Storytelling in games. (Maths and Physics)

From one of the presentations, there's been a debate about the fine line of storytelling and fun. I do have to admit that I've agreed with most of Thao's discussion that when it comes to gaming, it's all about 'fun', not about engaging into complexity with the storyline that questions about our livelihood, etc, etc; but storylines and games are holding hand in hand since the age of the 8 bit. At that time, the players had to fill in the missing blanks with their pixelated avatars by using their imagination. This is when the "Magic Circle" theory comes in.

Understandably, gamers want to jump in and get involved into the action. Not many gamers would want to sit through and slog through the heavily unessasary texts and long tedious cutscenes. Since the dawn of gaming, the player enaged themselves to their moving, pixelated avatar within the digital world as they wanted to explore not just the world itself but how they can interact with the world. Hence the idea of the "Magic Circle" rule from Rules of Play. In the Magic Circle, the game master created not only the set of rules but the idea of a 'role playing' universe or objectives where the players pretends to be within that world as they play the game. As long the player didn't step over the bounderies of the circle then they still feel some sort of imersion into that game. However the game master can throw a wrench into their own game unintentionally when they break the flow of the game like changing the rules to suit their needs (cheating), making the player lossing their engagement (boredom) and/or breaking the imersion of make belive.

I do recall how most JRPGS, MGS4 and other current games that uses cutscenes heavily which cause players to complain about it. So far when it comes to the dramatic scenes or a deep storytelling, the game flow didn't workout quite well, in fact it can distract the player from their imersion like MGS4. Jonathan Blow, the creator of "Briad" even questions the idea of storytelling and flow of the gameplay. I recalled during a Q&A session a few years ago in an indie festival at the ACMI where one of the audieance argues that the storyline can benefit the game like the Monkey Island series he counters back at the problem of the flow of the game and the interactivty choices for the player to chose from like differnt forking pathways or a differnt method in solving the puzzle. While it's true you have to slow down the pacing a bit in adventure games due to the puzzles, I have to say it's not the storytelling that cause the flow and fun being slowed down. The genre, the medium and the technology of it's time factor the idea of blending storyline and fun into one.

One of the audience back in the class argues about storylines being the staple of RPGS, where the fun factor lies. The RPG genre enjoys using the Magic Circle theory to it's fullest degress where the player placed themselves into the shoes of a protagonist and followed through the rules of the game as they explore the game world. Without the storyline, RPGS seem to be meaningless to play, which might impact the fun of the game. Eg: What's the point in playing Fallout 3 if you're wandering aimlessly in the wastelands when you have no goal or desire to do something to achieve.

In the end, Games are in an early stages where they still have a lot potential and exploartion of the medium that is yet to untapped when it comes to storytelling. As the lead writer, Drew Karpyshyn from the Mass Effect series once mention in his interview that "Video Games are in a stage where like the film industry in it's early days", where the designers are find new ways to tell a story through interactive means. Maybe with the technology and the fresh creative minds of the designer, we might able to seemlessly blend storytelling and fun into one.