泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Importance of a narrative in a video game

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Importance of a narrative in a video game

 

The film is generally called 'gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art)'. It delivers artistic beauty of arts and photograph by images which is visual arts and shows the beauty of music and literature by sound effects and lines. So, in that respect, a video game, I think, is also very close to comprehensive artwork because it contains visual images, sound effects, and stories. Today I'd like to talk about the narrative, one of the most important parts of the total artwork.

In fact, hardly domestic game users read a story. Less than 10% of players probably cleared story mode of StarCraft which, I estimate, millions of Korean have played. It is common for players to skip lines while playing RPGs. The situation has made game designers not be interested in a narrative. From a conversation with them, I found that they are satisfied with a story where players are not be inconvenienced to play the game.

Isn't a narrative in a video game important? Actually, I debated this topic a few years ago when I taught students a video game script at a university. I remember that most students limited screenplay role as a means to help a player to keep playing the game. Honestly, I never deny the function of the story in the game. Limited role of the narrative, I assume, is maybe underestimated.

There is a term of OSMU (One source multi-use) in Korea. It means that a content source enlarges reproduction and widely spread in different areas. Many novels, films, cartoons have been used for material for video games and they will do so in the future. Of course, I've seen the opposite. Resident Evil and Super Mario were turned into movies and many contents have been created based on video games. It's possible because of the value of a game screenplay as a story. A game story is generally based on literature and it consists of a series of choices of interactive narrative. A video game with stories in a number of different sequences is referred to as a nonlinear gameplay-video game. In spite of the differences, a video game with advanced methods and a higher level of immersion tends to have a more attractive story. It means that a game, which properly conveys a central theme of it to players, is more likely to have its charming story. Game script is one of the most important element to increase in immersion.

With recent domestic video games in play, it's hard to find a theme or a message of the story. Aside from a casual game or a game without narrative; for example, playing a go-stop card game without a story doesn't really matter, gamers often don't know why they have to enjoy the game when they play RPGs without narrative or too simple storyline. Recently we easily see many domestic games in the overseas market. Unlike Korean game users, users in North America or Europe generally read the screenplay very carefully during playing the game. The game story would be considered an important part to evaluate games under the current situation where the appearance of Korean games on the foreign market is a crucial issue. With imagining a movie based on a domestic video game a few years later, I hope that game developers become more interested in the game story.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Character development and player development

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Character development and player development

 

Do you remember Street Fighter, the iconic '90s fighting video game? What about Super Mario a little bit to the past? If not, what about Tekken (Iron Fist) or Onimusha (literally 'Oni Warrior')? You would know StarCraft at least.

The reason why I mention video games of the past all of a sudden is to talk about auto-combat games which can be found easily in the recent mobile gaming market.

I don't want to criticize the auto-battle games like Monster Taming, the most representative auto-combat game. A gamer usually is required two things when he/she play a character-based video game which has developed steadily since the establishment of the video game.

One is character development. The character-based games usually, aside from genre characteristics, lead the players to develop a character through various factors. The character can be upgraded step by step through quests when the level requirement is met: character level-up, character replacement, or strengthening and replacing weapons and types of equipment. Particularly emphasizing these factors, Monster Taming-style auto combat RPG games lead players to focus on developing a character itself, which make them spend less time to directly play the game. Lots of Monster Taming-like games have been released because the intention of the game designing has been successful in today's mobile environments and some of them achieved good performance.

The other is player development. Fighting games: Street Fighter, Super Mario, and Tekken, which I mentioned in the beginning, as well as action-RPGs and RTS games in the past basically expected player's skill, so-called control, from gamers. Even an ultimate character often couldn't beat a weak monster due to a player's lack of control skill, however, Lim Yo-hwan, the Terran Emperor, on the contrary, greatly defeated the lurker with a very weak marine.

I don't want to talk about where you need to focus on for better planning. It is possible to prioritize one of the two for fun for users or put both of them into a game for balanced planning. But, with highlighting qualities of mobile device, a factory approach to make a game just focusing on character build-up seems less than desirable.

A market without various forms can never grow beyond the limits of the distorted market and unbalanced development. We already saw the declined Hong Kong film market due to mass production of film noir in the '90s. So, in that sense, I'm pretty glad to see a recent big-hit game Blade where properly requires player's control skill and development. I hope that many domestic mobile games in various styles will be released in the future.

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ It's time for a game designer to impress users

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

It's time for a game designer to impress users

 

Some time ago, I wrote about "Are video games art?" Apart from the artistic value of a video game which I strongly claimed, I'll talk about some others. In recent years, I have had many chances to talk with game developers. There were some great game designers who I, as a former game designer, wanted to follow their examples and some of them were honestly less than worthy designers. I don't think that I am better enough at a game design to evaluate their qualification and skills. I only want to talk about the basic elements of a game designer.

The element of a video game is divided into game design and game graphics. Unlike the others, game design is a combination of various factors. It needs to include a story that a game designer wants to tell a player and show a theme of a game. But most game designs are still at a low point showing needs of playing and it just covers some elements for game production and game service.

At first, I believed that it perhaps stemmed from a domestic game player's lack of interest in a story and strong interest in playing the game, which led designers to focus on the market demands. But I concluded, after talking with many domestic game designers, that a number of designers lack the humanistic discipline to apply it in a game.

A video game story is basically similar to literature. There should be a well-organized narrative; the introduction, the development of the theme, conversion, and summing up, and a clear message. Plus, the element of gameplay should be designed to send the message. It's impossible for a game designer who lacks the humanistic discipline to meet the requirements. Western literature is basically founded on Christian culture and humanism led by Greek and Roman culture. The number of designers who read the Old Testament and read Greek and Roman mythology carefully was less than half of the designers whom I met. Only a few people read The Lord of the Rings, a classic fantasy, and Romance of the three kingdoms, Legend of Chu an Han, and Water Margin—these are Chinese novels. Principles of Economics—it's for managing virtual goods within a game—caused the number to diminish more and, including Mise-en-scène and symbolism for game-screen direction, the number can be disastrous.

The gaming industry is now the leading content industry in Korea and is the most recognized field than any other content in the global market. It's time to discuss on not excellent techniques of game-making but qualitative sides of the game content as Korea raises its status in the world and continues to upgrade its industrial base.

I still remember that I so moved to play Final Fantasy series and I was very surprised playing Warcraft series thanks to its imaginary world-building. It's not easy to deny that the domestic game-making techniques are truly world class. Nevertheless, I don't remember when I was inspired by a local video game since The War of Genesis. Now it's time for Korean game designers to effort to impress users more than just fun. To do that, I believe that they should start to study humanities. I expect to see many game designers who give fantastic impressions to gamers all over the world.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui