Category: Storytelling

Repressed memories dredged up by Skyrim, and reconsidering some assumptions about storytelling in videogames

Another article for Gamasutra about videogame storytelling, more or less.

I wrote an article about horror movies, videogames, and how to get players to give a damn about your story.

Fable 3 is an often-charming game with entirely too much hand-holding. Plus: A Call to Action.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an outstanding game; my biggest problem with it is the same thing I’ve spent hours on here trying to defend.

I jump into the games vs. movies argument again, but this time Hitchock’s got my back.

A recap of all my posts so far on the subject of storytelling in videogames.

Why “videogame writing should be short” is bad advice.

Previously on Spectre Collie, I snapped my tether and responded to a critique of games I worked on. The claim was that adventure games are bad at giving feedback to the player, partly because it’s impossible for the game to know what the player’s thinking. I agreed that adventure games are usually lousy at giving…

Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that the “state of the art” in story-driven games still treat storytelling and gameplay as two completely separate things. In even the best games, the player’s role is that of the guy who pushes buttons and/or shoots guys in the way; the key story moments happen in…

Over the past few nights I’ve been playing Dead Space, the new sci-fi horror shooter from EA. It’s an extremely well-made and entertaining game, and I’m enjoying it a lot. I want to make that clear up front, because I spend the rest of this post complaining about it. And I’m even going to go…

More proof that ignorance is bliss: I’d been happily reading the internet for at least a year before I knew what “tl;dr” meant. Apparently, it means “too long, didn’t read,” and now it’s got my vote for the absolute worst internet acronym. Ruder than STFU, more arrogant than RTFM, stupider than ROFL, more vapid than…