I knew that Bastion was something special as soon as I saw a trailer for it. (If you haven't played it, here is a good clip from of the opening). The player's actions were narrated by a gruff old cowboy voice that oozed charm. This one simple thing made me both incredibly excited and a little heartbroken.
On the one hand, it showed how easily strides could be made in game narrative. And this is something I already knew intuitively, but it provided a great concrete example. I mean, video games are very young as a narrative form. You would think we'd be coming up with cool ways to tell stories through them all the time. But, though there is always movement, it isn't the breakneck pace we might expect from a new medium. But, this lovely little conceit of having the players actions narrated in real time was a definite step forward. Every game that used that tool after it owed a debt to the creators of Bastion.
And this brings me to the heartache. It was an undiscovered trick that had been revealed by someone else. When it was made, I was still working in QA, spending my free time trying to find ways to create actual games as opposed to scripts that might maybe someday be in a game. I saw the trailer for Bastion and felt this pit in my gut. It let me know that there were some very creative and brilliant people that were way ahead of me when it came to game narrative. It was probably one of the biggest motivators for me to work on my game writing.
Now, if the conceit had been the only thing going for the game, or it had been badly used, it would have faded away both from my mind and those of other gamers. But Bastion succeeded due to some clever decisions.
The first was the voice of the narrator. It was deeply rooted in the world of the game. From his first gravelly words, Rucks lets you know that this game is going to be stylized, but serious. It then comes as no surprise when the world starts forming around the player's character (The Kid) and you're confronted with strange creatures like windbags or gasfellas. It all flows properly in this kind of fragmented but beautiful post-apocalypse. And it was kicked off by the art and Rucks' voice.
The second is that Rucks will never repeat a phrase. The first time the player smashes a bunch of boxes looking for items (or just because smashing stuff is fun), Rucks makes a comment. After that, you'll never hear it again. This is nice for the player because it prevents him from hearing a line over and over. But more importantly, it maintains the illusion that Rucks is a real person. He is a character in the world, but if he were to repeat the same phrases each time the player did a certain action (like falling off a platform), he would quickly become just an extension of the game's mechanics---and an annoying one at that. With him saying each line only once, it feeds into the fiction that he is telling a story, and not belabouring details that we already know.
I highly recommend this game for people that like challenging action games or great storytelling. I believe it's available on basically every system from last gen (there is even an HTML 5 version), and I'm very excited for Transistor, the next game from the same team (Supergiant).
On the one hand, it showed how easily strides could be made in game narrative. And this is something I already knew intuitively, but it provided a great concrete example. I mean, video games are very young as a narrative form. You would think we'd be coming up with cool ways to tell stories through them all the time. But, though there is always movement, it isn't the breakneck pace we might expect from a new medium. But, this lovely little conceit of having the players actions narrated in real time was a definite step forward. Every game that used that tool after it owed a debt to the creators of Bastion.
And this brings me to the heartache. It was an undiscovered trick that had been revealed by someone else. When it was made, I was still working in QA, spending my free time trying to find ways to create actual games as opposed to scripts that might maybe someday be in a game. I saw the trailer for Bastion and felt this pit in my gut. It let me know that there were some very creative and brilliant people that were way ahead of me when it came to game narrative. It was probably one of the biggest motivators for me to work on my game writing.
Now, if the conceit had been the only thing going for the game, or it had been badly used, it would have faded away both from my mind and those of other gamers. But Bastion succeeded due to some clever decisions.
The first was the voice of the narrator. It was deeply rooted in the world of the game. From his first gravelly words, Rucks lets you know that this game is going to be stylized, but serious. It then comes as no surprise when the world starts forming around the player's character (The Kid) and you're confronted with strange creatures like windbags or gasfellas. It all flows properly in this kind of fragmented but beautiful post-apocalypse. And it was kicked off by the art and Rucks' voice.
The second is that Rucks will never repeat a phrase. The first time the player smashes a bunch of boxes looking for items (or just because smashing stuff is fun), Rucks makes a comment. After that, you'll never hear it again. This is nice for the player because it prevents him from hearing a line over and over. But more importantly, it maintains the illusion that Rucks is a real person. He is a character in the world, but if he were to repeat the same phrases each time the player did a certain action (like falling off a platform), he would quickly become just an extension of the game's mechanics---and an annoying one at that. With him saying each line only once, it feeds into the fiction that he is telling a story, and not belabouring details that we already know.
I highly recommend this game for people that like challenging action games or great storytelling. I believe it's available on basically every system from last gen (there is even an HTML 5 version), and I'm very excited for Transistor, the next game from the same team (Supergiant).