Comments on: what is a narrative game?

By: Sony PS3 » Blog Archive » Life is a side quest — I wanna ride it all night long!

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:17:07 +0000

[...] in games. There’s been a great deal of chatter in the gaming blogosphere lately about the need (or lack thereof) for narrative in games. From a certain perspective, though, the narrative for [...]

By: Roger Travis

Roger Travis — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:57:19 +0000

Corvus, apologies for the imprecision. I shouldn’t have said “problem” with respect to Puzzle Quest–I meant it in the sense of a chess problem (or the ancient Greek meaning, which is just “something thrown forth” :D). That is, I meant to say that I think PQ is a fascinating game to think with.

Thanks for reading my blog! Glad you enjoyed it.

By: Corvus

Corvus — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:38:46 +0000

@Roger I’ve read your posts and enjoyed them greatly. I agree that games have always played an important cultural role in the transmission of story from generation to generation. I even wrote a pretty fluffy piece on it for the Escapist at one point.

@David I go think “narrative” is the best term to use. It’s familiar enough that people can latch onto the idea, yet formal enough that they (usually) take the time to listen to how you’re using it. And thanks for the links!

@All I don’t see Puzzle Quest as a problem, per se. I see the match three combat as a metaphor for actual conflict. It is certainly a more abstract metaphor than swiping your stylus across the screen in Phantom Hourglass or mashing a button to fire your weapons in Geometry Wars, but it’s still on the same scale as far as I’m concerned.

By: David Carlton

David Carlton — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:37:42 +0000

Interesting. And I guess I will accept that all games contain some sorts of narrative seeds within them: stepping outside of the video game realm for a moment, I can certainly construct a narrative out of a game of go, which is about as abstract as games get. Actually, it's even stronger than that: if I'm talking about a game of go, I can hardly stop myself from talking in narrative terms. Accepting that all games are narratives, I tend to think that there's some sort of continuum to be found there, though I'm willing to believe that "narrative" might not be the best term for the continuum. Assuming that: what gameplay elements are more suited to reinforcing/bringing out narrative possibilities? Given my mention of go above, I should try my Christopher Alexander experiment on a few more video games, to see if that ties in to this somehow... (Maybe Iroquois' earlier comment can tie in with Levels of Scale somehow?) (To other readers, I highly recommend following Roger's link above, and to also look at these two of Corvus's posts.)

By: Roger Travis

Roger Travis — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:52:59 +0000

Wow. I actually wrote “accept” for “except” (and mis-spelled “Louisiana”). In my defense, my 5-year-old was literally pulling on my shirt when I wrote the comment. :D

By: Roger Travis

Roger Travis — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:48:39 +0000

I'm with Corvus, accept that I think stories and games (as we usually think of that category) are two forms of the same thing (which I call a performative play practice). I would compare the Puzzlequest problem to what might happen in a novel if whenever characters spoke, instead of "normal" dialogue, the paper of the book was colored purple,the words of the conversation were written in a compeltely different font, and they were speaking in baby-talk even about such things as the Lousiana Purchase. That is, for me there is only performative play, which is always also potentially narrative.

By: Corvus

Corvus — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:34:21 +0000

I contend that all games are narratives–yes, even Tetris. In addition to the elements you find in traditional media–text, audio, music, imagery, etc–video games also have gameplay. In fact, if the game is designed really well, gameplay is the primary narrative elements and all the rest are integrated well enough to support it.