games are fun for me, it’s the story games that tend to stick as having an impact on me as a person. There are, of course, rare cases in which a complex puzzle actually does have a good story behind it: What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed is, in my opinion, the best example of this.

2. Do you like the traditional adventure game mechanics of puzzle solving and conversations? What about mini-games? Do you like Indigo Prophecy “simon says” mini-games? Or do you like more in-world games a la the combat system in Dreamfall?

I like traditional AG mechanics when they fit the situation in which they are placed. I don’t like them when they feel too much like arbitrarily-placed obstacles to exploring the story. Same goes with minigames, though my usual complaint with the latter is poor implementation rather than hatred for minigames in principle. In general, I prefer gameplay to be exploratory, not punitive.

I haven’t played Indigo Prophecy, and Dreamfall’s combat system wasn’t terribly impressive.

3. How do you feel about viewpoint? Do you like a first person view like Myst or more third person like Gabriel Knight (btw, that’s my favorite adventure game of all time)? How about controls? Point-and-click or “WASD” FPS-type controls?

I definitely have more of a third-person preference, because I find it more interesting to play as the conscience of a well-defined character rather than as myself. Also, those kinds of stories tend to be better-written; it’s generally quite boring to make your protagonist a one-size-fits-all everyman, not to mention unintentionally exclusive to minorities. As for controls, I’m more comfortable with point-and-click, though I have played WASD games and enjoyed them.

4. How about replayability? Is that really important? Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis had a cool system that allowed some replayability. Did you enjoy this?

Most good games are inherently replayable in the same way that good books and movies can be enjoyed more than once. Many of them are replayable simply because not everyone sees all there is to see on their first playthrough; there may be non-essential items you didn’t examine, or conversation threads with characters you didn’t explore. However, since you’re talking about FoA (another game I haven’t played), I’m assuming you’re talking about replayability stemming from multilinearity in stories. I think that the ability to have multiple outcomes of a story stemming from choices you made as a player is a definitive strength of the medium, and I myself have attempted to make use of it. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s essential, but it can be very effective if done well.

5. What are your thoughts on incorporating game mechanics that people can return to over and over? For instance, an adventure game could have a game of checkers that needs to be played once to get past a certain point but then could be replayed later for fun.

I programmed the Blackjack minigame in CSI: Hard Evidence, and often went back to play it when I was bored. ‘Nuff said. Again, it depends on how well it’s implemented.

6. Do you own a Wii? I really think this is a great platform for adventure games.

Yes, and I agree. I still have yet to see a sufficiently effective implementation thereof, however.

7. Do you have any ideas on incorporating new types of gameplay into the adventure genre? I am open to any suggestions.

Multiple puzzle solutions, different relationships with characters based on previous actions, more interesting conversation trees… wait, do they still count as “new” if I’ve used them before?

Isolation is the new hawt thang these days…

The Management — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:06:39 +0000

I read a post over at Man Bytes Blog today about themes of isolation, how they’re so popular in movies and such these days, and how not enough games intentionally exploit said themes, even despite the fact that games are inherently isolating. And then I felt really really good about myself because lo and behold, my most recent games actually do deal quite a bit with isolation in their subject matter. Of course, being a little indie designer whose work attracts a niche audience the size of a protozoa, no one really cares all that much. Still, maybe that Corvus Elrod dude might get a kick out of the fact that hey, not all proponents of “games as art” lie purely on the side of theory. Some of them, you know, actually make stuff.

Yeah. Anywho. For one thing, ever since I was a teenager, it always struck me how all those adventure games I played involved a protagonist who was so… solitary. I mean, yes, most games in general feature a character who goes around and does his or her own thing, but for some reason, it stuck out a lot more in adventure games because they’re so much closer to what people do in their everyday lives. And when you’re a teenager, and everyone around you is doing things in packs, sometimes it just becomes a breath of fresh air to discover how much fun it is to wander around your world alone to your leisure. Yes, you have the occasional social contact in the form of in-game dialogues, but you’re still an autonomous entity. After the conversation is over, you go off and do your own thing.

The observation that my life sometimes feels like an adventure game was sort of the basis behind The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship. There’s this character who’s a lot like me, walking around, exploring, comfortable with her aloneness. Then, she meets this sheltered prince who’s also alone, but depressed and suicidal because of it. He’s stuck and he needs adventure, and then winds up latching on to the girl, who sort of “saves” him in a way.

In Chivalry is Not Dead, Phlegmwad has his aloneness forced upon him by dint of being born an ugly monster, but he’s grown used to it, and has developed a healthy dose of sarcasm about it as a result. He meets the Queen of Everything, who (depending on how you approach her) reveals herself to be just as lonely, even despite the fact that she’s beautiful and powerful. She masks such insecurities in snottiness, and most players, I’ve found, end up not liking her all that much as a result. Rather like how I feel people tend to perceive me at times, I have to say.

Pigeons in the Park lacks any kind of autonomous wandering around in a physical space; its entirety is a conversation, perhaps the least isolating thing I’ve done, gameplay-wise. And yet, the two protagonists spend a lot of time talking about how out-of-step they feel in relation to the rest of the world. No surprise, really, given that it’s my life in a nutshell.

