Blast From the Past (Game blog 6: Revisiting The Wolf Among Us)

Two weeks ago I posted about The Wolf Among Us by Telltale games. I commented on how the game offers the player choices that seem to have weight thanks to the branching narrative structure of the game. I said that by giving the player some control over the story, the game tricked players into feeling that all of their decisions really mattered.
This week I intend to enhance that argument.

The Wolf Among Us is a very story driven game. Game mechanics take a back seat as the player becomes immersed in the world of Fabletown. The game is populated with characters that you come to know and care about and as the player you become increasingly invested in the characters and their roles in the story that unfolds around you. I think that this investment is key to making the choices ingame feel important. Sebastian Domsch says that "(choice situations) are invested with some form of motivation, that is: the player will be interested in the outcome of the choice and will expect one outcome to be better than another." In this case the motivation to make a choice comes from the players involvement in the narrative and feelings towards characters (good or bad). As you get to know the characters you from opinions about them, those opinions could change from one playthrough to another, but in any case the game does a good job of making you feel something for them. If you dislike a character you will probably choose to be a little harsh with them, or if you like a character you'll want to be nice. As you get to know characters better your choices become more and more motivated.

The game also does its best to make sure you know your actions will have consequences. When you respond to characters in certain ways a message appears onscreen telling you that the character "will remember that" and characters ingame also voice their opinions on choices you make, showing you an instant result of your choice. The largest decisions in the game, the ones that significantly affect the narrative path, actually take up the entire screen and all you can do is hover between your two choices as music blares ominously in the background.

As mentioned in the last blog, the player really has somewhat minimal control over the narrative, but the game tricks them into thinking they have a lot more. By investing the player and giving them motivation, the decisions are given weight, and by showing that actions have consequences, the choices become more meaningful. The player becomes used to the idea that their choices matter, and begins to think that all of their choices matter, even though many of them don't change a thing. In this way the game seems to become more real and personal to the player, enhancing their experience and immersion.

The way that The Wolf Among Us tells its story and portrays its characters gives the player a reason to play, a reason to choose the best option and makes them feel a part of the game. Despite its limited story paths it feels extremely interactive and personal. I think this is the biggest success of the game.

Jonny 5 is alive (Game Blog number 5: FEZ)

This week I played FEZ, a puzzle platformer with a clever 3D twist. (Get it? Because you can twist the map. heh) 

The premise is crazy simple, you play as Gomez, a small blocky character who receives a Fez that allows him to turn the world in 3 dimensions to explore maps from a new perspective. The game focuses on this mechanic with maps that must be turned back and fourth over and over in  order to solve them.

The Game does contain some fairly complex story, but most of it is backstory or world history that you slowly uncover as you play. I personally didn't see much of this backstory as I didn't finish the game and it takes a long time for the story to really make an appearance. Also from what I can gather you could play the game and totally ignore the story, it's really only there to enhance the gameplay which is the most important aspect of the game. Using Marie-Laurie Ryan's terminology that would make this a 'Narrative Game,' "in a narrative game, story is meant to enhance gameplay." (2009, p. 45)

As for story in-game story, there is next to none, the game is level based with very few story nodes as you play. The levels essentially create an open world which can be explored at your pleasure but it always comes back to the gates that you must unlock by collecting cubes. Thanks to these gates there is some game progression as you unlock more of them and uncover more of the map to be explored. These points, where the player must visit a specific location to advance, are where the few story nodes are located, but there are no choice nodes so the game is still linear.

Thanks to the lack of story in this game there really is no character development. Gomez is essentially a husk for the player to inhabit and explore the world, otherwise known as an avatar. This means that "the player identifies primarily as their in-game representative rather than with them as a separate, fictional character." As put by Jessica Alred (2013, p. 357). Because Gomez is 'empty' of character, the player is able to project themselves onto him, like an image onto a blank screen. The effect of this is that there is no separation between the player and their in-game persona, they can explore the world as themselves. The fact that Gomez's appearance is basically featureless adds to this effect.

To be honest I still felt next to no involvement to the embedded narrative. That is to say I barely noticed that there was an embedded narrative, but through the avatar of Gomez I did find myself very immersed in the emergent gameplay, or the traversal of the game. Despite there being no penalty for dying in-game I still felt bad for dying. Since I was the character, when he died in a way I died, and when he reached an objective I reached the objective. So even though there was next to no narrative in the game I still felt connected and immersed thanks to the avatar nature of Gomez.

Fez is a clever game in its design and is a lot of fun to play. Its lack of story isn't an issue since it makes up for it with clever and interesting gameplay that draws the player in and keeps them entertained. I'd give it 6 jonnys.

Bai now.

References:

Jessica, A. (2013) Characters. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, pp. 375

Marie-Laurie, R. (2009) From narrative games to playable stories: toward a poetics of interactive narrative StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, Volume 1, 2009, pp. 45