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"
-
Show this thread
-
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
1 reply 4 retweets 67 likesShow this thread -
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
2 replies 3 retweets 64 likesShow this thread -
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"
4 replies 6 retweets 84 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @arthur_affect
I find The Stanley Parable pretty interesting in this context. There's obviously a variety of ways for the story to go, but, in order for that diversity of paths to add up narratively, the characters have to have started out differently in a meaningful sense.
1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes -
Replying to @eggynack @arthur_affect
Like, the narrator of the explosion path, spiteful and cruel, cannot really be reconciled with the narrator of the Zending, powerless and pitiable. One could imagine reading it as one character in two circumstances, but it just doesn't add up.
1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes -
Replying to @eggynack @arthur_affect
The man staring at the future narrative and desperate for free will is not the man who thinks the story goes best when it's perfectly linear. The endings retroactively make them different characters from the beginning.
1 reply 2 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @eggynack
I have played games/interactive fiction that fully commit to this and I really like it They're not doing it as a pure simulation, instead when you "make a choice" what you're really doing is going back in time and retroactively establishing who the character was before
2 replies 1 retweet 13 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @eggynack
This is the diegetic explanation for why Bioware games would let you establish your character's alignment with a casual conversation
1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @eggynack
"Did I really gain 20 Dark Side points and send myself down the path of the Sith just by being rude to a stranger?" "No, you were telling me that you're the kind of person who's just casually verbally abusive to people for no reason as a daily habit"
1 reply 3 retweets 19 likes
Which is kind of a weaksauce way of implementing this Sam Barlow's Aisle is a much more powerful way of exploring this kind of thing -- it's a text adventure where you only get to input one command, and that determines the beginning and end of the story this is the middle of
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @eggynack
What you do in this moment establishes whether your character is in this supermarket aisle as part of a mundane shopping trip, or the culmination of a long drunken bender, or the beginning of a violent murder spree
1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @eggynack
The recurring character of his wife is either alive and well and waiting for him at the checkout counter, or died long ago in a tragic car accident, or is in fact only his wife in his delusional fantasies and about to be murdered by him right now
0 replies 1 retweet 2 likes
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.