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[TissueBox]

Uncharted's body count problem is not a character issue, it's a genre-mechanics issue. I wouldn't go probing into the psycho-ethical implications of the main cast's deeds too much, unless the narrative acknowledges it.

To be clear, though, that still qualifies as ludonarrative dissonance.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

The fundamental issue for me is that it needs to be understood that games, even more than cinema, are typically bound-uptight by genre conventions.

Uncharted 4 is a classic example of this because it shows how perceptions/reactions change when the makers back-off from one set of content expectations. In UC4 they leaven the wall-to-wall action (the source of the alleged ludo-narrative dissonance) with extended "quiet" sequences of narrative and exploration, and end up being criticized for turning the game into a "walking simulator".

"Walking Simulator" being of course, a different genre of game!

Which admittedly I think presents part of the tricky challenge for many 'AAA' games when they're expected to encompass a lot of different things all at once, particularly if the words 'open world' or 'RPG' come up. It's kinda hard to avoid some dissonance if a game has told you that you must stop the latest scheme of the big bad before it's too late, while also offering you the ability to play a card based mini-game, race across the world for additional currency, and go climbing around the landscape trying to find collectables that may or may not make sense in universe.

Which incidentally reminds me of Mark Brown's commentary on Breath of the Wild, where he noted the framing of the final quest - defeating Ganon - excuses you going around doing whatever as getting ready for that final quest, rather than avoiding it. Good way of resolving the dissonance there.

 

[Plum]

Uncharted's body count problem is not a character issue, it's a genre-mechanics issue. I wouldn't go probing into the psycho-ethical implications of the main cast's deeds too much.

Whynotboth.jpg

Ludonarrative Dissonance comes from the notion that a character does not cease to exist once gameplay starts, and if you see things that way then what you, as a player, are asked to make Nathan Drake do in gameplay is still part of who he is as a character.

 

[AuthenticM]

Love this guy!

 

[Clear]

Which incidentally reminds me of Mark Brown's commentary on Breath of the Wild, where he noted the framing of the final quest - defeating Ganon - excuses you going around doing whatever as getting ready for that final quest, rather than avoiding it. Good way of resolving the dissonance there.

Well its pretty standard for JRPG's to introduce some kind of "ticking clock" scenario -usually for something apocalyptic- in their third act, then pretty much ignore that whole time-pressure aspect in order not to be seen to be putting the player on a rail in the final stretch.

Its imperfect, but ultimately there's not a lot of alternative when the game needs to serve multiple approaches to play. I don't consider this to be dissonant because it is possible to sprint to the final confrontation, just that its probably neither optimal nor something that most players would actually prefer to do.

FFXV is kind of an interesting discussion case as I feel that the switch to a more linear format in the final third was a valid approach to building/maintaining dramatic momentum when the rest of the game stresses progress/pacing at the player's discretion. I don't think it was executed perfectly for sure, but I appreciate the logic behind that structural conceit - even knowing that the sudden shifting of gears would throw off a lot of players.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

The fundamental issue for me is that it needs to be understood that games, even more than cinema, are typically bound-uptight by genre conventions.

Uncharted 4 is a classic example of this because it shows how perceptions/reactions change when the makers back-off from one set of content expectations. In UC4 they leaven the wall-to-wall action (the source of the alleged ludo-narrative dissonance) with extended "quiet" sequences of narrative and exploration, and end up being criticized for turning the game into a "walking simulator".

"Walking Simulator" being of course, a different genre of game!

The problem isn't hat ND reduced the shooting, it's that instead of replacing it with something meaningful they just added a bunch of poorly-designed boring stuff.

Which says to me that Naughty Dog struggle with making anything that isn't a popamole murderfest, but that's beyond the point.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

The problem with LD is that it applies to ANY sort of fantasy world, no matter how mundane, and while it is a real thing people tend to use it like some sort of cheap shot to criticize a game's plot. Any sort of action story can be broken if you try to apply real world logic to it, which is why it tends to go beyond serious analysis into pointless navel gazing. It's not that the concept lacks merit, it's just too easy. And what can you do to "fix" it? Make an Uncharted game where Drake kills one person and spends the rest of the game feeling bad about it? That might work for a movie but games work on a different sort of logic because they require constant input of SOME sort to be interesting and combat is one of the simplest, and most effective and engaging, forms of input their is. And don't give me that "but you could make conversations more like combat!" Stuff, nobody has been able to pull that off effectively yet to the degree that I'm not entirely sure it's possible. Even with the games that "gamify" non-combat encounters the best, like Deus Ex Human Revolution, I still wouldn't want to play an entire game with just that.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture...mann-on-nathan-drake-sexism-in-games-20160524

Druckmann: ...Because we don't buy into it. I've been trying to dissect it. Why is it that Uncharted triggers this argument... It's a stylized reality where the conflicts are lighter, where death doesn't have the same weight... We're not trying to make a [socio-political-philosophical] statement...

Wow, my respect for Druckmann as a Director dropped quite significantly after reading that... taking what could be very useful criticism and gloating about how you don't give a shit about it... What makes it worse is that Druckmann himself managed to direct a game that nails the synergy between player, character and story...

...Nathan Drake fights impoverished third world pirates and mercenaries just doing their job because, for the most part, he wants to. Some people can look past that, which is fine, but that doesn't suddenly make the criticisms thrown at Uncharted wrong...

...People have been writing essays and making commentary for decades about the dissonance in how faceless mooks are treated in works of fiction vs all the themes and considerations applied to named characters, particularly in such works that promote empathy, kindness, and forgiveness... This is not new nor exclusive to video games...

every time i hear something from this guy he drops a few points for me... the last of us and uncharted 4 in particular do a lot more to make the ludonarrative dissonance less problematic and it's weird that he'd have a pushback against the term when it's one of the things i think naughty dog improved on in the seven years after uncharted 2...

yeah but unlike nathan drake, [indiana jones] has a fascination with history and wants it for the sake of the discovery and the world... by 'day' an archaeology professor, by 'night' a globetrotting (archaeologist) treasure-hunter... to that end, i think uncharted 4... does so much more to make sense of the character in his world, and manages to get a lot closer to indiana jones out of nathan drake... i'm so impressed by it, that it seems like it was all done on purpose, but apparently it's just druckmann getting lucky since he doesn't know what he's doing.

All interesting points. In Druckmann's defense, some of his other statements are better, and indicate that he's actually more purposeful/thoughtful than that excerpt from Rolling Stone would suggest. A tweet of his from January comes to mind:

https://twitter.com/Neil_Druckmann/status/824675058538778624
Moral/philosophical positions lead to laws. Therefore moral/philosophical arguments at the core of stories are inherently political.

 

[Riposte]

Yeah I rather have ludonarrative dissonance in my games than what you've just suggested.

This is precisely the issue.

The reason people are not very receptive to criticism of inconsistency between the "gameplay" and "story" because it still makes for a better game overall than the alternative, even if you have to use some suspension of disbelief. Many, many games are better off being "dissonant" than the garbage ideas people come up with, which often amount to removing 80% of the game's central system of interactivity.

Honestly, I often get the feeling almost everyone feels this way to some extent; even among the people who talk about this, very few people really give a shit the dissonance itself. The real heart of the matter is that they don't like the fact you kill so many people in videogames, "unjustifiably". The amount of time where "ludonarrative dissonance" means "you kill too many (brown) people" is probably 85% and maybe you get the other 15% which is "Why didn't Drake use his rope in a cutscene?" and I think it would be generous to say the latter often gets labeled under the term.

