Page 17 of Looking for Group
“So what you’re saying,” said Drew, “is that the designers didn’t bother to balance their gameplay properly and that’s somehow my problem. The game has to provide the challenge, not the player. Don’t give me an ‘I win’ button and then have a go at me for pressing it.”
Tinuviel waved her burger in the air, scattering iceberg lettuce and bits of tomato over the table. “What I thought was really interesting aboutDishonoredwas its embrace of found narrative.Mission objectives are delivered through dialogue, but story is inherent in the world and emerges with the player’s visual engagement with the environment. So where I look and what I see creates the story for me. But where you look and what you see creates the story for you.”
Drew suspected Andy had a bit of a thing for Tinuviel because he’d been listening with a kind of rapt look. “Oh wow,” he breathed, “that’s really fascinating.”
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t it?” She smiled. “It’s similar to what I find so compelling about Twine, the way story is constructed not just through words but through text.”4
Drew and Sanee sighed in stereo. But where Drew would have let it go, Sanee, well, didn’t. He took a deep breath. “In the twenty-first century, making a text-only game is like shooting a film in black and white. The only reason to do it is to make things look artsier.”
“Oh my God.” Drew pulled back as much as he could, given the space. “They’re having the Interactive Fiction discussion. Everyone take cover.”
Steff clung to Sanee. “Don’t kill my Squidge.”
“I love you, Smidge.” Sanee snuggled into her.
And Andy made gag face. “No, please, kill him. Put us out of our misery.”
“I’m going to take the paragon option,” said Tinuviel serenely.
Drew couldn’t resist. “Renegade interrupt.”5 He threw a chip at her.
She ate the chip. “The most important thing to remember about Twine is that it makes game design accessible to anyone, no matter who they are or where they come from.”
“If,” interrupted Sanee, “they’ve got a computer, an internet connection, and free time to spend faffing around with indiegames.”
“That’s still the lowest barrier to entry out there. It’s free, it takes seconds to download, it’s visual and very straightforward, and you can start using it immediately.”
This was an old argument and never went anywhere or ended well, so Drew sort of tuned out. He wasn’t a big fan of IF—he’d once told Tinuviel he thought it was basically reading, and that hadn’t ended well either.
With no burger in sight, his mind drifted back to his new guild. Anni had been a big part of his life for three years, and it was amazing how quickly it had gone away. Except maybe it wasn’t really because the whole thing was built on pixels. After he’d gquit, he’d thought some of his ex-guildies might have whispered him or messaged him or something, but nobody had. And it was stupid to be so upset, because it was just a video game. It wasn’t like it was real life or they were real friends.6
His real friends were squabbling about minority voices in interactive media. At least, two of them were. Andy was watching awkwardly, and Steff was stuffing chips in Sanee’s mouth in an effort to keep him quiet.
“So,” said Drew, as a harassed-looking waiter plonked his food down in front of him, “how did you guys findDragon Age: Inquisition?”7
Sanee rolled his eyes. “I skipped it because the only press release I could remember was about how the sex would be mature and tasteful. Which I thought was a pile of Molyneux.”
“Actually”—Tinuviel leaned across the table—“I was pleasantly surprised by that. It seems like BioWare finally realised that the best way to represent sex in a video game is not to have stiffly animated underwear sequences. But I agree it soundedlike Molyneux at the time.”
Steff made a confused noise. “Sorry, what’s a Molyneux?”
“Molyneux,” explained Sanee, “noun, a promise made for an upcoming video game which you can’t keep and which no one would be able to recognise even if you did.”
Drew spoke round a mouthful of burger. “Like trees that grow in real time inFable 1. Or the game teaching you the meaning of love inFable 2.”
“Ooh,” said Tinuviel. “Wasn’tFable 3supposed to know what the weather was like where you were, and set the weather in game to match?”
Andy smiled hopefully at Tinuviel. “I hearFable 4will come with a special headset and the weather in the game will be controlled by your brain.”
From then on ideas flew thick and fast around the table.
“InFable 5, if you get married in the game, you get married in real life. To Peter Molyneux.”
“InFable 6, the game will be able to sense if you’re not enjoying it and will ask you what’s wrong.”
“Fable 7will cure cancer.”
“Fable 8is Luke’s father.”
