Comments on: Story Wars Episode II: Danc Attacks

by: gnome

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:25:27 +0000

And an essay that doen’t really do much than state the rather obvious thing, that video games (as a medium) don’t always have to have a story.

(Another brilliant post)

by: Danc

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:42:13 +0000

*grin* The story snob is admittedly bit of a strawman.

Good critique of an admittedly overly long essay.
-Danc.

by: Vince Twelve

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:04:45 +0000

oops, thanks! fixed

by: Eric

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:58:20 +0000

by the way, I think you need to fix the link to the original article

by: Eric

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:57:38 +0000

I agree with his whole premise that a good game doesn’t need a good story. I really like Tetris. Even though he claims that he is just saying that stories are just one wrench in your toolbox, most of what he writes seems to suggest that story centric games are inferior. Can your game be story centric and also have other good gameplay elements?

He demonizes games like Final Fantasy because he personally doesn’t enjoy that style of game. Isn’t this the same kind of arrogant “fanboy” attitude he is projecting on his straw man?

I think that his perspective is summed up by this quote:
“that makes a lot of sense if you’ve ever experienced the joy of tweaking a surprisingly interesting interactive system versus the slog of polishing a series of plot points.” Which makes a lot of sense… um if you’re not into story telling. I’m sure a novelist wouldn’t find the intricacies of OpenGL particularly exciting either, but that doesn’t mean his story can’t best be told in an interactive way.