So to boil it down, the reason people openly mock this stuff is because the source comes across as pretty fucking dumb and moralistic in practice. We have a pretty good idea what makes a game good, so if one's idealism goes against that, then relegate it to a minor criticism and say "who gives a shit?" when someone thinks videogames should be gutted over it. However, if your perspective prioritizes the propaganda value of games over their escapism value, then maybe it goes the other way around.

Moral/philosophical positions lead to laws. Therefore moral/philosophical arguments at the core of stories are inherently political.

This argument only points out that it is politics which are inherently moral/philosophical and gives a good case that when philosophy (or psychology, physics, astronomy, etc.) is viewed politically, it's not "inherent".

 

[JonnyDBrit]

All interesting points. In Druckmann’s defense, some of his other statements are better, and indicate that he’s actually more purposeful/thoughtful than that excerpt from Rolling Stone would suggest. A tweet of his from January comes to mind:

There is half a year between the interview and the tweet, so it is possible (if a little unlikely) that his position may have shifted in that time. Alternatively, he genuinely believes both - understanding the idea that any ultimately any kind of moral or philosophical stance will be in some way political, addressing the usual claims that games 'shouldn't' be political by showcasing how broad that is, but also believing that his game didn't especially have such.

 

[Nottle]

It pains me that Bioshock was the genesis of this term, as I'm actually a big fan of the first game.

I just got through replaying the first Bioshock the other day, it's a great game I loved it. I doubt people would argue that it isn't great.

There are definitely themes in the game that are counters to what you are doing mechanically. If you are examining it at that level it has holes. I would say that these holes stand out because almost all other aspects of the game are really really good. If the story was crap people wouldn't really care if the gameplay took them out of it.

 

[Screaming Meat]

The fundamental issue for me is that it needs to be understood that games, even more than cinema, are typically bound-uptight by genre conventions.

The fundamental issue for me is that developers and writers need to understand that games aren't cinema.

#ThanksKojima

Narrative in games is still fairly new, and especially as we move towards open world games that encourage players to do whatever they want, while still trying to tell a specific narrative, the two are obviously going to clash.

They don’t have to. The problem, as I see it, is how developers approach the narrative (total armchair critique incoming!).

The majority of games are taking lessons from cinema and television for their visual story-telling. That’s fine and all, but these are linear, time-locked mediums where what is shown and how it is paced is firmly dictated to the viewer. I don’t think any of those elements play to video games’ strength and I’d say LD is symptomatic of that; of cribbing lessons from another medium rather than looking at itself more critically and exploring its unique quirks more thoroughly.

1) In the case of open world games, we also NEED open stories and not just open gameplay. Red Dead Redemption has been discussed earlier in this thread as a great example of a game that tries to tell a story about an ex-criminal seeking redemption in life and starting a new chapter where he strives to live morally and legally. Yet the player is not only allowed, but often encouraged, to break the law by robbing banks etc. during "gameplay" sections of the game.

I totally get that, but in this example, how much onus is on the player as an actor in that space to play the role of Marston? If the player did, would there be any dissonance to speak of, or is LD about the ‘potential’ to break from the prescribed story and create dissonance?

I’m probably going to display my ignorance here, but I wanted to take player agency and LD a little further.

How much does skill level play into LD?

Let’s take Corvo of Dishonoured fame. He starts the game as a phenomenal swordsman (or so we’re informed), but I imagine there were quite a few people who took a while getting used to the system when they first got their hands on it. Does this cause dissonance? The game is informing us that Corvo is an amazing swordsman, yet it allows us to flub a parry. If we make concessions for this, where is the line drawn?

It's a clear sign, to me, that one of the main reasons we have these issues of Nathan Drake and Lara Croft murdering hundreds of people per game is because developers don't trust players to be able to enjoy a game without it, and don't trust themselves at the prospect of creating a gameplay mechanic that is as fun as combat, yet isn't combat and violence related.

I know what you mean.

Personally, I think it’s a mixture of market forces and a general lack of imagination that is as much to blame. If a game came out that sold as well as GTAV and was all about, I dunno, talking your way out of trouble or dentistry, I imagine you’d see a paradigm shift across the industry.

 

[Ricky_R]

Ahh, good ol' LD. Thankfully the concept never really took off.

 

[messiaen]

I've always wanted to see Naughty Dog actually make one of their character-driven stories without bolting it onto a ten-hour shooter where the protagonist murders thousands of people. But they have not done it, they obviously do not wish to do it, and I honestly believe they are incapable of doing so.



No, the solution is to either write a story ("Fun adventure about a quirky bunch of well-meaning, treasure-hunting friends") and build the game around it, or make a game ("Killing hundreds or thousands of people") and write the story around it. But devs want to have their cake and eat it too, so we get dissonance.

OT: I don't want to be that guy, but this phrase is commonly used dissonance. It should be written the other way around to make sense. You can't eat your cake and [then still] have it.

I agree with you about the ND bit. It's one of the reasons I dislike their games, I can't get behind the characters or story because of the disconnect.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

I totally get that, but in this example, how much onus is on the player as an actor in that space to play the role of Marston? If the player did, would there be any dissonance to speak of, or is LD about the ‘potential’ to break from the prescribed story?

I’m probably going to display my ignorance here, but I wanted to take player agency and LD a little further. How much does skill level play into LD?

Let’s take Corvo of Dishonoured fame. He starts the game as a phenomenal swordsman (or so we’re informed), but I imagine there were quite a few people who took a while getting used to the system when they first got their hands on it. Does this cause dissonance? The game is informing us that Corvo is an amazing swordsman, yet it allows us to flub a parry. If we make concessions for this, where is the line drawn?

This point is an interesting one, and to again reference Mark Brown a bit, something he touched on with his appraisal of the recent Hitman game. Namely, how its emphasis on replayability so as to know the level inside and out, understanding where what items are and how certain actions will get reactions, allows the game to eventually (well, ideally) give the player a true sense of being the nigh-omniscient, uber-skilled assassin that Agent 47 is meant to be, rather than the cockeyed, awkward wannabe that he will be in most new players' initial attempts.

I think in that regard though, such dissonance can be potentially resolved by the player's eventual (again, ideal) mastery of the game. In contrast, there's no such resolution available if the mechanics themselves are at odds with the script, or if the scenarios presented stretch the supposed characterisation of the avatar, as with the commonly cited examples of Bioschok and Uncharted respectively.

 

[Wulfram]

This is precisely the issue.

The reason people are not very receptive to criticism of inconsistency between the "gameplay" and "story" because it still makes for a better game overall than the alternative, even if you have to use some suspension of disbelief. Many, many games are better off being "dissonant" than the garbage ideas people come up with, which often amount to removing 80% of the game's central interactive system.

The problem there is that people are approaching the problem from one angle. Fixing ludonarrative dissonance doesn't have to mean changing the gameplay to fit the story. It can mean changing the story to fit the gameplay - in fact in most cases that is the much more logical solution, since video games generally aren't all that narratively focused.

If your game is about shooting people, then write a story in which it makes sense for lots of people to get shot, with a protagonist who fits. The easiest way to avoid ludonarrative dissonance is to write the story around the gameplay.

 

[Riposte]

The problem there is that people are approaching the problem from one angle. Fixing ludonarrative dissonance doesn't have to mean changing the gameplay to fit the story. It can mean changing the story to fit the gameplay - in fact in most cases that is the much more logical solution, since video games generally aren't all that narratively focused.

If your game is about shooting people, then write a story in which it makes sense for lots of people to get shot, with a protagonist who fits. The easiest way to avoid ludonarrative dissonance is to write the story around the gameplay.

