zCreative Journal

So...games as a story-telling medium. Well, everyone likes a good story. And usually most get their dose from movies, television, books and so on and so forth. But rarely from games.

Now now, calm down boy/girl, I'm not saying video games have no story to tell whatsoever, but you some people don't really mind much about the story compared to the game play.

Games we're created for fun and people loved it because it is fun. Fun factor, for me, determines whether the game is good or otherwise. You COULD  have a boring cliche story line, but if the game's mechanic and game play is fun, people would eat it up anyways. What I'm trying to say is, games can sell well even WITHOUT a story line IF the game mechanics and game play is really good and/or FUN!

Plot was nothing to shout about, but the game play was fun!

This game doesn't even have a story line. Just kill the other team!

Ditto

How about the other way around? Good story line with 'meh' level of game play? It depends I guess. The only real pull you got is your good story. Looong walks, talks and cut scenes with a generic stabbing/shooting/exploring in between. People might get bored. The trick is getting the balance between game play and story line.

Don't make it soo plot heavy that it feels like a an "interactive movie" with some game play thrown here and there. Balance game play or story line ( or rather,60 % game play, 40% story line). As the industry have shown, though good stories does make the game really really good, in the end game play is more important.

In an unrelated note; Visual Novels. Like the name suggests, its like a (quite long) picture story book with the option to choos your actions. Plot Heavy Gameplay at it's finest. The only gameplay you get is picking choices that affects your story. The rest is wordswordswords and pictures.

On an interesting not, Half-Life doesn't have cut scenes, only scripted events... sure you do have moments where you stop and have to hear the character talk you you...but then you can rund aqround the room and put a bucket on his his while he talks!

And that's all for now. Goodbye!