GDC Austin 09

Alec Holowka, formerly one half of Bit Blot (Aquaria) and currently the head of Infinite Ammo (Paper Moon), was the last speaker to go on at the Independent Games Summit of GDC Austin. A
lot of the talks to go on in the hours and days before, although they
were all very awesome, were based in the business of making indie
games. Alec was not there to talk about business at all. He said it
himself during his presentation. Making an indie game that tells a
great story is not a way to make money. But what it does do is worth
even more.After the jump is a summary of his talk.













Alec
went on right after Twisted Pixel, and as such, a lot of people left
when this less well-known indie darling took the stage. He started the
talk by thanking everyone who stayed, and then thrust two middle
fingers to the air to everyone who had gone. It was already apparent
that this would be a panel packed with personality, and he did not
disappoint those who did choose to stick around.

He was there
to speak his mind on stories and how they can be told through games,
specifically indie games. Right off the bat, he admitted what we all
know: there are a lot of terrible game stories, and a lot of people
don't want them. He displayed the well-known John Carmack quote on the
matter: "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected
to be there, but it's not that important." Many people feel the same
way, but the bad rap that game writing gets is not very indicative of
what can be done with it. He proceeded to give the audience a
little bit of background information about himself: he's Canadian,
sometimes makes games by himself, and collaborates with others other
times. He called himself a thinker, and that all the questions to
follow were things that enter his mind on a regular basis.

The
first question he asked himself was, "What is the basis for your
games?" He explains that many things can be the starting point of a
game's story. Some people borrow from film, images, or even their own
memories. "For me, it's a character in a world. Everything else comes
out of that."

A slide went up, displaying the following flow
chart: story > music > graphics > physics > input >
gameplay mechanics. This flow chart, while it depicts the different
elements that go into making a game, is wrong. "Making a game is not a
linear process. It goes in cycles. Each part influences the other."

He
then switched gears to game reviews for a moment, stating that they
should be more akin to how critics rate movies. "Don't rip out one
component from the whole," he explained. "It is pointless. The
connections between the mediums is important." He stressed the
importance of taking note of how things like the graphics and sound and
gameplay play off one other. The relationship between the player and
the combined mediums is another thing he wishes were looked at more
often.

Alec then asked the question, "What are games?" He goes
through a list of extremely varied things, from Pong to board games to
card games. They all had different degrees of story, but they could all
be considered games regardless. Then he spoke of interactive
multimedia, which he defined as a "fusion of existing mediums into a
cohesive whole, with an added element of interaction." "Are interactive
games more legitimate?" he asked the audience, and answered with a "no".

To
explain, he went into a little background. He and his family were
always making things like movies, musicals, and board games. On the
projector screen, an image of one of these board games was shown, and
Alec went into more detail about how these creations made his
imagination run wild. "I started writing fanfiction about the world
that this board game was set in. The world and the characters that
lived there fascinated me." This game did not fit the description of
interactive multimedia, yet he still managed to make a connection to it.

He
then went back to the list of games mentioned earlier and picked out
two completely different titles to compare and contrast. The first was Pong, which is a game comprised of pure interaction. Then he chose Silent Steel,
which has plenty of context, but barely any interaction. In his words,
playing it "feels like suffering a multiple choice test that you didn't
study for". He felt that the "sweet spot" that developers should shoot
for is the median point between these two games. When story is used as
context, it frames the gameplay very nicely.

"With all of this talk of the importance of story, does Spelunky need one? No."

"Can stories within games be awesome? Yes."

He then pulled out his favorite game as an example: Final Fantasy VI.
He said that the game has influenced every game he has worked on since.
The music, visuals, and specifically, the story, really spoke to him
even the first time he rented the game as a child. He stopped a moment
to play the opening scene from the game, where the three Magitek Armor
suits have their backs to the camera and walk through a snowy field.
This is one of the moments that wowed Alec, even though it couldn't be
interacted with.

The best thing about it was that all of his
friends who had played the game felt similarly to him, but for
different reasons. While Alec loved the scope of the scene, which uses
the fantastic graphics inherent in the last SNES games made and Mode 7
to scroll the field below, his friends grew attachments to the music or
the way the characters were designed."The characters are what
make it work," he said of the game. "They are uniquely motivated. They
are united by a common cause, but diverse." He praised the spritework,
and how everyone could show a lot of expression through such tiny
sprites.

The characters of FFVI are a big driving force
behind the story and even the gameplay itself. In addition, Alec shared
his thought that the battle system can tap into players' imaginations
about how the characters get along with each other. "The player is a
god-like team manager leading these guys along. It's really a fatalist
game."

