07/04/16 - Interactive Narrative - Outlast

Outlast opens out with the player assuming the role of Miles Upshur, a reporter, on his way to the Mount Massive asylum, following up on an anonymous email tip he had recieved, suggesting that 'terrible things' are being done at the asylum, run by the Murkoff Corporation, sending Miles there to expose them.
The first 'level', or what I am going to consider for this, seeing as Outlast doesn't actively indicate segments as they come, is going to be the intro into the game, and first story 'task' we complete, which progresses the narrative (ie, the 'completion' of the first objective, which is to explore the Mount Massive asylum).

As in many games, this level introduces us to the mechanics and controls of the game, before throwing us straight into things.

We open up the game, driving up to Mount Massive. This is a short segment, with the player unable to do a lot more than look around, until the car is brought to a stop. Miles looks to his right, picking up a folder, containing the email that sent us here, introducing to us how a lot of our story and backstory segments are to be introduced - through confidential files and letters we will be able to find scattered throughout the game. We put the email away, and reach for the remaining two items. Batteries and a camera. The camera here is to be our main 'tool' in this game - we need to record and film as much of our trip as we can, in order to save it as proof, and this camera shall also be our main source of light. The night vision feature requires batteries to run, so our use of it is limited, but allows us to find our way in areas that are too dark, or to see things we normally might not notice in the lighting.

Putting our camera down, Miles exits the car - introducing our third gameplay mechanic - the notes system. Miles will scribble down his thoughts or plans on certain game segments, allowing us extra insight into his thoughts on the story, and pointers to guide us and remind us what the task at hand is.
The gates slam shut behind us, and we take control of Miles.
Wandering around, we see no one is here? The guard post is abandoned, and the grounds look untended. Military vehicles sit outside the locked front door.
Attempting to find a new way in leads us around til we come across a gate, with the bottom corner bent upwards, allowing us to learn that we are able to crouch to progress through small areas. The path here leads us to scale some scaffolding and scramble inside an open window, introducing jumping and climbing abilities. These abilities are restricted, meaning we're only able to jump and climb when the opportunity is available - meaning the player cannot 'bunnyhop' their way through the game, which forces the player to remain at least somewhat serious.
Once inside, the game pushes the player to try out the night vision mechanic.

As we progress further inside, we're introduced to more of the game mechanics. How to open and close doors, slowly or rapidly, how to squeeze through narrow gaps. We learn more about collecting documents, and filled in on the battery system for the camera. The game goes easy on you here - nothing much happens, bar some static noise that bursts from the tv in an attempt to scare you. We see glimpses of life - figures slamming doors, footprints, splatters of blood. The phones are all off the hook.
The game progressively builds the tension here, feeding the player with paranoia.
The snippets of story we uncover within the found documents tells us that something serious is happening here, and the ever progressing trail of blood and death keeps the player waiting, unsure when something is going to happen.

We crawl through a vent, hearing Miles shallow, panting breathing the entire time. Through the gaps we see a man run and lock himself in a room, crying out 'oh god!'. We squeeze out, breath a sigh of relief, and ease open the library door.

Wham! Down drops a corpse, dangling in front of us. Loud musical cues, in contrast to the quiet, vacant silence before, startle Miles and the player into reaction. The music continues - there's no way around.
We progress through. It's dark, but with the night vision we can see heads, lining shelves. Silhouetted in the one window, we see a body, impaled on a pole. Approaching, it jerks towards us, gargling out a dying warning.
"They killed us. They got out. The variants."
At this point, the player has no idea what this 'cutscene' means. I say 'cutscene', because this game offers two different forms of story nodes, when received from other non-player characters. The differences are slight, but during this scene, Miles still has the power to walk away. We can downplay this creepy message, twirling on the spot as he speaks, and even ignore him and outright walk away. Later on, we get more set cutscenes, where we cannot move, or add our input into the scene, and are forced to watch and accept whatever is about to happen to both us, and poor Miles.
"You can't fight them. You have to hide."
The guard warns us, teaching us our last, and most important game mechanic. You run, or you hide, or you run until you can hide. There is no way to fight back in this.
We learn that the way out is through the main doors, which we can unlock from security control. '

We leave the library through a door we did not enter through. The music is gone, and Miles breathing calms, slowly. No one is around.
Our only way forward is to squeeze through more shelves.
'Little pig', he breathes in our ear, grabbing Miles and throwing him back, through the banister and down to the floor below.
Miles flails in panic, and our vision goes black as he hits the ground.
This cutscene is what I mentioned before, where we have no control over Miles or what is happening to him.
A figure we will come to know as Father Martin kneels over Miles' prone body, proclaiming him to be an apostle. The screen blacks again, and when our vision clears again, the man is gone, and Miles shakily climbs to his feet.
Time for our new objective.

