The modern gamer on average appears to have grown tired of cutscenes in their games. So I pose this question... how can we reconcile Story and Gameplay, this is not a debate about which is better, this is a discussion on how one can write/tell a GOOD and potentially COMPLEX story that meshes well with the gameplay where neither are sacrificed at the expense of the other.

Any thoughts?

Hire Professional writers. Early. And listen to them. And don't screw with the script too much after they're done.

-- Steve

That goes without saying, but what is the alternative to lengthy cutscenes, poor exposition or "hidden plot" (ala Bioshock, it's a cool and subtle method granted, but you can accidentaly miss alot of story that way), how can you integrate plot with gameplay?

This was inspired by Yahtzees continual rants about Story games being too much story and not enough game, I really wonder what can be done to make "Story Games" that have enough of both to satisfy both camps.

You could play cutscenes. i.e bad guy monologues as your fighting instead of before hand in a cutscene

return to point and click games?, Fahrenheit also managed to merge them both rather well.

I think you are looking for more implied story telling techniques like the scrawling in Portal. Graffiti in a level can convey a lot of meaning. If you want to be more overt about it you could have lost journal pages scattered about the levels. There is also eves dropping on dialogue between NPC's. In Max Payne you would often hear the bad guys chatting about something story related before your burst into a room and cap them. Of course all these techniques are for nothing if the player bypasses them. The only sure fire way to get a plot element across is good ole cut scene.

shatnershaman:
You could play cutscenes. i.e bad guy monologues as your fighting instead of before hand in a cutscene

That's a really good point. I know my favourite bosses are when they spill their evilness on you as you battle them. GLaDOS, for example.

I think that there is no way around the fact that if you want to have an elaborate plot with several characters in it you have to have a considerable amount of dialog in it, and that's where the discrepancies between gamers take place. What Anton P. Nym said about hiring good professional writers is a given, because you MUST have an engaging plot, but I'm one of those who believes that all that is perfectly possible with the complete absence of cut-scenes. A lot of games have proven this to us (although not perfect, I think Half Life 2 and Mass Effect are a good examples of this). A lot can be done to integrate the story with the game play, and this becomes more evident to me the more games evolve; Just think: why make a cut-scene showing a helicopter rescuing a friend when you can fly the chopper yourself?

they could make more cutscenes interactive like "press x not to do die" that was in RE:4 and the like
it would especially cool if they did this during pivitol moments in the plot
the player would be shocked but still have to react

Well, to me I generally don't mind cutscenes, I love a good story regardless of how it's presented. The predominant theory seems to make playing during exposition into Quick-Time Events or just random button mashing (that's not already present in the gameplay (ala RE4)).

I think a good way to merge the two would be something like what shatnershaman says; or maybe something where you make damn well sure that there is a GOOD story to back up the cinematic.

ChaosDragon:
Well, to me I generally don't mind cutscenes, I love a good story regardless of how it's presented. The predominant theory seems to make playing during exposition into Quick-Time Events or just random button mashing (that's not already present in the gameplay (ala RE4)).

I think a good way to merge the two would be something like what shatnershaman says; or maybe something where you make damn well sure that there is a GOOD story to back up the cinematic.

Yeah I'm not a big fan of those Quick-Time Events either, and I enjoy my good cut- scene whenever I see fit; but I think there is so much potential to doing successful experimentation when it comes to telling a story, dialog included (no matter how much of it). Through specific in game objectives, interaction with the environment, branching dialogs with actually REAL effect on how the whole game progresses (along of course, with the characters) and a whole bunch other of ways that are absolutely possible with today's consoles and computers. Even a game about, let's say... a wolf, where you must communicate through gestures and actions with the rest of the pack in order to survive and eventually become leader... OK I don't know about that one but you get the point.

I'm all for quicktime events too so long as they are never, ever challenging. It's just to give me something to do, not become a freaking level in of itself.

Exposition cutscenes though...why not let me have more input? If people are chatting you might as well make a dialog tree out of it. Even if it's to choose yes or no, even if it comes out to the exact same conclusion no matter what, letting me have some sort of input when people are talking always improves the cutscene.