This is also what I meant when I said "garbage ideas". Removing nearly all of the narratives, themes, and settings from a genre (if not most genres) because... ludonarrative dissonance, is quite the garbage idea. How about we just make dissonant games with a bunch of fun settings and ideas anyway? You are talking about creating a huge problem (low variety of vidoegames) because of a minor problem (cutscenes don't match with combat).

And, once again, this seems to be entirely about feeling bad about shooting virtual people, not the fact multiple elements of a game fails to match up. No one gives a shit that menus exist for some weird reason.

 

[CDV13]

This is also what I meant when I said "garbage ideas". Removing nearly all of the narratives, themes, and settings from a genre (if not most genres) because... ludonarrative dissonance, is quite the garbage idea. How about we just make dissonant games with a bunch of fun settings and ideas anyway? You are talking about creating a huge problem (low variety of vidoegames) because of a minor problem (cutscenes don't match with combat).

And, once again, this seems to be entirely about feeling bad about shooting virtual people, not the fact multiple elements of the game matches up. No one gives a shit that menus exist for some weird reason.

Yea, I'm gonna have to agree with this. It's just not something people should worry about. It's criticism for criticisms sake and if developers really tried to change to remedy the issue, people would probably not buy their games. This is a business, first and foremost, and no one who controls the money really cares.

Here would be a conversation in the boardroom of this was ever taken seriously..... You shoot 100s of virtual people in Uncharted? Yes. Is it fun and do people enjoy the game/does it sell? Very much so. Okay, then keep making it the way you are. I don't care if the story scenes match the player controlled scenes in ideals and characteristics...I want my money.

 

[LeleSocho]

I find the Uncharted example so incredibly puzzling, never in the story of Uncharted Nathan is portrayed as some kind of bastion of everything that is good in the world, never in the story there is some trait that somehow invalidates the main character killing dozens of people. the story in Uncharted is "yo i really want that treasure and i'll do my best to have it" nothing in there precludes killing people so in reality there is absolutely no dissonance in the "ludo" and "narrative" part of this game.

---

In general after having talked with people i have come to the conclusion that this topic has been given too much importance and it's probably a symptom of an industry that tries too much to emulate the movie one and can't find its own identity (at least the western branch of it).

 

[Wulfram]

This is also what I meant when I said "garbage ideas". Removing nearly all of the narratives, themes, and settings from a genre (if not most genres) because... ludonarrative dissonance, is quite the garbage idea. How about we just make dissonant games with a bunch of fun settings and ideas anyway? You are talking about creating a huge problem (low variety of vidoegames) because of a minor problem (cutscenes don't match with combat).

And, once again, this seems to be entirely about feeling bad about shooting virtual people, not the fact multiple elements of a game fails to match up. No one gives a shit that menus exist for some weird reason.

You're inventing things I didn't say. Video games tell a wide variety of stories and most of them don't suffer from dissonance

 

[Plum]

This is also what I meant when I said "garbage ideas". Removing nearly all of the narratives, themes, and settings from a genre (if not most genres) because... ludonarrative dissonance, is quite the garbage idea. How about we just make dissonant games with a bunch of fun settings and ideas anyway? You are talking about creating a huge problem (low variety of vidoegames) because of a minor problem (cutscenes don't match with combat).

And, once again, this seems to be entirely about feeling bad about shooting virtual people, not the fact multiple elements of a game fails to match up. No one gives a shit that menus exist for some weird reason.

If you're going to see "write the story around the gameplay" and instantly go to "garbage" then of course it can't be solved. It's the defeatist attitude that games cannot respond to criticism such as that based on Ludonarrative Dissonance without "ruining" them. Uncharted wouldn't be ruined if Naughty Dog did a better job at making Nathan's goals more selfless and his enemies less sympathetic.

That and the whole "but what about menus!!!" argument is just terrible. Nathan Drake shooting some brown person because he wants money is diegetic; the player opening up the pause menu because they need to do something else is entirely non-diegetic. They're fundamentally different things.

I find the Uncharted example so incredibly puzzling, never in the story of Uncharted Nathan is portrayed as some kind of bastion of everything that is good in the world, never in the story there is some trait that somehow invalidates the main character killing dozens of people. the story in Uncharted is "yo i really want that treasure and i'll do my best to have it" nothing in there precludes killing people so in reality there is absolutely no dissonance in the "ludo" and "narrative" part of this game.

The amount of misconstruing of people's arguments here is off the charts. If you can't see how Nathan Drake not being Jesus doesn't mean he's able to kill more people than all of the enemies he fights combined... and quip about it afterwards then of course this criticism is going to be overblown to you.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Plus, you know, criticism of something - though it can imply such - does not necessarily mean something must actually change in order to work or be good. People can take issue with the orcs of the Lord of the Rings being portrayed as always evil even though this doesn't line up with the rest of the work's views on the nature of good and evil in a world created by deity intended as always good - an issue even Tolkien himself had and went to his grave unsure how to resolve - while still enjoying it. People can enjoy Bioshock while still finding its inability to hold a fully consistent stance on the player's ability to agree or disagree with the objectivist views on display. A game like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided quite ostensibly making itself about issues of inequality is worth dissecting when it makes the player an exception to the issues it opines about.

These criticisms also build the pool of resources and understanding from which future developers can build their games. As Olson brings up in the video, gaming is still young, its earliest architects still alive and contributing to the medium. Looking back to older works and asking, 'What did they do right/wrong?' is something that, ideally, will only become more common, and that should include how well the differing elements of the work - including the story in relation to the gameplay - tie together. To believe otherwise is to reject the medium maturing at all as an art form.

 

[Wulfram]

That and the whole "but what about menus!!!" argument is just terrible. Nathan Drake shooting some brown person because he wants money is diegetic; the player opening up the pause menu because they need to do something else is entirely non-diegetic. They're fundamentally different things.

I don't think the menu argument is totally off base, though it does miss the point of the criticism. The menus should still be designed to fit with the games tone, at least to some degree. If Dark Souls' menus looked like this, that would sound a dissonant note.

 

[LeleSocho]

The amount of misconstruing of people's arguments here is off the charts. If you can't see how Nathan Drake not being Jesus doesn't mean he's able to kill more people than all of the enemies he fights combined... and quip about it afterwards then of course this criticism is going to be overblown to you.

What if Nathan has a thirst for blood or just doesn't care? is it written somewhere that he doesn't/does? If the story doesn't give any indication then the actions make the character.

 

[Alienous]

Again, the 'Nathan Drake bodycount' is a red herring, of sorts. It applies as equally to Nathan Drake as it does to any Call of Duty protagonist, or even Joel from The Last of Us. "I have to suspend my disbelief that one guy could kill this many people". As such it doesn't explain why Nathan Drake keeps getting brought up.

The reason why Nathan Drake has become a figurehead for Ludonarrative Dissosance is because his personality is at odds with his actions. In cutscenes he's a merciful guy, keen to avoid combat. In Uncharted 1-3, with stealth options being rare, he's a dude who kills his way through situations in gameplay. He snaps people's necks.

They decided to have their cake and eat it too. "We'll have a fun-loving protagonist in a 'realistic' third-person shooter", but those are incompatible narratively. It's a flaw of writing that won't matter to everyone, but will matter to some. Uncharted could have been a non-violent stealth game and the two halves would have matched. Nathan Drake could have been a grizzled ex-military mercenary and the two halves would have matched.