And finally, there’s When We Were Kids, which is about dealing with the school bully and the cold, harsh reality that you can only do it yourself, that no adult is going to help you. If that’s not about isolation, I don’t have any idea what is.

So, there you have it! If you want to explore the theme of isolation in game form, look no further, because there are at least four games out there that have just what you’re looking for. Isn’t that amazing or what?

Attention All (Visual) Artists!

The Management — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:58:26 +0000

Okay, so here’s the thing. I’ve got this little strange-but-personally-meaningful game project idea that’s been kicking in my head for the past little while. However, to bring it to life, I’m going to need some help. Specifically, I need some artwork. I’m trying to go for an art style that changes in every scene, and I figure that the best way to accomplish this will be to get each scene to be created by a separate artist. Hence, I’ve decided to go looking for artists in perhaps the quickest and most convenient place possible: the vast, random depths of the internet!

If this piques your interest at all, and if you have any rudimentary idea at all as to how to create adventure game graphics, what I want you to do is create one background image and (at least) one character in any style you’d like, and send them to “me at deirdrakiai dot com”. Details are as follows…

———

You can send me artwork from a game you’ve already created, are in the middle of creating, or started creating but stopped. Or you can send me something completely new and different. Whatever the case may be, as long as it’s your own work and hasn’t been stolen from anyone, I’ll take it.

The game will use an 800×600 resolution, meaning that I’d prefer for all artwork to be in that aspect ratio. If you’d prefer to use a different resolution (e.g. if you’re a pixel artist), that’s fine with me; however, be aware that your work will be scaled up/down accordingly.

Your character only really needs to face one direction and include a talking animation. Anything more than that is purely optional. Heck, anything less is an option as well, particularly if you decide to use an inanimate object as your character. Also, feel free to include more than one character, if you wish.

If there’s a backstory to your artwork, write me a paragraph or so about it so that I can make references to it in the finished product. Alternatively, don’t give me a backstory at all, and I’ll be happy to invent one for you.

I’d ideally like to get submissions within the month of April, but I’m flexible.

Finally, please feel free to send me something unconventional. If you’re terrible at drawing or 3D modelling, I’m all for accepting a collage of photos, or even extremely ugly MS Paint scribbles. The idea is, after all, for every scene to look different, so if everyone’s artwork looks like it was ripped straight from The Curse of Monkey Island, it’s not going to work!

…and I think that’s it. Let me know if you have any further questions, and I’ll answer them in this post.

Big News!

The Management — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:29:49 +0000

I’ve had my eye on Hothead Games ever since I found out that Ron Gilbert was working for them. The fact that they do episodic indie games, have a good relationship with the Telltale folks, and are based in my current hometown is nice enough, but honestly, any company that’s smart enough to hire the creator of the Monkey Island™ series — one of the defining inspirations of my formative indie adventure game developer years — is definitely worth working for.

Bearing this in mind, I’m very proud to announce that as of this coming May, only days after my long-awaited graduation from university, I am going to be working at Hothead full-time as a programmer. [1] They’ll be putting me on DeathSpank, the episodic adventure/RPG that Ron’s been trying to get made for the past handful of years, which I’m super excited about because it espouses many ideals similar to what I attempted with Chivalry is Not Dead, namely morally complex situations and a silly, satirical outlook on your average video game story. In other words, you should all be looking forward to it, if you aren’t already.

P.S. Happy Pi Day!

Footnotes:

That is, unless I wake up and discover that this is all a dream. Which is actually not too far-fetched an idea, come to think of it. ↩

Obligatory GDC Writeup

The Management — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:27:39 +0000

As I mentioned earlier, last week, I went to my second GDC, which was very enjoyable, as always. Though oddly enough, this time around the actual conference sessions weren’t all that interesting. Or at least, not as interesting as I remember them being last year. Maybe because game developers, by and large, tend to keep saying the same things every year, but since I was a first-timer, it was all new to me. Then again, this year, people seemed a little more all-around optimistic about the state of innovation and creativity in games, perhaps owing to the success of things like Portal, which I promise myself I’m going to play once I finally get a new computer.

Was it still worth going? Definitely. Not just because I had an excuse to visit San Francisco, but because I got to be surrounded by game developers again for the first time in what seemed like forever. People who are highly intelligent, highly creative, and highly passionate about the same things I’m passionate about. Indie games, serious games, comedic games, games from the perspectives of women and other minorities, games that tell compelling interactive stories, and games that change the world for the better… you name it, I got to have a conversation about it with someone, in the flesh. And that’s really an experience I don’t get to have every day.