This first level takes about 20 minutes to complete, depending on the player, and how much time they spend looking around. Overall, this level is an introductory level, meaning not a lot happens either story or gameplay-wise. We are introduced to the controls and game mechanics, and discover a few, base pieces of the story, and some of the characters. At this point, bar the comments from the guard, all of our snippets of plot have been in the form of documents. We know why Miles is there. We know something is going on at this asylum, and we know something, or someone, wants us dead.
We learn about Miles in his jotted notes, and in his reactions to certain events. We can tell how Miles is feeling, based on his breathing, and how rapid and loud it currently is. The faster, and the louder, the more terrified he is.
From his notes we see more personality. 'Fuck the third world and bankroll another billion', he writes, clearly showing his dislike for the company.
After first meeting Chris Walker, the man who threw him from the balcony, Miles writes that it 'looks like someone tried to fuck-start his head with a cheese grater'. Father Martin is a 'doughy old man with a face like an alcoholic kiddy fiddler in a homemade priest outfit'.
Miles is highly opinionated, for a man with very little audible dialogue in the game - yet knowing all of this is entirely possible to be missed by the player, should they chose not to read Miles' notes.
For this matter, you could argue that Miles is less of a character, and more of an avatar - without his input, you could consider him little more than a vessel, for you, the player, to guide around this asylum. The game doesn't give the player choices to make, aside from where and how fast or slowly we explore places, and inevitably, are forced to go where ever the game makes us, or to complete the objectives it gives, in order to progress the story.
Personally, I would definitely see Miles as a character, however. As the player, our input here is limited to how and where we move, the items that we can pick up or interact with, and how we get around enemies. Past that, in the actual, story driven nodes and scripted events, it is Miles who gets to make these decisions. Miles makes the choice to enter the asylum and investigate, not the player. Miles is the one to fight back (in some sequences). Miles is the one who could've just given up and died, but doesn't (aside from when we mess up).

The level design of the game itself, is simple. We are offered a building, with rooms and doors that are either locked, unlockable, or open. The player can progress through these at a relatively casual pace, provided you're not spotted by an enemy, and search and explore as much, or as little as they like. Greater exploration rewards the player with more story rewards, in the form of documents, or gameplay rewards, such as batteries, that can be used to help the player out later. The game offers small snippets of interactivity with each new objective. 'Find a way out', leads to finding a door, then finding a key, then turning the power on, etc. We interact with a keycard, to pick it up, and then later to swipe it. We interact with a keyboard, and Miles does as he likes. Overall, Outlast's game system is based a lot more heavily on running, hiding, and avoiding enemies, shortly followed by plot, and less on opportunities for player interactivity.
A majority of the level design here has been focused on building the atmosphere. Creepy, but not constant splatters of fear and gore. Jumpscares and chase scenes, but not constantly, leaving the player wondering when the next one will be.

The atmosphere of Outlast, combined with a compelling story and interesting characters, is what drives the appeal behind this game.
The player takes a more passive role in the story, experiencing the narrative through the experience and emotions that the character, Miles, must be feeling himself, paired with the occasional reading segments and the scripted cutscenes. The terror and panic, combined with a deep curiosity, as to just what is going on in this facility, plays out in both Miles and the player themselves (this is assuming that the player is actively playing with the intent to get into the story, and not joking around and not taking it seriously, which, even though the game doesn't offer a lot of means to do so, is still possible).
However, even with a passive role in the story elements, Outlast keeps the player more involved in the story, as cutscenes are still from the perspective of the character, thus keeping the views the same as to not break immersion. On top of this, a lot of the time our inability to participate is given basis, such as being restrained, or recovering from being knocked out.

Outlast does its very best to keep the immersion and atmosphere of the game at all times.

31/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is a point and click adventure game, with a play style that at times, can border on pixel hunting (a common trope within games, where you have to find the right, tiny area to click to progress), particularly if you use the new point and click controls, over the original tank controls.
We discover the story through the occasional cutscenes, which show up rather rarely, usually as a 'reward' once you've completed an area or story segment - and more often, the story is developed through talking to the other, non-player characters.
Every one of these characters are interactable, and not just a stock standard background characters - Grim Fandango has taken an approach to the game that could be considered 'if they're not interactable, they're not included'.
The game forces us to interact with these characters, at least to an extent, as a lot of the characters give clues to puzzles, or will progress the story upon interaction (ie. talking to a 'dying' Glottis will prompt him to think of a way to customize the cable car, leading you back to Rubacava).
For every interactable character, you are offered four initial dialogue choices, three of which will often open new question options, and one of which just ends the conversation. To progress a puzzle or story segment, you will be required to talk to people - however, you are not 'required', per say, to exhaust all possible dialogue options with them. It's entirely possible to navigate any of the conversations in game, asking the fewest questions possible - but odds are, unless the player knows exactly which lines are the correct lines for the solution, you will wind up running through multiple conversation branches. Often whether you want to or not (personally, I find it enjoyable to try every option the game offers, but this is in no way mandatory).