Games that actually make the effort to have their non-interactive elements (story, cutscenes) justify the interactive parts should be praised - it's hard to do, but it has been done, and it's good video game writing. And games, like Uncharted, that don't do that as well should be open to criticism on that front.

 

[Plum]

Plus, you know, criticism of something - though it can imply such - does not necessarily mean something must actually change in order to work or be good. People can take issue with the orcs of the Lord of the Rings being portrayed as always evil even though this doesn't line up with the rest of the work's views on the nature of good and evil in a world created by deity intended as always good - an issue even Tolkien himself had and went to his grave unsure how to resolve - while still enjoying it. People can enjoy Bioshock while still finding its inability to hold a fully consistent stance on the player's ability to agree or disagree with the objectivist views on display. A game like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided quite ostensibly making itself about issues of inequality is worth dissecting when it makes the player an exception to the issues it opines about.

These criticisms also build the pool of resources and understanding from which future developers can build their games. As Olson brings up in the video, gaming is still young, its earliest architects still alive and contributing to the medium. Looking back to older works and asking, 'What did they do right/wrong?' is something that, ideally, will only become more common, and that should include how well the differing elements of the work - including the story in relation to the gameplay - tie together. To believe otherwise is to reject the medium maturing at all as an art form.

Exactly. As with all criticism it's a way for the medium to learn and grow. It's why I find the dismissive, poorly thought out arguments surrounding it so frustrating especially when they're coming from someone as prevalent as Druckmann. What's so threatening about calling out Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, etc for their Ludonarrative Dissonance?

I don't think the menu argument is totally off base, though it does miss the point of the criticism. The menus should still be designed to fit with the games tone, at least to some degree. If Dark Souls' menus looked like this, that would sound a dissonant note.

Yeah, that's definitely a good point, they're not entirely seperate things but Riposte's argument was more about the existance of menus themselves than whether they fit the game's tone or story. It'd be like pointing to a plot hole in a film and going "but the end credits exist!!!"

What if Nathan has a thirst for blood or just doesn't care? is it written somewhere that he doesn't/does? If the story doesn't give any indication then the actions make the character.

We can go on all day, but your argument will never not be terrible. Nathan Drake not saying "I don't want to kill people," does not make the incongruity between his personality (a quipping wise guy who cares about his friends over all and, in one instance, literally doesn't want to kill innocent people) and his actions any less clear. That's the whole point, what we see in gameplay and what we see in story do not fit together. Or would Doomguy being the star of Life is Strange not be incongruous to you if he doesn't say "I don't particularly like taking photographs of Deer and hanging out with my Hipster friends."?

 

[Screaming Meat]

This point is an interesting one, and to again reference Mark Brown a bit, something he touched on with his appraisal of the recent Hitman game. Namely, how its emphasis on replayability so as to know the level inside and out, understanding where what items are and how certain actions will get reactions, allows the game to eventually (well, ideally) give the player a true sense of being the nigh-omniscient, uber-skilled assassin that Agent 47 is meant to be, rather than the cockeyed, awkward wannabe that he will be in most new players' initial attempts.

Is that SuperBunnyHop? It's a great point. My head canon is that Agent 47 is running through scenarios before making the perfect hit.

Replayability is fundamental to Hitman games, but does the average player know that? Most of the assumptions we're making here are for high-level play; at least, for players who are fairly switched on. What about the average/below average player who comes to the game?

The series offers a lot of freedom, including whether you learn levels by playing them over and over again or whether you use the quiet approach or whatever. Surely, sub-par players would experience LD if they were to simply shoot their way through each level? It's hard, but doable. All the while, the narrative would be telling them they are this near mythic, ghost-like apex assassin.

Does that mean if you play HITMAN 'wrong' (as in, not as intended), it is 'guilty' of LD too (on a fundamental level)? Are freedom in gameplay and a fixed narrative the fundamental components for dissonance to manifest or does the player have some responsibility to act as intended to preserve LD?

If I can play game and not experience LD because I follow the narrative rules, and another player does the opposite, it seems there is an argument for LD laying firmly in the hands of the player, at least for these kinds of game (RDR, Hitman, GTAIV, etc.)

I think in that regard though, such dissonance can be potentially resolved by the player's eventual (again, ideal) mastery of the game. In contrast, there's no such resolution available if the mechanics themselves are at odds with the script, or if the scenarios presented stretch the supposed characterisation of the avatar, as with the commonly cited examples of Bioschok and Uncharted respectively.

Sure.

What's the charactisation of the Bioshock avatar, is this about him rooting through bins?

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Is that SuperBunnyHop? It's a great point. My head canon is that Agent 47 is running through scenarios before making the perfect hit.

Replayability is fundamental to Hitman games, but does the average player know that? Most of the assumptions we're making here are for high-level play; at least, for players who are fairly switched on. What about the average/below average player who comes to the game?

The series offers a lot of freedom, including whether you learn levels by playing them over and over again or whether you use the quiet approach or whatever. Surely, sub-par players would experience LD if they were to simply shoot their way through each level? It's hard, but doable. All the while, the narrative would be telling them they are this near mythic, ghost-like apex assassin.

Does that mean if you play HITMAN 'wrong' (as in, not as intended), it is 'guilty' of LD too (on a fundamental level)? Is freedom in gameplay juxtaposed against a fixed narrative the fundamental components for dissonance to manifest or does the player have a some responsibility to act as intended to preserve LD?

If I can play game and not experience LD because I follow the narrative rules, and another player does the opposite, it seems there is an argument for LD laying firmly in the hands of the player, at least for these kinds of game (RDR, Hitman, GTAIV, etc.)

Game Maker's Toolkit actually, though SBH does touch on some similar points.

As to LD being on the player in that regard, I do in fact think you can make an argument for that case, which given the nature of video games, is important. To what extent should the player be held responsible for the way in which they use the content, vs the developers making it possible for them to use the content in that way. Typically discussion falls heavily on the latter, but I don't think you can wholly excuse the former.

Edit: Actually to use an anecdotal example, a friend of mine recently completed Nier Automata. He was pissed because of the ending, which

Spoiler

deletes your save file in order to save another player

. Even though it ties into the game thematically, and it warned him repeatedly, he felt tricked and that it was odds with the rest of the game. In the end I would say that's more down to how he interacted with the game than the game itself.

Sure.

What's the charactisation of the Bioshock avatar, is this about him rooting through bins?

Note the 'respectively', as in, applied separately. Former to Bioshock, latter to Uncharted.

 

[Birgitte2004]

You're inventing things I didn't say. Video games tell a wide variety of stories and most of them don't suffer from dissonance

If you study them in detail almost all of them have dissonance. It's just not to the "hit you over the head" level of Uncharted.

Like if in Edith Finch you spin in a circle for an hour and a half you've achieved dissonance.

 

[Hektor]

Gameplay and story are supposed to enhance each other. If they don't fit or even directly contradict each other you might as well make them separate things entirely.

What's the point in uncharted having a story or its story having gameplay if im supposed to pretend that these are two different things? Cut out all the cutscenes of uncharted and put them on Netflix as a tv show and you have the same result.

Videogame writers just trying to chase hollywood and forcing the contents thoughtless into an entirely different working medium instead of finding their own ideas is the worst thing that has happened to videogame stories in basically forever.

That Neil Druckman quote posted earlier is a straight up embarassing display of creative defeatism.

The problem there is that people are approaching the problem from one angle. Fixing ludonarrative dissonance doesn't have to mean changing the gameplay to fit the story. It can mean changing the story to fit the gameplay - in fact in most cases that is the much more logical solution, since video games generally aren't all that narratively focused.

