The mystery of Story Games

[Britva415]

when you say that you need to write three good complete stories to make a good story game, I wonder if that's a misuse of the medium, and is really just better off being a collection of three stories?

What's the difference?

AND

How does it solve the (writer's) disinterest in writing multiple stories which are mostly not going to be read by a given reader?

AND

How are they really independent stories in a collection when you have to contrive to make them overlap at the choosing points in the "game" or whatever?

This idea seems like it would add unnecessary extra work while taking away storytelling freedom without adding anything rewarding, for the writer or for the reader.

 

[YmaOHyd]

What's the difference?

I think what Penny's saying is that if you approach a CHOO as a series of parallel stories, you're better off just doing the stories separately. Instead of a branching structure where you pick between 18 year old DD+ cheerleader / 18 year old DD+ skater punk / 18 year old DD+ librarian, just do those three stories as stories.

The thing that separates CHOO from standard narrative is the ability for the reader to affect the outcome, right? So what you'd want is to maximize the impacts of the choices the reader makes. That means probably thinking about one story with multiple outcomes, including fail states. In a perfect world, I think, you'd want the reader/player to feel clever when they bag the girl/boy/vending machine/dungeon itself.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

I think what Penny's saying is that if you approach a CHOO as a series of parallel stories, you're better off just doing the stories separately. Instead of a branching structure where you pick between 18 year old DD+ cheerleader / 18 year old DD+ skater punk / 18 year old DD+ librarian, just do those three stories as stories.

The thing that separates CHOO from standard narrative is the ability for the reader to affect the outcome, right? So what you'd want is to maximize the impacts of the choices the reader makes. That means probably thinking about one story with multiple outcomes, including fail states. In a perfect world, I think, you'd want the reader/player to feel clever when they bag the girl/boy/vending machine/dungeon itself.

Part of the appeal of such games is also that you can replay them to see the alternate outcomes. If those alternate outcomes are just entirely different storylines, that feels weird and disconnected. Seeing the same events again, the same people in the same room having the same conversation, but now it's different because you're dating the skater instead of the cheerleader, that's interesting.

 

[PennyThompson]

In a perfect world, I think, you'd want the reader/player to feel clever when they bag the girl/boy/vending machine/dungeon itself.

yes, but once you do that I think you're now making a dating sim, which i feel is a different form of media!

I don't think i'm articulating my thoughts on this very well, i'm going to go away and stew on it longer

 

[Z_TheWriter]

I don't think i'm articulating my thoughts on this very well, i'm going to go away and stew on it longer

Penny for your... sorry

 

[Britva415]

Okay thinking a little more about this because I can't sleep, I think the challenge is using the medium in the ways in which it is unique from other mediums.

[...]

So what is the thing that makes a story game or interactive text a distinct medium?

I don't believe that anyone has found it yet.

Well, that is to say, nobody has succeeded at making it a compelling medium.

I do know that there are sites full of CHYOO's and maybe something closer to what we're thinking of as "story games" (distinct from CHYOO's), but, the works which populate those sites aren't professionally authored and aren't commercially consumed.

I know it's gauche to equate commercial success with artistic success, and maybe it's unforgivable to dismiss this whole genre because there's nobody producing it except for "amateurs," but I'm not remotely convinced that it isn't a good proxy for popularity and appreciation.

I'm also not pooh-poohing the taste, erudition or sophistication of their readers/players. People like what they like. But this "medium" simply hasn't taken off. It's a "distinct medium" in the same sense that

I think what Penny's saying is that if you approach a CHOO as a series of parallel stories, you're better off just doing the stories separately. Instead of a branching structure where you pick between 18 year old DD+ cheerleader / 18 year old DD+ skater punk / 18 year old DD+ librarian, just do those three stories as stories.

The thing that separates CHOO from standard narrative is the ability for the reader to affect the outcome, right? So what you'd want is to maximize the impacts of the choices the reader makes. That means probably thinking about one story with multiple outcomes, including fail states. In a perfect world, I think, you'd want the reader/player to feel clever when they bag the girl/boy/vending machine/dungeon itself.

so, write a collection and don't click them into a contrived format with an illusion of reader interactivity?

I can't imagine completing get behind that.

And "illusion" is why I think these aren't successful/popular. I already said why I think they're unpopular among writers. This gets to why they don't appeal to me as a reader either. The interactivity and agency we keep hearing about are illusions, and readers know it.

 

[YmaOHyd]

yes, but once you do that I think you're now making a dating sim, which i feel is a different form of media!

I don't think i'm articulating my thoughts on this very well, i'm going to go away and stew on it longer

I don't think you're necessarily making a dating sim. I didn't really do choose-your-owns as a kid, but the ones I remember were all, like, horror- or adventure-themed, where there were a few choices where you'd die and a few where you'd live.

so, write a collection and don't click them into a contrived format with an illusion of reader interactivity?

Yeah, basically. Either you find the thing that makes the medium valuable or you shouldn't use the medium. If all ya got is a choice between three palette-swapped Big Boobie Babes, just write three stories, publish them separately as stories, and enjoy the plaudits of people who like that kind of story.