But could the game have developed and pulled off such a story without any of these characters?
Firstly, from a technical standpoint, no, seeing as many of the characters progressed the story and puzzles - and with no one there to talk to, or interact with, the game would stagnate.
Storywise, you also couldn't extract the characters from this game and expect to uphold the story - because Grim Fandango is incredibly character based. The story makes the ideas, and strengths of the story clear through how certain characters are portrayed.
Each and every character is written to be intrinsic to the games world, and the narrative we are following.
Manny, for example, is written to be likeable - by the player, that is. He's rough around the edges, a little seedy - but he's the underdog. The guy beaten down and wrongly stuck with an injustice. So maybe he's not a great person to a lot of the other characters in the game. But his personality is written to make the player like him, in order to spur their motives to help him in his quest. Similarly, characters such as Hector are written to be disliked by the player - he's sleazy, he's bad, and there's no reason for the player to sympathise with him at all. He's the villain, plain and simple.
You take these characters from the story, and what is left of the plot? With no Manny, we have no one to stop Meche from getting sucked into the same gambit as all of the other Number 9 ticket holders. With no Meche, Manny would be stuck in the same job, day after day, never getting anywhere. With no Hector, there would be no mystery in the first place, and Manny would be working off his debt, fair and square.
Manny, in particular, is a very interesting character, as it is he that the player is offered sole control of for the entire game - but even through the dialogue choices we are offered, and how the player plays the game does not influence his character enough to be able to reduce him to an 'avatar'. Jessica Aldred (2013) describes characters as entities which "take on strong, fictional identities that are recognizably separate from those of their players." (p. 357). Going by this measure, each and every single interactable AI within Grim Fandango, are characters of their own, and not merely methods of completing the game, or options to develop our own avatar. All of them, be it Manny, or Glottis, or the group of worker bees down by the docks, showcase enough of their personalities and identities, even in the most minute amounts of required interaction.
Grim Fandango's characters are so instrumental to the plot, that to even remove a single one from the narrative, would stop the story completely.

- Jessica Aldred. 17 Dec 2013 ,Characters from: The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies Routledge. Retrieved from http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/2711/mod_resource/content/0/Characters.pdf

24/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

I'm going to start off by making a point of the fact that I do not like Fahrenheit. Not because it's necessarily a bad game, but more because it didn't interest me much at all (in fact, one of my favourite parts was that you could play Theory of a Deadman (they're a good band) on the stereo system in Lucas's apartment), and because I find the gameplay mechanic itself painful and tedious.
However, in the sake of fairness, I will try and keep my judgement of the game neutral.

Fahrenheit labels itself as an 'interactive film', and not a game, which in the first place, should suggest that the choices you can pick will not carry a lot of weight - as a film, while not always, tends to follow a linear storyline, which Fahrenheit does. The game hypes itself up, offering interactivity and multiple endings - only the interactivity, 90% of the time, is in the form of extremely long, extremely tedious quick time events. Some of these events don't even have a point, aside from stopping the player from having to sit through a long cutscene - which, I believe was intended to keep the player immersed in the game, only this method falls flat in execution.
The 'multiple endings' are three, near identical endings, only differing a minuscule amount, and mostly in a few changes lines of dialogue.
The choices which lead to these 'differing' endings, do not feel meaningful in the slightest. Most of the time, our choices are mostly in terms of dialogue, requiring the player to pick the correct line of enquiry quickly, in order to receive the most out of the story - and, as I noticed during my playthrough of this game, often offers the ignored/not chosen answer or choice, up again later, or gives the answer without our choice. When you receive both options after getting asked to pick one or the other, is there really any point in picking in the first place? Your choice in this scenario merely dictates which order you learn new information in, and does little to change the story, or even make it feel like you are in charge of this narrative.

For example, right near the end of the game, we find out Carla and Lucas have fallen 'in love'. I say 'in love', as such, because there was little to no build up or reasoning for this development, and personally found this extremely forced, and incredibly hard to believe. However, my point here is that we have no choice in this matter. No matter how much I had made, or wanted to make Carla distrust and blame Lucas, she always wound up with him - as if my input had been completely ignored, for the sake of the narrative being presented to us.