If your game is about shooting people, then write a story in which it makes sense for lots of people to get shot, with a protagonist who fits. The easiest way to avoid ludonarrative dissonance is to write the story around the gameplay.

+++++++

It's honestly pretty telling where people come from when they their first thought is that the gameplay is what should change.

Not that I would mind games trying new things that don't revolve around killing suff mind you.

 

[LeleSocho]

We can go on all day, but your argument will never not be terrible. Nathan Drake not saying "I don't want to kill people," does not make the incongruity between his personality (a quipping wise guy who cares about his friends over all and, in one instance, literally doesn't want to kill innocent people) and his actions any less clear. That's the whole point, what we see in gameplay and what we see in story do not fit together.

Just as like we can go on all day and you people will always be the kind that want to impose their headcanon as the official canon, there is plenty of people in the world that is funny and jolly and all that but have a dark side why can't Nathan be like that? Because some random people on the net decided that he's a good to the heart guy, Druckmann himself said "why Uncharted and not Indiana Jones?" which is a totally legitimate question... why Nathan and not Mario that everytime he breaks a brick block he kills a Toad?

I really don't give two damns about Ludonarrative Dissonance and hate that people gives so much importance about it and yet i'm here defending a game which i really don't care about from people going nuts about it.

People are weird

 

[manueldelalas]

The first time this issue became apparent to me was in Zelda Wind Waker, specifically in the final boss fight (HUGE SPOILER: The final boss is Ganondorf!!). Ganondorf beat the shit out of you in the cutscene, then, without nothing really significant to weaken him or strengthen Link, you beat him swiftly and easily, just pressing the win button three times, basically.

Ocarina of Time also has a cutscene were Ganondorf beat the shit out of you, the difference is that you were a kid with a wooden shield and a slingshot, so the experience was believable. The next time you faced Ganondorf, there was no action cutscene before the final fight, just the fight, and it was awesome; you felt more powerful and you felt you earned your power.

This happened before, of course; in certain RPGs, you fought an early boss battle that you were supposed to loose. To make the fight exciting and longer, the boss was gimped and you could last a few rounds, but it was balanced in a way that almost ensured you to loose.

But, being a RPG game, you could grind before or mess with the battle system in order to win.

Most games, would stop midfight, or have the Boss use an incredibly powerful power to wipe you out, others would cut the fight and speak in text after a set of turns, but most would not acknowledge that you basically beat that boss, and that was incredibly frustrating. LND right there.

Some games though, would acknowledge this giving you experience, special items, extra dialogue and even let you steal special items during the fight, and that was amazing AF.

Early FPSs had you taking the role of a badass or 80s hero, so it didn't matter they killed thousands of people in the game, that was the point, no LND in Duke Nukem 3D for example.

 

[jg4xchamp]

Like any other form of criticism it has merit if used correctly, and sure if someone wanted to judge games more "holistically" with the story n gameplay in one, then sure, by all means use it.

But I don't personally care for it, because to me I think the best games embrace the silly ness, the artificiality of games. And that's because like any other art form, it's the depth of the work that usually tends to get celebrated the most.

Cinematography is a fundamental tool of of story telling in its medium. But it's not strictly a story telling tool in gaming (read it can be, but it isn't strictly that), as it's just play. And in this medium I care way more about the rules, the systems, and the interesting interplay. It doesn't bother me as much anymore that Nathan Drake kills 100 people, it does bother me that the mechanics of his fundamentally shallow.

Beyond that, beyond the usual "hur dur video game stories aren't good", to me the medium has fundamental issues in terms of being a story telling medium. For starters it isn't organic as a film or a book. The logical story beat, is what will be the next logical story beat. If that means two people talking in a room with very little action, then that's the beat. But a game, eventually needs to let me play something.

That and I have questions about things about fail state. If we all agree that gameplay is story telling, because I don't think it's a crazy idea to say, that if a game tells a story, a game's gameplay should absolutely be a fundamental key part of said story. Yet the lion's share of video games require me to act like the failures never happened. That I didn't get killed in this sequence a few times, before I succeeded. And that aspect of a game, the fail state is pretty key to what makes a game enjoyable. There is a merit to challenge in video games, it provides the stakes to the game, that the story simply can't provide. I mean sure you can separate it n all that jazz, chalk it up to video game logic, but isn't that exactly the problem? You don't really do that when reading a book, you don't do that when watching a movie. The whole concept of immersion n suspension of disbelief is its own self-defeating prophecy that I have questions about.

And for someone about to argue I'm "overthinking" the fail state thing, explain why that would be over thinking it and not Nathan Drake murdering up a continent? Because sure the latter is at odds with who Drake is as a character, but the former is at odds with the story. The story will rarely if ever acknowledge my failures as part of the experience, but failures in a game are pretty significant part of a game's experience.

Do I like things like Journey? Yeah I think it's a good game. The story it happens to tell, is tied to what you are doing, even if the mechanics are so simple. At the same time I have no problem with thinking Bayonetta is a fantastic game even when it's story meanders with nonsensical info dump shit (albeit sure I like the character n the energy of the action). And I would absolutely argue that game is one of the finest games of this past decade, because on the gameplay front it would have very few equals. Now obviously Bayonetta has no delusion of going for some introspective narrative or something, but the general gist I'm trying to say, I have no problem with saying story bad, gameplay good.

You should make the criticism that the story has its issues, but the amount of weight you give it depends entirely on the critic. Ideally you would like a level of consistency from the critic, but whatevs. Personally I'd rather the medium embrace the dissonance a bit.

Also, this thread has nothing to do with it, but seriously fuck walking segments in video games.

 

[Screaming Meat]

I can't read that spoiler just yet. I'm only on the B run through

But to comment on your point, it's an interesting grey area. I'm not sure where the 'guilt' lies, but I think when games move further away from trying to provide filimic experiences and move towards ones better suited to games, we'll see a lot less of it.

Off-topic, and perhaps ironically given what I just said, I find it funny people give/gave MGS a hard time for veering between goofy and histrionic seriousness when, in the end, that tonal whip-lash so unique to the series gave players a ton of room to breathe without 'breaking character'. Whilst the series arguably popularised cinematic game experiences, it never forgets it is a game first and foremost.

Note the 'respectively', as in, applied separately. Former to Bioshock, latter to Uncharted.

Ah, gotcha. So how do the mechanics clash?

 

[Plum]

Game Maker's Toolkit actually, though SBH does touch on some similar points.

As to LD being on the player in that regard, I do in fact think you can make an argument for that case, which given the nature of video games, is important. To what extent should the player be held responsible for the way in which they use the content, vs the developers making it possible for them to use the content in that way. Typically discussion falls heavily on the latter, but I don't think you can wholly excuse the former.

This is a good point, and a decent example could be the Metal Gear series. In those you're supposed to be playing as a master of sneaking and one of the most skilled soldiers around; whereas for most of my playthroughs I was less "Les Enfants Terribles" and more "Just Fuckin' Terrible." The thing with that though is that I still beat the games so, technically, Snake still destroyed Metal Gear and Big Boss still surpassed the Boss; it's still dissonant, of course, but I put it lower on the scale of importance than other examples of it.

However, there are many, many things developers can control and take into account when developing their games. The issues come into the equation for me when what the developer explicitly allows or encourages the player to do is incongruous to the story. For example with Fallout 4 I recently started a "Mad Max" build, a lone wanderer type with just my dog and a shotgun for company. However, to complete the game I have to align myself with one of the factions whether I want to or not. Bethesda should have accommodated that choice (see: Fallout New Vegas) or gotten rid of it.