Half Life did a pretty good job with minimal cutscenes. I think interactiveness is the best option, remember the side story of the monk in HL2? Or when you meet alex and the prof in his hideout? there done really well. Ultimatly there cutscenes where you can retain movement, effectivly making the player feel like hes still in control whilst driving the story along. I think we like to feel were still part of the game instead of watching it. Otherwise it feels like were excluded from the plot, this way feel like your not only part of it but somhow dictating it.

Hire better writers...

Yes, that.

This isn't a new problem. Does anyone remember how story was presented in games over a decade ago? Unless it was an adventure game, story was in the manual.

PedroSteckecilo:
The modern gamer on average appears to have grown tired of cutscenes in their games. So I pose this question... how can we reconcile Story and Gameplay, this is not a debate about which is better, this is a discussion on how one can write/tell a GOOD and potentially COMPLEX story that meshes well with the gameplay where neither are sacrificed at the expense of the other.

Any thoughts?

I have the perfect solution for both camps.

Camp 1 - Just for the Gameplay - give them a SKIP CUTSCENE button.
Camp 2 - Just for the Story - give them a SKIP GAMEPLAY button.
Camp 3 - Who want both - give them achievements for being good gamers.

Camp 2 - Just for the Story - give them a SKIP GAMEPLAY button.

whahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
.....
hahahahhahahahahahhahaaaa!

nice

(rly, not such a bad idea for certain RPG's: instant levelup)

PedroSteckecilo:
The modern gamer on average appears to have grown tired of cutscenes in their games. So I pose this question... how can we reconcile Story and Gameplay, this is not a debate about which is better, this is a discussion on how one can write/tell a GOOD and potentially COMPLEX story that meshes well with the gameplay where neither are sacrificed at the expense of the other.

Any thoughts?

It's already been done quite well in my opinion. The only thing left to do is to go out there and BUY them so the gaming industry has a reason to make more. They don't really care if people say they like great stories if they don't buy them which judging by sales seems to be the case. Either that or the people who like great stories are hugely outnumbered by the people that don't.

One thing I think people fail to remember when developing games, is that they are creating a GAME, not a film, not a book and not a TV show. There are methods of exposition that work well in some mediums, but utterly fail in others. HL2 (and probably Portal, but I haven't had a chance to play it) was an excellent example of how storyline based gaming should work - it didn't try to be a book and simply "give" the player the story, but it let you explore it, see it and play around during it. Hiring "good writers" doesn't necessarily mean that it integrates plot well with in the game, and we want good intergration, not a good plot which is led entirely by huge, rambling cut scenes (see: Metal Gear Solid games, which although great fun, are a bit heavy handed in the plot department).

minignu:
One thing I think people fail to remember when developing games, is that they are creating a GAME, not a film, not a book and not a TV show. There are methods of exposition that work well in some mediums, but utterly fail in others.

The gaming industry is still incredibly young, so its still using existing techniques while only cautiously experimenting with new devices. Like when cinema first made its appearance, text still filled screens to let viewers know time had passed or even that people had spoken. Even Star Wars opened with scrolling text to tell viewers what had happened before the movie. Eventually, they developed techniques like showing a character lying down, screen fading to black, and fading back in with sunlight on the character's face in order to convey passage of time.

With enough time, video games should develop their own, unique way of conveying messages and story without use of cinema. Bioshock accomplishes this by having the player have ultimate control (save for only a few moments) over everything the character does, right down to saving or murdering little girls. It's an example, though perhaps not the best, of effecitvely integrating story with gameplay. Even the short moments where the player isn't controlling the character's actions are directly tied to story development. That said, if a player can't control his character's actions, a feature exclusive to video games, there should be a plot-connected reason for it.

Hurray Forums:

PedroSteckecilo:
The modern gamer on average appears to have grown tired of cutscenes in their games. So I pose this question... how can we reconcile Story and Gameplay, this is not a debate about which is better, this is a discussion on how one can write/tell a GOOD and potentially COMPLEX story that meshes well with the gameplay where neither are sacrificed at the expense of the other.

Any thoughts?

It's already been done quite well in my opinion. The only thing left to do is to go out there and BUY them so the gaming industry has a reason to make more. They don't really care if people say they like great stories if they don't buy them which judging by sales seems to be the case. Either that or the people who like great stories are hugely outnumbered by the people that don't.

