S4-4: Storytelling
A Flow of Grounded Motivations
Earning Drama Backwards
What is the difference between John Wick's dog and Aggro?
Past experience. So begin with this moment, and build events (as mind's eye photos!) backward and forward from that moment to earn it. But not just past experience, it's also about the player understanding what could have been that can now never be.
The opposite application == MYSTERY: a friend who is always strict for unknown reasons, after which you uncover the reasons why (their close friend dying to not following rules).
Thinking of the plot as a series of events-as-photos yields a memory palace -- the game world. Compare to mind's eye -- he even talks about not over-detailing the photo the same that my mind's eye abstracts many details.
"The game itself is not the point -- the emotions in the player is." (MDA!)
Taro Yoko -- Reverse-Scriptwriting + Photo-timelines
Don't forget to add your notes!
And/Then vs. But/Thus
Source
Don't forget to add your notes!
Storysense
I think of "mute games" -- Yume Nikki, Little Nightmares... to some degree Cave Story, Ib.
Western Echoes of the Japanese Approach
(i.e. "impression-based", see sekai/sonzai-kan)
Story-sense = conveying the "feeling" (impression, or, sense) of a story -- glimpsing key moments to develop the theme and tone. Expression/judgment are left to the player!
As in Impressionist works, you don't tell,
but you also don't really show either -- you hint.
"...Portraying a world in motion."
Don't forget to add your notes!
Don't forget to add your notes!
Short-term && Long-Term
Source
Don't forget to add your notes!
Anticipation
The Bomb Under The Table
Source
Antichamber: used to foreshadow puzzles, and be able to see previous puzzles after reaching said foreshadowed location, thus using anticipation as progression!
Don't forget to add your notes!
Conflicts in Horror
Sources
Horror as a mirror to inner self!
- Fearing the Unknown, the Irrational, the Uncanny
- Fearing the Unintelligible Places with unclear rules
- Fearing the Isolating Places without any allies
- Fearing the Monster that reflects us or others?
- Revisit the above videos and add to this list!
Don't forget to add your notes!
Why Plot Matters
SourceS
1. Without it, there is no conflict to compel characters toward their goals.
2. Without it, at least in literature, there's nothing to make you care............ .........because nothing's at stake.
Put another way,
if character design captures the "what" and "why" of a character [arc],
then plot captures the "how" / "where" / "when" of that character [arc]!
Don't forget to add your notes!
Why Plot Matters
Thematic teeth
SEW on BNA (Podcast)
Felt like it was trying to say something about hot topics (bigotry) but backed away from it ("like a coward").
Also makes me think of Lindsay Ellis' deconstruction of Bright/Crash = systemic v. individualist sources of the social conflict's bigotry and discrimination.
SEW on Made in aBYSS
Latter half of this video has a motif of how much he values "having teeth" in a theme, in this case friends v. sacrifices.
What makes that have teeth vs. a different message is probably to some degree a person by person thing?
<-- e.g. Lindsay here, too?
S4-4
By twila
S4-4
A Flow of Grounded Motivations