If you study them in detail almost all of them have dissonance. It's just not to the "hit you over the head" level of Uncharted.

Like if in Edith Finch you spin in a circle for an hour and a half you've achieved dissonance.

I'm not sure what your angle is here but the argument itself is just intentionally obtuse.

Just as like we can go on all day and you people will always be the kind that want to impose their headcanon as the official canon, there is plenty of people in the world that is funny and jolly and all that but have a dark side why can't Nathan be like that? Because some random people on the net decided that he's a good to the heart guy, Druckmann himself said "why Uncharted and not Indiana Jones?" which is a totally legitimate question... why Nathan and not Mario that everytime he breaks a brick block he kills a Toad?

I really don't give two damns about Ludonarrative Dissonance and hate that people gives so much importance about it and yet i'm here defending a game which i really don't care about from people going nuts about it.

People are weird

I'm going entirely from what the game shows me and what I know of the real world. Nathan Drake's having a dark side is never acknowledged in any of the five games in the series so why should I take that possibility into account when criticising the game?

I've explained multiple times why Indiana Jones is not a good comparison. It's a terrible comparison, especially when you consider that the fourth film was criticised for almost exactly the same things Uncharted is being criticised for.

...thanks for implying I'm weird though!

 

[Sande]

I don't think Bioshock suffers from it. It might seem like it does, until

Spoiler

the twist, which explains that Jack never had any agency in the narrative and any disconnect between his actions in gameplay and story are explained by the mind control.

Even as a criticism of objectivism it works both mechanically and narratively because you end up better off by helping others. Harvesting is NOT a good deal in Bioshock. It seems so at first for a while, but it's not. Kind of how Rapture seemed to work amazingly for a little while.

 

[TheMink]

For me I think the ludonarritve issue is far more about things your character can do in game that he can't do in a cutscene.

My biggest gripe being:

"There are too many of them!"

Like I was doing just fine. Why not just throw actual powerful enemies at me until I actually lose if you want me to suspend my disbelief.

 

[Riposte]

Exactly. As with all criticism it's a way for the medium to learn and grow. It's why I find the dismissive, poorly thought out arguments surrounding it so frustrating especially when they're coming from someone as prevalent as Druckmann. What's so threatening about calling out Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, etc for their Ludonarrative Dissonance?

Yeah, that's definitely a good point, they're not entirely seperate things but Riposte's argument was more about the existance of menus themselves than whether they fit the game's tone or story. It'd be like pointing to a plot hole in a film and going "but the end credits exist!!!"

Menus existing wasn't what I was pointing out (although at the most extreme example, like disruptive "end credits", it still applies I guess), it was how menus can be the main source of interactivity and subvert reality in how commands turn into actions. The point is left to be pretty open, but you can take it to mean stuff like the ability to control multiple characters in combat but only one on the "map" (or only being given one perspective in the story), having access to infinite healing items which do not take up corporeal space (or perhaps a very abstracted space) nor show up in story moments, taking turns, whacking at each other while a meter fills up which allows you to open up a menu and do a special attack, controlling entire armies in completely separate locations with no use of technology, and so on. Menus are something of a representation of the highly abstracted, fuzzy reality where interactivity takes place in and, in most cases or for most people, the existence of this space isn't that disruptive to the mildly to highly separated space where the plot takes place in. JRPGs can be goofy and break the fourth wall or they can have deathly serious plots, with more or less the same system of interactivity (and plenty of murderrrrrr).

If it sounds like I wasn't talking about Uncharted or shooters in general, it is because I wasn't (at least not necessarily), but it's worth noting that's where you went while I'm also arguing this issue is mainly a trojan horse for "shooting a lot of people is bad (unless the main character is telegraphed as a "bad person"/"anti-hero" in the story)".

Your first paragraph is weird. Dismissing criticism prevents "learning and growing"? So, what if I said "Videogames should never have coherency between plot and story, they should always function like arcade games" and developed this form of criticism into several elaborate points and such. If someone dismissed my point of view, would they be hurting videogames?

Here's my version of the argument: videogames should be emotionally interesting ("emotion" in the broadest sense, e.g. the emotion of playing a Super Mario level, not just sad cutscenes or foggy, rainy backgrounds) first and foremost, and coherency comes way later in importance. If videogames "learn" to stop worrying about making sense on a narrative level they can "grow", because there will be more videogames not restrained by ludonarrative dissonance! Tired of the platitudes yet?

 

[Plum]

I don't think Bioshock suffers from it. It might seem like it does, until

Spoiler

the twist, which explains that Jack never had any agency in the narrative and any disconnect between his actions in gameplay and story are explained by the mind control.

Even as a criticism of objectivism it works both mechanically and narratively because you end up better off by helping others. Harvesting is NOT a good deal in Bioshock. It seems so at first for a while, but it's not. Kind of how Rapture seemed to work amazingly for a little while.

Yeah I don't exactly see it in the original Bioshock. Bioshock Infinite though, that game was a Ludonarrative Dissonance bonanza.

 

[Jangowuzhere]

That and I have questions about things about fail state. If we all agree that gameplay is story telling, because I don't think it's a crazy idea to say, that if a game tells a story, a game's gameplay should absolutely be a fundamental key part of said story. Yet the lion's share of video games require me to act like the failures never happened. That I didn't get killed in this sequence a few times, before I succeeded. And that aspect of a game, the fail state is pretty key to what makes a game enjoyable. There is a merit to challenge in video games, it provides the stakes to the game, that the story simply can't provide. I mean sure you can separate it n all that jazz, chalk it up to video game logic, but isn't that exactly the problem? You don't really do that when reading a book, you don't do that when watching a movie. The whole concept of immersion n suspension of disbelief is its own self-defeating prophecy that I have questions about. .

Would you prefer if more games did stuff similar to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time?

"No, no, no, that's not how it happened"

 

[emilioasis]

It's weird because the gameplay of The Last of Us completely reinforces the narrative of The Last of Us; the combat mechanics, stealth, and crafting entirely support the Joel that is present in the dialogue and cutscenes

The Last Of Us story is about a man on a Escort Mission. The gameplay has nothing to do with escorting a character.

Joel has to keep Ellie alive, yet during gameplay she is never in danger (she can even bump into Clickers and they won't notice it).

This is weird, RE4 did it pretty well almost 10 years before. Leon has to protect Ashley, and you as a player HAVE to keep her alive.

Hell, even in Yoshi´s Island the "story" (Yoshi has to keep Baby Mario alive) is engrained with the gameplay (you loose the Baby = Game Over)

That is a glaring fault in The Last Of Us but almost no reviewer took it into consideration.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Like any other form of criticism it has merit if used correctly, and sure if someone wanted to judge games more "holistically" with the story n gameplay in one, then sure, by all means use it.

But I don't personally care for it, because to me I think the best games embrace the silly ness, the artificiality of games. And that's because like any other art form, it's the depth of the work that usually tends to get celebrated the most.

Cinematography is a fundamental tool of of story telling in its medium. But it's not strictly a story telling tool in gaming (read it can be, but it isn't strictly that), as it's just play. And in this medium I care way more about the rules, the systems, and the interesting interplay. It doesn't bother me as much anymore that Nathan Drake kills 100 people, it does bother me that the mechanics of his fundamentally shallow.

Beyond that, beyond the usual "hur dur video game stories aren't good", to me the medium has fundamental issues in terms of being a story telling medium. For starters it isn't organic as a film or a book. The logical story beat, is what will be the next logical story beat. If that means two people talking in a room with very little action, then that's the beat. But a game, eventually needs to let me play something.

