Our group has made tremendous strides in the last week, but we still have considerable issues to tackle. Now I understand why game publishers love using establish properties for videogames - it’s really hard to come up with a compelling story and world! Unfortunately, what some publishers still fail to realize is that some stories simply do not suit interactive narrative. To some extent, our group is struggling with the same issues.
When we think “story”, we naturally gravitate toward the linear narratives we have experienced through literature, film and television. The difference, of course, between these mediums is player agency. People throw around words like “interactivity” all the time, but sometimes I feel like these discussions concentrate so much on how to tell the story that they lose sight of whether the player is having fun or not. One aspect I had previously not considered about game storytelling is that the player needs to feel like they are accomplishing something. What this means is that the player needs to feel the experience of being the hero, not just watching the hero. As a corollary to this, compelling characters such as Clarissa Dalloway in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway would not work in games not just because they do not have much agency, but because there is no “winning” in the conclusions of their moral musings. Their accomplishments are personal and subjective - accomplishments that are not black and white enough to be rendered in gameplay form.
As we head in to the home stretch, the question I will keep repeating to myself is: “Is this any fun?”
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