Some choices offered in the game felt slightly more clear - like saving the boy who had fallen into the ice, or leaving him. I made a decision, and recieved immediate payoff for doing so. However, this feeling did not last long - as neither choice I made here changed the game, or story at all. In fact, the only choice I would argue made any difference to the story at all, would be the choice for Tyler to stay with the police, or leave with Sam, as this directly changes his life - but even then, it doesn't seem to matter at all which I pick, because either way, you never encounter either again in the story.
Nothing I tried to do in the story felt at all meaningful, no matter how hard I tried.

18/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - The Wolf Among Us

In Telltale's The Wolf Among Us, a choice based game, the player gets to make choices in the form of actual branching path decisions, and dialogue choices, with varying degrees of subtlety. Decision choices, like allowing Faith to continue to drive the axe into the Woodsman, or the choice to rip Grendel's arm off or not, are clear, and exactly as they seem. These are often your 'major' actions, and offer you an opportunity - left or right, yes or no. Whenever I encounter one of these options, I can easily tell which one will progress my story in which direction - choosing to give Faith money, results in Bigby emptying his wallet for her. Choose not to, and you don't, keeping the money for later. Choose to rip Grendel's arm off, and, well - he looses his arm. Not permanently, but you sway him further into his hatred of Bigby. These choices are far from subtle, and for good reason - as most of these are defining choices, and often more specifically, actions. These are the moments where you know there's no grey area. You either do, or you don't, and the game offers you the chance to decide which route you want to take.
Do you want to live up to your fable, and be the Big Bad Wolf they all fear, or do you want Bigby to take the chance to redeem himself?
These options need to be clear, because they form a large part of how other characters will view you, and the overall ending you'll get to the game, whether or not the choices themselves seemed important or not. Sebastian Domsch (2013) suggests that "If all possible ‘after’ states are identical to each other or even to the ‘before’ state, the options have no differential consequence, and the choice is therefore not a real choice after all" (p. 114). Almost (I do not remember a single active choice during the game which did not have a differing outcome, but I will not definitively say all of the choices do, as I have no gone through and checked every single scenario again) all of the choices in The Wolf Among Us offer you clear cut variants in the story - Action A leads to Change A, which could be as small as having no money later on in the story, Action B leads to Change B, which could be keeping said money. The changes, and therefore the 'after' states, always differ from one another, meaning that therefore, your choices do matter, albeit in what can often be a minute scale. This is actually a matter that a lot of players tend to complain about in general with Telltale games - they tell us that our choices will shape the narrative, but overall, the stories remain very linear. This however, does not mean these choices are not there, and do not affect the game - they just do such on a smaller scale. These choices are still important to the interactivity of the narrative.

Dialogue, however, tends to be much fuzzier when it comes to which choice means what.  The four choices of dialogue offered each time make it clear that it's time for the player to contribute to the story, and help to decide how Bigby's personality comes across.  We understand that there is a choice, seeing as we, the players, are being offered options. However, as can be considered a trend with Telltale games, some of these dialogue choices are far from as expected. Some, are, of course, as clear as they were with the action choices. Some, however, reveal less than predicted results - I sat down next to Grendel, hoping to try and be nice to him, and next thing I know, Bigby is snarling at Grendel, tension is rising, and the situation is rapidly going south.

The Wolf Among Us is a heavily choice based game, and yes, the choices are often obvious, usually predictable.


- Domsch, S. (2013). Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games.  Retrieved from http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/2509/mod_resource/content/0/Domsch%2C%202013%20-%20The%20anatomy%20of%20a%20player%20choice.pdf

11/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Never Alone

For this week's look into gameplay and narrative, I looked at Never Alone.

Never Alone readily takes up the the 'string of pearls' method - gameplay, followed by a 'pearl' of story, followed by another 'string' of gameplay, and so forth. This approach to narrative in games can be a difficult one, as you need to balance out the two so that the player both has enough time to interact and play, thus keeping them interested, but also not so much that the story 'pearls' get spaced so far apart that the story is forgotten by the time you reach the next cutscene (some of the Silent Hill games, in particular, have been terrible at this - not because the story was too far apart, but because frquently you could spend hours upon hours, running back and forth, searching for a tiny piece to solve one tiny puzzle - and you'd normally encounter many of these puzzles between each narrative segment. Or wind up with having to open and search rooms A through to M, or something of the like. However, this isn't about the Silent Hill series).

