Week - 6 - Interactive Narrative

Week 6, Interactive Narrative,  Could your game have developed its narrative and told the same or a similar story without any of the characters?

For this week's game I decided to play Fez, as soon as you start the game you get some indications about what you have to do, which is to collect the yellow cubes and after that you get some extra indications about moving the world from 2D and 3D, which is one of the best aesthetics of the game. I think the game could tell the same story without any of the characters, because it doesn't really influence the game that much, all you need to know are the basic indications about "what to do next"but for me the overall story doesn't affect much of the game and the character's don't really matter that much, you could have had any other character instead of "Gomez" and it wouldn't have changed much of the storyline, this is because the game follows a simple puzzle/platformer game structure, which is pretty much the same structure you see on every other puzzle/platformer game.

Fez is quite fun to play but what really got me into the game was the overall design of the game, the animation and art of Fez is extraordinary, the story didn't get my attention at all, in fact I thought it was pretty boring and plain, if it wasn't for the genius designs made by Phil Fish the game wouldn't have been such a great hit in my opinion.

In conclusion I think Fez could have developed its narrative and tell a similar story without any of the characters because they are not a major influence in the game.

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Week - 5 - Interactive Narrative

Are the “choice situations” in the game obvious or subtle? Do you know the outcomes of your choice prior to making a decision?


For this week I decided to play The banner Saga, I really enjoyed playing this game and can't wait to finish it.
The game has a lot of similarities to a game of chess, they are both based around tactics and strategies, trying to figure out what the opponent or enemy might do during their turn, this means that every choice you make should have an impact or a reason behind it, because it is a game based around turns.

I think the choices that I made in the game were subtle or at least I tried to make them subtle rather than obvious, I would have a reason to every single one of the moves I made with each of the characters, sometimes I would have to make some sacrifices in order to beat one or more enemies, therefore I already know the outcome of my moves, but like in any game based around strategies and tactics you can never be too sure about your moves, you always need a second plan, just like in a game of chess, sometimes I would sacrifice a pawn in order to destroy my opponent's tower with my horse.

In terms of the story, it didn't really caught my attention, sometimes I wished there was an option to skip all the talking and get straight to the game, but apart from that, the game is super enjoyable and fun to play, good thing it's a long weekend and I can keep on playing it.

Interactive Narrative - week 4

How does morality influence the choices you make in the game?


 For this week I decided to play The Wolf among us, the first thing that caught my attention as soon as the game loaded was the animation and art style, it fits the game's story line quite well.
The game gives gives you four choices to chose from before anything else happens(but you can't take forever to chose your option) which is mainly based on morals, each option you chose leads to a different outcome in the story line, you can play the role of an ethically moral person or simply play the entire game by being immoral, I decided to chose mainly immoral options, because I wanted to see what path the story line would take, at the very beginning of the game, the character got into a big fight against another character who was beating a girl, prior to that fight, I decided to carefully chose my answer so that it would end up in a fight between the two characters, meaning that before anything happened I already knew that my answer was immoral and that it would lead to a pretty complicated or chaotic scenario, in this case the other guy got beaten up and ended up with an axe in his head, this made me think that people that have done horrible things in the past(eg crimes against humanity) were most likely aware that what they were doing was wrong and they simply didn't care about the consequences, of course some of them might have been blinded by their own ideals, but that is not an excuse to be forgiven.

for this game to be successful, The Wolf Among Us has to be interesting enough to motivate the player to do something, in "The Anatomy of a Player Choice" (page 115) argues "that if the player has absolutely no motivation, she would simply not do/choose anything", this is completely true, at times while playing the game, I got easily bored and had no motivation to keep playing the game and decided not to chose any of the options. This is a game driven by motivating or making the player more interested in its story.

The wolf among us is a really interesting game, because it allows the player to freely chose what path you want to take in the game, and you don't have to stick to a specific idea, you can chose moral and immoral answers or whatever you want.

Chosen Game : Sonic 2

Did linear storytelling in your chosen game(s) engage and excite you as a player? Explain why or why not.

I am a huge fan of old school games like Super Mario, Mega Man and Sonic. The linear storytelling of Sonic really engaged me as a player, it made me realize that Sonic is most of the time running super fast around a nature like environment with lots of trees and vegetation that is easy to recognize, which for me it seems like Sonic’s natural habitat, and I feel like the wide side view shot in which I’m playing the game is trying to tell me that this is Sonic’s home habitat, every time I think of Sonic one of the first things that come to my mind are the colors blue, green and brown which are colors that I used to use a lot as a child to draw an environment with lots of vegetation and sea (happy environment) and I believe that it makes kids and most people be more engaged in the game.

In one of the levels the game is no longer a wide side view shot but a back view of Sonic and we can see the highway type of environment that he’s running on, this change of shot makes it more interesting for me because it gives me more variety in the game which is something that I like.

One of the levels in Sonic 2 is really industrialized, this makes me think of how humans are slowly getting rid of nature for concrete, Doctor Eggman is us, the humans, and sonic is nature.

The only thing I didn’t like about the game is its game design, it becomes too repetitive and sometimes you don’t have as much control over the character as you’d like, sometimes Sonic just runs and you just sit there without really doing much.

Week 2 - Never Alone

The game that I liked the most was Never Alone and I decided to answer on of the questions which I felt was closer to the game.

How does your chose game tell its story? Is it successful?

Never alone has a really interesting introduction to it's story, the way the person tells the story made me want to start playing the game as soon as possible.
As I was playing the game I begun to understand how the creator of the game added basic elements to the story, such as friendship, and the connection of humans with nature and the spiritual, Today these things(apart from friendship) seem to be recognized as legends or myths, this game made me realize how modern society has forced us through materialism to forget the connection we once had with nature and the astral or spiritual world, things that are essential to a lot of us.

Salen and Zimmerman state that "players are constantly shifting between cognitive frames that alternately place them “inside” their character in a relationship of direct identification and very much outside of it, aware of the character as an artificial construct and fictional entity, as well as their own status as players manipulating a tool or “puppet” according to the rules of the game", Never Alone does this really well, because the game and the story have already established two characters and a strong spiritual connection between them, and I believe that this connections is what drive players to play or keep playing this game because you can identify yourself in a way that we all have connections with either our family, friends,partner, etc,  and it makes you think about it even more, because the game also deals with survival, life and death and what it means to loose something or someone you care about and at least for me, it intrigued me to keep playing it

One of the things that caught my attention is how the story tells/shows the connection between the fox and the girl, they have such a strong connection that whenever the girl or the fox died(in the game) it felt like whoever of those two characters stayed alive felt what the other one was feeling at the moment of dying, and I believe everyone can relate to this, everyone has some sort of connection with someone, either your family, best friend or partner, so the story has a great impact on the player when one of the characters dies because we can put ourselves in their positions.

After I achieved different obstacles in the game a short cinematic would be played and part of the story will be told, and every time I watched these short cinematic animations I wanted to keep playing to find out the rest of the story, what comes next? and that is something that I really enjoy in video games, when a story gives me that feeling of wanting more. I think Never Alone has successfully achieved telling a superb story to the player.

I still haven't finished playing the entire game, and I'm looking forward to complete it.