Another FFVI cinematic was shown, this time of
the world being destroyed. "The entire pacing of the game changes after
this. It has momentous consequences for the characters and the player.
That's why it works so well." This moment separates the player's party,
and there is a shift in game flow from linear to non-linear. This
challenges what the player has accomplished so far, which evokes an
emotional response of some kind.

One last cinematic showed the
slow pan over the destroyed world, and then the point of the game where
the player meets Cid. This part of the game has strong storytelling
because you have to pick back up after the disaster and figure things
out for yourself. Alec admitted that the first time he played, he fed
Cid poisonous fish without knowing it For the longest time, he didn't
think there was any way to keep him alive, but the great thing is that
you can save him once you realize what you did wrong. "Taking care of
Cid gives the player a real sense of responsibility." He likens the
whole end of the world portion of the game to the experience of growing
up.

From there, he presented another question: "Why not
encourage the exploration of emotional spaces?" The fact that some
people just aren't into that sort of thing isn't a good enough excuse
not to try. A character's personal gateway into the player is the
emotion space, and without tapping that part, they'll never make a
connection. He also described gamers he labeled as "unprofessional
players". "They aren't Master Chief or Solid Snake because when they
play the game, they do things these characters would not do. Instead,
they co-create new characters that are more realistically human."

After spending so much time gushing about FFVI, he switched gears to talk about storytelling in indie games. He used a moment from Aquaria
as an example; if you haven't played the game, it takes place almost
completely underwater. Near the end, you finally make your way to the
water's surface. As the player makes the main character, Nadja, jumps
into the air, the camera slows for a moment while she speaks about the
experience.

The use of music change, narration and slow motion
during this moment was done on purpose to help the player feel the
moment the same way that Nadja did. The placement of the event in the
game's timeline also played a big part, as breaking through the
surface would not have had as huge an impact had the player not spent
three or four hours in the dark water beforehand.

On the other
hand, the character Li was "a much less successful part of the game".
The way that he behaves (which has been described by players as "like a
dumb puppy") makes him not work. Alec admitted that he may have been
more effective if his interactions with Nadja had been developed more.
Players tend to not get as attached to him as the story says they're
supposed to.

Alec took a small break from talking to show the audience a short teaser trailer for his upcoming game, Marion.

After quickly publishing the video to his website,
he picked back up on the many advantages of using storytelling in indie
games. One is that players can hear the voice of the creator in the
final result due to small team sizes. Indie game stories are usually
more personal, affecting, and diverse. They also tend to marry story to
visuals to gameplay to make it a lot more meaningful than any big
budget story. The approach he and Derek Yu took to making Aquaria
was to think about how elements of a game interact with each other.
"Link elements, challenge the player, and explore your own style. There
is a whole ocean of gameplay under our feet."

Questions from
the audience began with, "Is 'story' the right word for what goes into
a game?" Alec responds with a no. Stories are linear, and most games
are not. However, he likes to use the term "storytelling", because
games do act as a transport of story from it to the player.The
next person said to Alec, "In movies and books, readers can identify
with characters other than the main character, but in games, you can't
really relate to most NPCs. How can we fix this?" Alec responded, "Make
them integral to the gameplay. Make them help the main character in a
positive way." He also said that developers could perhaps draw upon the
history of story from books and movie scripts to help with this
problem. Most NPCs are nothing but one line of dialogue, while
secondary characters in other media are typically a lot more fleshed
out. The next set of questions were, "Why do some people not
like exploring emotional spaces? How can we reach those people?" Alec's
response was to make games that are more subtle about their meaning to
coerce people who would otherwise not be interested. If a game is too
overt about its message, that can drive some players away.Someone then asked, "Is there a reason you choose female leads in your
games?" He feels that most females in games are sexualized, thus
someone needs to treat them with maturity. "Female leads just interest
me," he said, which has been apparent through his well thought out
characters like Nadja.

"What about stories in games where you
don't have a character to control?" the last question asked. Alec
turned to Myst, a game where the player plays as themselves, as an
example. In it, you play as yourself, an outsider to that world. But
the story still works in that it gradually does make you a part of it.
Games like that show that a game does not necessarily need an
established main character to have a great story that engages the
player, though characters are an important element to Alec personally.

As
Alec's talk came to an end, so did the Independent Games Summit. It was
very fast paced and fun, with some great messages to all of the
developers in the audience who perhaps wanted to take the more
meaningful route with the games they create. All in all, it was a great
talk to round out a great summit.




http://www.destructoid.com/gdc-austin-09-storytelling-through-independent-games-149119.phtml