Never Alone was relatively good at balancing the two - after each puzzle, you'd receive a short segment of the story, making the narrative segments much like a carrot on a stick - you progress through the puzzles, following the narrative segments dangled in front of you. The approach worked well with the occasional lines of narration that would sometimes be prompted as you completed a part of the puzzle, reminding you that there is a story there too.
Never Alone made each narrative segment feel like a reward, and having each scene be rather short, kept it from becoming too much like it was straying too far from the gameplay.
Playing it myself, I personally didn't find the story engaged me too greatly, but that would likely be down to personal preference. I found the gameplay, and the puzzle solving to be more what encouraged me to continue with my progression through the story, and the narrative segments to be more of a pleasant break, but definitely not quite enthralling enough that I'd want to rush ahead and seek the next piece of the story.
It did keep me interested, and overall I definitely enjoy the game, but in this instance, specifically, I found the gameplay to be more my motivation than the actual narrative.

03/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Facade

Halfway through attempting to install this game on my laptop, which caused first the installer to freeze, then my laptop to freeze, then to freeze on the reboot screen, I wondered 'why did I choose this game again?'.
But my reasoning was relatively simple - having played all three of the suggested games for this week, I chose the game that was a) the most interesting to me, and b) the game that had your choices matter the most (to an extent).
Ironically, then running the weirdly installed version led to a scenario with no audio, aside from the chosen name (Chloe), and the couple arguing wildly, ignoring most of  my comments, and responding to things that had never been actually said.
Clearly, not the intended experience.

No worries, I got the game working as intended - plus having played (a lot) before, I knew the general principal of the game.

The way the story is built in Facade is relatively simple, using a generic three act structure. We start off with a small audio clip, indicating that we are an old friend of Trip and Grace, and that we're meeting them to see their new apartment. Begin Act 1. We're welcomed into their home, and introduced to the characters. We learn that Grace works in advertising, and used to be an artist. She comes from a well off family. Trip is harder to learn about, but we can learn that he came from a poor family, or that he frequents sports bars. Act 1 is driven forward relatively quickly, as a problem is quickly introduced - albeit not entirely clearly. In a tradition Three Act Structure, Act 2 should be prompted by a catalyst, to set things into motion. In Facade, isn't clear to start what, exactly is the specific catalyst - perhaps it's you being there, perhaps it's the new apartment - but regardless, it's noticable that there is some tension and disagreement between the two, which can be picked up in the fact that they are arguing before they ever open the door to let you in, should you sit and listen a little, rather than immediately knocking. The conflict here - which in game, is in the form of Trip and Grace's arguing, with you taking on the role of mediator - spans the majority of the game, with each character raising points and asking you questions, which can escalate into a heated debate, with multiple potential endings - either a successful resolution, either Trip or Grace leaving, should you side with one more than the other, or finding yourself escorted out of the house. These potential endings, although rather short, create Act 3, in which the story, and the points leading up to it, are summarized and end. Interestingly, it's clear to tell when you have reached an 'end', or the third act, as, in at least the cases of the bad endings, (they divorce, or toss you out) the characters will announce that they have either 'had enough', or in the divorce endings, ask you 'is everything you've said tonight supposed to mean something?'. At this point, nothing you can say or do matters anymore, or matters very little.

Though, it's not the first time interactivity in this game means very little. Logically, the point of the game is for you, the player to prompt responses, and respond either postively, or negatively, to their questions. However, it's entirely possible to complete the story, without ever speaking a word. Your interactions, although intended to be the force driving the story forward, do not matter. The characters talk, and should they not receive the answer they want - or any at all - will simply move on to their next point.
And even when you do interact, and attempt to drive the plot in the direction you want it, in many cases, the AI will outright ignore you, or talk over you, driving the topic forward before you even have a chance to reply.

Your input into this story may feel like it has weight during your first attempt. Or maybe you'll miss the story so easily, as many people do, instead finding it humorous to yell random things at the pair, hoping to spur a response. But you play it again. 'Didn't they say this last time?', you wonder, attempting to change the direction of the story, or seek a different conclusion. You attempt to throw in new keywords, hoping for a new line of investigation, only to get yet another 'uhh...' as the characters fail to register your point, and continue with their lines as normal.
And as a test - I played the entire game, doing nothing but saying 'potato', constantly, and managed to get the ending in which they both stop, and deny that anything has gone on, saying they're fine, and that you should leave.
'What does this picture say to you?'
'potato'
'That's a great answer!'
The most interesting point with that, was that Grace raised the point 'You don't even give me a yes or a no answer when I ask', suggesting that they were aware, that yes, I was shouting gibberish at them. But it didn't change the story, at all. In refusing to participate in the story, it carried on without me.

Facade isn't a bad game. But from what I can see, your choices do not matter a great deal, and the narrative will continue regardless of what you do.