That and I have questions about things about fail state. If we all agree that gameplay is story telling, because I don't think it's a crazy idea to say, that if a game tells a story, a game's gameplay should absolutely be a fundamental key part of said story. Yet the lion's share of video games require me to act like the failures never happened. That I didn't get killed in this sequence a few times, before I succeeded. And that aspect of a game, the fail state is pretty key to what makes a game enjoyable. There is a merit to challenge in video games, it provides the stakes to the game, that the story simply can't provide. I mean sure you can separate it n all that jazz, chalk it up to video game logic, but isn't that exactly the problem? You don't really do that when reading a book, you don't do that when watching a movie. The whole concept of immersion n suspension of disbelief is its own self-defeating prophecy that I have questions about.

And for someone about to argue I'm "overthinking" the fail state thing, explain why that would be over thinking it and not Nathan Drake murdering up a continent? Because sure the latter is at odds with who Drake is as a character, but the former is at odds with the story. The story will rarely if ever acknowledge my failures as part of the experience, but failures in a game are pretty significant part of a game's experience.

Do I like things like Journey? Yeah I think it's a good game. The story it happens to tell, is tied to what you are doing, even if the mechanics are so simple. At the same time I have no problem with thinking Bayonetta is a fantastic game even when it's story meanders with nonsensical info dump shit (albeit sure I like the character n the energy of the action). And I would absolutely argue that game is one of the finest games of this past decade, because on the gameplay front it would have very few equals. Now obviously Bayonetta has no delusion of going for some introspective narrative or something, but the general gist I'm trying to say, I have no problem with saying story bad, gameplay good.

You should make the criticism that the story has its issues, but the amount of weight you give it depends entirely on the critic. Ideally you would like a level of consistency from the critic, but whatevs. Personally I'd rather the medium embrace the dissonance a bit.

Also, this thread has nothing to do with it, but seriously fuck walking segments in video games.

The example of cinematography used in Olson's video, borrowed from Franklin's, is meant to be analagous. In the example it is meant as the equivalent of gameplay, in relation to the narrative.

Beyond that, I do think the issue of things like the fail state is actually a really good example of a baseline for ludonarrative dissonance most games can't escape. Thing is, in a good critical landscape, we could discuss both those things, as both have relevance. It just adds to that discussion and gives both audiences and developers more to think on as they try to craft new experiences, and that's not a bad thing.

I mean, I hate to sound a little cliché, but one of the most iconic aspects about the Soul series is about how it defies that dissonance. You die... and you died. The game doesn't reset externally of the narrative, you have to go back, get your shit, and if there's a boss involved, fight them because they're still there waiting for you - most of them have no reason not to be.

Video games can be and should be multiple things - and that includes differing degrees of dissonant, based on what they're trying to achieve as a whole package. Papers Please would be fundamentally broken as an experience if the gameplay didn't tie in with the generally oppressive, authoritarian regime under which you work in the game; no-one will much care whatever Bayonetta 3 might do story wise so long as everyone's favourite witch is kicking more ass and looking stylish while doing so.

Edit:

Ah, gotcha. So how do the mechanics clash?

It's brought up in Olson's video, but just to refresh, Bioshock gives the player a choice between, at least as the original article argued, buying into the objectivist nature of Rapture by exploiting the Little Sisters, or rejecting it by saving them. But the story itself doesn't let you do that with Andrew Ryan himself. So in this instance, the gameplay lets you do something the story does not.

Now whether or not that's truly so dissonant is, as others in the thread have shown, a subject for debate.

 

[jg4xchamp]

Would you prefer if more games did stuff similar to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time?

"No, no, no, that's not how it happened"

Not necessarily more games, but where it makes sense, sure. I actually don't think PoP08 was handling it incorrectly either. The larger issue with that game is how shallow the mechanics are, and how repetitive the platforming can feel because of how samey the areas are during their initial visit (it isn't until the 2nd visit they get spiced up a bit).

Souls games handle their fail state in an interesting way. Soul Reaver did as well. Braid technically doesn't have one. But sure I do like that aspect of Sands of Time, it also adds some of that games charm on the story front.

The example of cinematography used in Olson's video, borrowed from Franklin's, is meant to be analagous. In the example it is meant as the equivalent of gameplay, in relation to the narrative.

Beyond that, I do think the issue of things like the fail state is actually a really good example of a baseline for ludonarrative dissonance most games can't escape. Thing is, in a good critical landscape, we could discuss both those things, as both have relevance. It just adds to that discussion and gives both audiences and developers more to think on as they try to craft new experiences, and that's not a bad thing.

I mean, I hate to sound a little cliché, but one of the most iconic aspects about the Soul series is about how it defies that dissonance. You die... and you died. The game doesn't reset externally of the narrative, you have to go back, get your shit, and if there's a boss involved, fight them because they're still there waiting for you - most of them have no reason not to be.

Video games can be and should be multiple things - and that includes differing degrees of dissonant, based on what they're trying to achieve as a whole package. Papers Please would be fundamentally broken as an experience if the gameplay didn't tie in with the generally oppressive, authoritarian regime under which you work in the game; no-one will much care whatever Bayonetta 3 might do story wise so long as everyone's favourite witch is kicking more ass and looking stylish while doing so.

Fair, and I agree to a point. I can't fucking stand walking-sims as games, and often feel like they get some serious lack of constructive criticism (they get the shitty stuff from the forum crowd n youtube comments), but I don't think the medium is richer for these type of games not existing or at the least not trying to do something different in this space. And sure Souls games are a great example, when I was typing up the "I died to" part, I was gonna mention the silver archers on anor londo and had to do a double take like "well Souls actually handles this shit lol"

My stance is that there should also be a level of appreciation (and there is, obviously) of games that just embrace that dissonance. Like nowadays I no longer think the problem with Gears of War level design is how "gamey" the arenas look. Maybe the solution is embracing that, and instead creating cover arenas that have the player moving around more, and actually wall bouncing n stuff in fire fights in combat. As opposed to doing this half-measure step of trying to make a plausible space, but it still looks silly as hell. I think the Raycevik vid touches on that stuff with his Gears 4 vid and the comparison with Doom. Immersion shouldn't just be seen as "do I buy this setting, do I believe in this world" but can be how absorbed the player is by the mechanics.

Beyond that I got the analogy he was making with cinematography, but I don't think it works. It isn't apples to apples thing here. One is straight up a vehicle for story telling, a game, necessarily isn't. Games are a lot closer to Connect 4 than they are to The Godfather. Not saying the play can't tell a story (even board games have narratives these days, and D&D is a pretty big example of a game telling a story), but it isn't strictly a story telling thing is where my complaint comes from. But sure, maybe that's over doing it.

 

[Riposte]

I mean, I hate to sound a little cliché, but one of the most iconic aspects about the Soul series is about how it defies that dissonance. You die... and you died. The game doesn't reset externally of the narrative, you have to go back, get your shit, and if there's a boss involved, fight them because they're still there waiting for you - most of them have no reason not to be.

The Souls games are really vague about this (and about a lot of things, so they also say things like "time and space is weird" or "it's a dream"). It doesn't hold up with much thought, because there's a number of rules or scenarios where it doesn't quite fit. In the Dark Souls games (especially Dark Souls 1) you should be going hollow (something of a true death) relatively quickly depending on the number of times you "die". Humanity is a mechanic in a game too, but it has no influence on whether your character will suffer the fate most Undead in the story face. You do become more "undead" looking, but that's simultaneously acknowledging the hollow process while not committing to it.