What titles are these? How did they do it? Where can we find them? Spread the word.

hamster mk 4:
If you want to be more overt about it you could have lost journal pages scattered about the levels. There is also eves dropping on dialogue between NPC's.

Bioshock did this and if i really wanted to learn the story i had to search every crevise of the map to find the pages. Then I have to read the pages which, being american, is way too much to ask of me. You could listen in on NPCs but what if you miss something because you didnt know it was there?

PedroSteckecilo:
The modern gamer on average appears to have grown tired of cutscenes in their games. So I pose this question... how can we reconcile Story and Gameplay, this is not a debate about which is better, this is a discussion on how one can write/tell a GOOD and potentially COMPLEX story that meshes well with the gameplay where neither are sacrificed at the expense of the other.

Any thoughts?

There are already plenty of good devices floating around.

-Interactive dialog, which can be both story and gameplay at the same time.
-Plot cookies being left around, like audio tapes in Bioshock or memory vaults in Psychonauts
-Using exploration of the world and a changing environment to tell a story

The real key is to understand that you can do things with video game stories that you can't do in any other medium, and to work off of those strengths rather than try to figure out how to jam a 30-hour feature film into the game.

For example, video games aren't good at developing the main character's personality, but they can create a level of immersion and identification with the main character that no other form of storytelling can come close to.

Anton P. Nym:
Hire Professional writers. Early. And listen to them. And don't screw with the script too much after they're done.

-- Steve

This is almost all that needs to be said, really. Because if game developers would actually listen to this, they wouldn't need to worry about it. It'd work anyway. I've never heard anyone complain about the cutscenes in Starcraft, or in Deus ex. Those are good stories. Well-written. Although I have heard people complain about the cutscenes in Bloodlines, that's only because they are unskipable and they've seen them before. Never the first time.

If you ignore that fact (which you shouldn't since you won't have a good game in that case), there are a few things that can help. Combinations is a very important thing. Don't tell all of your story through one media, like Morrowind, for instance. In Morrowind everything is text. All story is told by text. That breaks the flow of a game somewhat. If you instead tell the story through dialogue, through cutscenes, through books or equivalents and through visuals, like the scribblings on the walls in Portal, then it becomes more interesting. Morrowind got away with it, of course, since it has good writing, a good story (and any other game would to, unless of course the only media was audio and people murmured a lot).

A game needs variety, and a story needs to be worked into the gameplay. It needs to be a part of the game from the start. The usual thing nowadays seem to be to make a full game, and to make the modelling and scripting team write a story for it and stick it on there with duct tape. You do that, and you get the abominations you have today that even the gamers of today complain about, and when it goes that far, it's really bad.

An interactive cut scene would be a much better idea. I mean the games like Half Life are good since cut scenes are small and you can walk around in them and games where the whole plot is put all over the game as pages and stuff but that leaves people with ACTUALLY finding what you need which some people would rather skip. One thing they could do is just think for at least ten minutes without coping someone and make the game so you get to make a choice in every cut scene like in a scene where your attacked by aliens and instead of listening to some NPC who would probably die talk about something you don't want to listen too. You could actually say NO this idea is crap here is my version. But stuff like that would be much easier. Also it can make the gamer play it again but choose different options to see what would happen and you could also inculde small amounts of the plot in those choices that way you can listen to cut scenes, change them how you want and then maybe reload that one save so you can do it again choose differently and watch everything happen around you.

We need to step away from the idea of cutscenes in general, because essentially they boil down to watching a movie in the middle of playing a game. I play games for interactivity; if I wanted to watch a movie, I'd go watch a movie. There are other ways to present story to the player that allow them to remain in at least partial control. While the System Shock 2 / Doom3 / Bioshock method (leaving logs or recordings just lying around) is a bit hokey, it also makes searching out those little cubbyholes and such worthwhile for the dedicated story enthusiast. I think I prefer Half-Life's method the most, though- everything that happens unfolds in real time, from the character's viewpoint. You can still manage a lot of exposition for the people who want to follow a story, and there's no cutscenes to skip for those who want to move on with the gameplay.

