Alan Moore famously said the whole reason Watchmen was supposedly "revolutionary" for a comic book was that it was just a normal story He wrote it like a regular novel - beginning, middle and end, self-contained with none of the "superhero comic book universe" continuity shithttps://twitter.com/perdricof/status/1272914077619294210 …
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It's an actual story Beginning, middle and end The story of superheroes in this world has an arc, it happened a certain way for specific reasons It's not a world where "anything is possible", in fact in hindsight only one series of events ever could happen and did happen
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And the whole tragedy of it is that there are people who *wanted* it to be a traditional superhero universe - colorful good guys foiling the plans of bad guys, forever, with no one ever permanently winning or changing anything - and they find out that that's fucking stupid
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It's that fundamental difference in what kind of world this is that makes it "gritty and realistic" and a rejection of the fantasy of comic books The superficial shit about sex and violence has very little to do with it, which is why he was pissed that that's what people copied
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Anyway when it comes to games it's the same way Toby Fox talking about how the biggest difference Deltarune has over Undertale is no "branching paths" There's one story, with a beginning, middle and end, and you're just along for the ride
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And, like, that's not really that big a deal even though it sounds like it's a statement about Fate or whatever if you come to it from a game like Undertale "That's the normal way that stories work"
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In TLoU Joel and Ellie are human beings with their own personalities who have already made most of the decisions that define who they are before the story even starts That's normal for how a story works
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In one sense the point of the story is letting us watch the biggest day of their lives, the moment they make the one big choice there's no coming back from But in another sense, that choice was already made long ago, it's just a reflection of their nature That's how this works
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This is kind of what annoys me, because it shouldn't be that big a damn deal It's ancient knowledge Stories are interesting because they look like anything could happen at first and then at the end you look back and go "Yeah that's how it had to be"
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I know nowadays everyone wants to subvert and problematize this shit but I'm sorry, it's true It is 100x easier to write a satisfying ending by having just one ending you knew from the beginning was the only way the story could end and then building the story around it
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Back in the 90s I remember arguing with people about this on interactive fiction forums "Do you think it's possible to do a version of King Lear where you can save Cordelia by yelling at Albany's messenger RUN FASTER! RUN FASTER! from your seat Would that make the show better"
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People getting all partisan here "I want games to be GAMES, not just a movie where you control the characters during the fight scenes" Yeah okay, but the whole "player choice" thing has been obvious sleight of hand for all of history and you people are never satisfied with it
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Like come on Super Mario Bros. is a game, isn't it It doesn't have branching paths Unless getting pissed after Mario dies and never playing it again is an "alternate ending"
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It's a story with one ending, Mario saves the Princess Playing the game is just you, as the actor portraying Mario, getting in character and experiencing his painful struggle over time But the struggle only has one possible outcome And people kinda liked that game
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It's funny because as a geek into text adventures/"interactive fiction" we had all these debates a full generation before the mainstream gaming world exploded over Gone Home and "walking simulators" and shit
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And it's like no, obviously you don't have to be in control of anything or be able to change the outcome of anything for something to be a "real game" or for it to matter that it's a game and not a movie
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It's like saying that if I can't actually touch a sculpture and break pieces off of it that there's no difference between having a physical sculpture or looking at a photo of it on a screen
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Or, more directly, that it's "not really acting" to play a character by reading a script That there's no emotional experience to be had from embodying this character if I didn't actually write the story and if I know the ending of the play can't change
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(As someone who did improv for a long time, I am, in the long run, a fan of scripts Scripts are good and useful and powerful things In the end I have never had emotional experiences quite as powerful doing improv as I have when reciting memorized lines from a script)
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