 

[Screaming Meat]

The Souls games are really vague about this (and about a lot of things, so they also say things like "time and space is weird" or "it's a dream"). It doesn't hold up with much thought, because there's a number of rules or scenarios where it doesn't quite fit. In the Dark Souls games (especially Dark Souls 1) you should be going hollow (something of a true death) relatively quickly depending on the number of times you "die". Humanity is a mechanic in a game too, but it has no influence on whether your character will suffer the fate most Undead in the story face. You do become more "undead" looking, but that's simultaneously acknowledging the hollow process while not committing to it.

I'd say it is committed to it. The game never says how many times you have to die before going hollow, so nothing is being breached.

It's brought up in Olson's video, but just to refresh, Bioshock gives the player a choice between, at least as the original article argued, buying into the objectivist nature of Rapture by exploiting the Little Sisters, or rejecting it by saving them. But the story itself doesn't let you do that with Andrew Ryan himself. So in this instance, the gameplay lets you do something the story does not.

Now whether or not that's truly so dissonant is, as others in the thread have shown, a subject for debate.

Ah, okay. Not sure if that is dissonant. Imma watch the video again. Hold up.

EDIT: Yeah. That is debatable.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I don't think Bioshock suffers from it. It might seem like it does, until

Spoiler

the twist, which explains that Jack never had any agency in the narrative and any disconnect between his actions in gameplay and story are explained by the mind control.

Even as a criticism of objectivism it works both mechanically and narratively because you end up better off by helping others. Harvesting is NOT a good deal in Bioshock. It seems so at first for a while, but it's not. Kind of how Rapture seemed to work amazingly for a little while.

BioShock's gameplay, which sets up a nicely objectivist ethos of "gain power and wealth for myself without thought of others and I shall be able to progress," with its resource hoarding vending machine driven economy necessary for survival against splicers and Big Daddies, and it's narrative, in which you help Atlas to advance. Even then, it's something we ignore as part of the suspension of disbelief necessary for any story. But when BioShock calls attention to our helplessness in this regard, it's drawing attention to its own failings and calling us rubes for agreeing to its own conventions.

 

[Plum]

Menus existing wasn't what I was pointing out (although at the most extreme example, like disruptive "end credits", it still applies I guess), it was how menus can be the main source of interactivity and subvert reality in how commands turn into actions. The point is left to be pretty open, but you can take it to mean stuff like the ability to control multiple characters in combat but only one on the "map" (or only being given one perspective in the story), having access to infinite healing items which do not take up corporeal space (or perhaps a very abstracted space) nor show up in story moments, taking turns, whacking at each other while a meter fills up which allows you to open up a menu and do a special attack, controlling entire armies in completely separate locations with no use of technology, and so on. Menus are something of a representation of the highly abstracted, fuzzy reality where interactivity takes place in and, in most cases or for most people, the existence of this space isn't that disruptive to the mildly to highly separated space where the plot takes place in. JRPGs can be goofy and break the fourth wall or they can have deathly serious plots, with more or less the same system of interactivity (and plenty of murderrrrrr).

Again you're misconstruing things by implying that the basic abstractions of videogames are similar to what the player and the player character actually does within such game. Some games choose to contextualise such abstractions and some game's don't, and whilst one could argue the latter helps "immerse" more they are both OK in the player's eyes. I'd liken your examples to people asking "why don't they poop?" in regards to films; they don't poop because showing menial stuff like that wouldn't improve the story in the same way showing Nathan Drake carrying around tons of treasure wouldn't.

If it sounds like I wasn't talking about Uncharted or shooters in general, it is because I wasn't (at least not necessarily), but it's worth noting that's where you went while I'm also arguing this issue is mainly a trojan horse for "shooting a lot of people is bad (unless the main character is telegraphed as a "bad person"/"anti-hero" in the story)".

Where did anyone say it was bad? It's not bad, in fact Uncharted 4's shooting segments were some of the best TPS shooting segments I've played all year. You saying it's a Trojan Horse for such arguments doesn't make it so; the entire point is that Nathan Drake as a character does not mix well with Nathan Drake as a player avatar. With only slight tweaks to the tone and plot of each game Naughty Dog could make it work.

IYour first paragraph is weird. Dismissing criticism prevents "learning and growing"? So, what if I said "Videogames should never have coherency between plot and story, they should always function like arcade games" and developed this form of criticism into several elaborate points and such. If someone dismissed my point of view, would they be hurting videogames?

Here's my version of the argument: videogames should be emotionally interesting ("emotion" in the broadest sense, e.g. the emotion of playing a Super Mario level, not just sad cutscenes or foggy, rainy backgrounds) first and foremost, and coherency comes way later in importance. If videogames "learn" to stop worrying about making sense on a narrative level they can "grow", because there will be more videogames not restrained by ludonarrative dissonance! Tired of the platitudes yet?

What you're saying here is that because debate and differing opinions exist then video games cannot learn from the points brought up in said debate and criticism. I say that deflecting criticism will stop videogames from learning and growing because that's exactly what it will do. It's exactly the tactic used with people who find a lack of diversity in games to be a non-issue with phrases such as"why bother when gameplay is the most important?" and it really does frustrate me because those kinds of tactics offer no substance and provide no alternatives. Like with Uncharted; it's one thing to say "yeah but Indiana Jones though" and another to recognise how Indiana Jones and the Uncharted franchise differ so very greatly. If you don't want to take criticism into account then fine, but dismissing the criticism altogether does nothing except halt progress.

 

[Wulfram]

If you study them in detail almost all of them have dissonance. It's just not to the "hit you over the head" level of Uncharted.

Like if in Edith Finch you spin in a circle for an hour and a half you've achieved dissonance.

If its not "hit you over the head" I'm not sure i'd consider it dissonance. Gameplay/Story segregation is indeed fairly universal, but dissonance is when it's jarring - because it doesn't fit the themes or the tone, or because the story somehow draws attention to it.

Obviously that leaves the line where something becomes dissonance very much subjective, but so are most of the important things you might criticise a game for.

 

[Riposte]

I'd say it is committed to it. The game never says how many times you have to die before going hollow, so nothing is being breached.

Let's frame it like this: Many characters are or eventually enter a state of despair because they are the verge of going hollow, which is effectively death or a fate worse than death. The world itself is in a state of decay. On the other hand, your character doesn't decay at all, you merely become stronger and stronger, and this is despite you running head first into the mechanic which accelerates decay - "death". You can run out of humanity, souls, and look like a corpse like all the hollows you defeat along the way, but you are pretty much as mentally sound as you were when you left the asylum. The hollowing process only really makes sense with a perma-death system, which means we loop back to the same old problem of fail-states.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

The Souls games are really vague about this (and about a lot of things, so they also say things like "time and space is weird" or "it's a dream"). It doesn't hold up with much thought, because there's a number of rules or scenarios where it doesn't quite fit. In the Dark Souls games (especially Dark Souls 1) you should be going hollow (something of a true death) relatively quickly depending on the number of times you "die". Humanity is a mechanic in a game too, but it has no influence on whether your character will suffer the fate most Undead in the story face. You do become more "undead" looking, but that's simultaneously acknowledging the hollow process while not committing to it.

I'd say it is committed to it. The game never says how many times you have to die before going hollow, so nothing is being breached.

See, this kind of discussion is why dissonance is something to talk about in games (whether the ludonarrative variety or otherwise). Both because it's interesting but also allows us to better think on how well the experience convinces us, or commits to its own concepts. A version of Dark Souls that gave you a limited number of times to go hollow before insanity creeps in would be a different experience.