No, half-life just have very, very, very long unskippable scenes in which nothing happens. Frankly, I prefer a cutscene I can just skip by pressing escape than going in a trainride, or listening to a scientist ramble on with nothing happening until he's done. It's essentially cutscenes, just done in a different way.

And what's the interactivity of that really? There are games with interactive cutscenes, genesis: rising, to name one. You can choose your disposition, which is quite nice.

Do have a point there. Then again no matter what we do the only way to know the plot without looking or watching a lot of cutscenes is to be strapped down to a chair, have a strange beeping helmet strapped to your head, be bound down by the wrists and ankles and then be fed the plot by having it downloaded into your brain...that way all you do is gameplay and you have to do nothing like watch a cutscene ever again...though I don't know if having something forced into your brain is painless and it would probably be banned for being too cruel for humans anyways.

For me, it has to be major twists in the story that you don't see coming. And then, another twist, and another. Before long you don't know who to trust, or believe. I like it...

minignu:
One thing I think people fail to remember when developing games, is that they are creating a GAME, not a film, not a book and not a TV show. There are methods of exposition that work well in some mediums, but utterly fail in others. HL2 (and probably Portal, but I haven't had a chance to play it) was an excellent example of how storyline based gaming should work - it didn't try to be a book and simply "give" the player the story, but it let you explore it, see it and play around during it. Hiring "good writers" doesn't necessarily mean that it integrates plot well with in the game, and we want good intergration, not a good plot which is led entirely by huge, rambling cut scenes (see: Metal Gear Solid games, which although great fun, are a bit heavy handed in the plot department).

yes there are differences in the medium, but 'GAME' is still a huuuuge concept. You can go anywhere with it. It's the player's goal that it's all about. Some play it for challenge, some play it for leisure (casual games), some play it to experience a story.

I'm one of the latter. What does a cutscene to me? If it's a good cutscene, in a good story (like metal gear solid) it engages me, it makes me want to play the game, to give the story a good ending.

Games are about this 'meaningful play'. For a pure gameplay player, meaningful play comes from interesting challenges, choices. For a story player like me, meaningful play comes from the story.

As long as those cutscenes aid the story, they aid meaninful play.

Like you're saying, each medium has unique options and advantages. There are many things a game can do that no other medium can. So how about the things a cutscene can do that games can't?

mathias53:

hamster mk 4:
If you want to be more overt about it you could have lost journal pages scattered about the levels. There is also eves dropping on dialogue between NPC's.

Bioshock did this and if i really wanted to learn the story i had to search every crevise of the map to find the pages. Then I have to read the pages which, being american, is way too much to ask of me. You could listen in on NPCs but what if you miss something because you didnt know it was there?

When System Shock 2 did this, it kind of made sense, the crew would need a way to tag down important or personal info quickly and easily. BioShock...uh uh, I can maybe understand a few officials having a tape recorder lying about, but not in the amount of 'em available, particularly to your average civilian. Paper. Paper. Paper. I know they're underwater and all that, but that still would not have nessecitated a mass reliance on magnetic tape.

Also, I suppose dialog boxes are good for advancing the story, but, they're still rather static even if you do get to make the choices. I liked Mass Effect's take on this, although it wasn't as freeform as they said it would be, it was nice nonetheless imo.

As far as I'm aware, Half-Life 2 plays out it's storyline quite well, and there are very few instances where you're actually taken out of the gameplay, those that are are usually justified, i.e. Gordon is immobilised for some reason.

However, cutscenes can be used to very nice effect, and I don't think they should be necessarily phased out of games altogether.

aRealGuitarHero707:
they could make more cutscenes interactive like "press x not to do die" that was in RE:4 and the like
it would especially cool if they did this during pivitol moments in the plot
the player would be shocked but still have to react

Press X not to die is probably one of the worst game mechanics to have been put into games.

Most games don't have a bad story really, just bad story-telling. Clunky dialog and bad voice acting. Definitely need a professional to write dialog. There's a reason Episode V is the best Star Wars movie--Leigh Brackett, not George Lucas wrote the script. :D

I thought Heavenly Sword, while an example of bad story-telling, actually did some interesting things with cut-scenes. I loved the small boxes that appeared and continued the story while I could still mash buttons to my heart's content.

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