Personal highlights include the following: Marek Bronstring’s voice, which he’d completely lost early in the week resulting in him sounding like an evil swamp creature; meeting Dave Gilbert again, this time accompanied with his lovely British programmer girlfriend Janet (FEMALE PROGRAMMERS FOR THE WIN!) and occasionally Edmundo Ruiz, a guy I’ve known on the internet since the days of SCRAMM; seeing my Telltale buddies again and meeting a few of the new hires (and the pretty new office!) they’ve accumulated since I went back to school; and looking sadly at the IGF student finalists that completely edged out Chivalry for a chance at the awards. More to come soonish…

Being a Girl on Teh Intarweb

The Management — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:47:22 +0000

I remember when I first started posting on message boards some time in my early teens, how people, by and large, always tended to assume I was male unless I told them otherwise. My usernames were usually on the gender-neutral side, and my writing style back then was very concise and to the point; those factors, combined with the statistical likelihood of most forum posters in my spheres of interest being male, were probably what made people default to such assumptions about me, even though I don’t recall anything about my approaches being particularly masculine. It seemed like the only time people would really call someone’s gender into question was when they had a particularly feminine-sounding username or choice of words.

I find it interesting that, back then, whenever people referred to me by the wrong gender, my instinctual reaction was to correct them. Although I’m far from stereotypically feminine, it never occurred to me to keep my gender ambiguous, or even to pretend to be male, as several people I know have done mainly for safety reasons. I’m not sure why this is, but I’m hypothesizing that it may have to do with me wanting to “prove” certain things about my gender, that it’s okay for a girl to like video games and other geeky pursuits instead of clothes and makeup and the like. [1] And as I’ve likely expressed before, I haven’t really experienced all that much misogyny, particularly over more recent years, as I’ve become known for my tendency towards sarcasm and a general I-don’t-care-what-you-think attitude.

What spurred this post was a friend’s discussion as to how a person’s gender/race/class/other defining physical characteristics holds far less weight than their ideas and opinions. In a sense, I agree, but at the same time, many of those ideas and opinions are, in and of themselves, formed by how we’ve been treated with respect to these characteristics we possess. There are many assumptions that people make about me when they find out I am female, and in truth, I mostly wish they wouldn’t. At the same time, however, my being female has given me many important perspectives on issues I likely wouldn’t have even blinked at had I been born male. That, in itself, balances out all the disadvantages.

Footnotes:

Of course, nowadays I know of several girls who like video games AND clothes/makeup/other girly stuff, and that’s awesome. I’ve just never really been able to get into the latter. ↩

Tweet Tweet Go The Birds

The Management — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:10:30 +0000

Oh my. It appears as though while I wasn’t looking, a bunch of people went and blogged about Pigeons in the Park. First there was Greg Costikyan over at Play This Thing!, who’d written a lovely, analytical shpiel about Chivalry earlier; this time around, he’s just as analytical, which is exactly the kind of feedback a young and relatively inexperienced kid like me needs to get better at this art thing. Then, apparently as a result of said exposure, I found this one guy who’s apparently making a game very similar to my work in terms of design, except it’s about a young man whose father has cancer, or so I gather. In any case, I’ll be keeping an eye out for it. [1] And finally, it looks like Emily Short has given the game a looksie as well. This, I find very impressive in particular since, as I alluded earlier, it was her conversational IF work that played a big part in inspiring this game [2] in the first place.

All in all, I have to say I’m very, very flattered.

Footnotes:

He also points out the similarity between Pigeons and the start of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I should note that this was somewhat intentional; I had actually just been watching the latter when I was drawing the characters, so Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey were definitely in my head at the time. ↩
Or “conversation piece”, rather. ↩

Introducing Stage!

The Management — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:27:36 +0000

Some time ago, I read this one rather lengthy article that compared third-person adventure games to “little theater plays with clunky movement, no dramatic camera angles and a distanced view that makes it impossible to see any facial expressions”. This comparison, of course, was made with the intent of proposing better cinematography in adventure games, which many have already attempted since said article was written back in 2003. However, my strange little mind began to wander, and I thought to myself, why do we even have to emulate movies, anyway? Why can’t we exploit this theatre aesthetic in a way that’s artistically meaningful? Hell, why can’t there be an adventure game that’s actually set on a stage?

Fast-forward to about a month ago. My good friend Lee Edward McIlmoyle and I are conspiring over Google Chat as usual, brainstorming an idea for a short game we can make in a few months by ourselves before I run off and travel for the summer, when he pipes up and suggests doing one that’s about a stage crew. So I was like, hey, I’ve had that idea for a while now; let’s run with it! And right then and there, we gave birth to Stage!

So, in the intervening month, we’ve worked out a concept involving the director of a theatre play trying to keep its actors from messing up their lines, and deciding when and how to allow them to improvise versus make them stick to the script. The gameplay itself is entirely dialogue-controlled and will use an affinity system similar to that in Chivalry, but with on-screen indicators showing the characters’ mental states, which I felt would be necessary this time around because this is a more goal-oriented game. Thus far, we’ve fleshed out a branching dialogue using a mindmapping program we found called Cayra, and Lee has started sketching out a lovely visual style for the game. I, of course, will be putting it all together in the now-very-familiar Wintermute engine. Excited? I thought so. Stay tuned for more info as it comes.

In the meantime, this may be a good time to mention that I’m confirmed to be going to GDC again this year. If anyone reading this is planning on coming as well, feel free to drop me a line.