Thread by Rhianna Pratchett 🇺🇦🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
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- Jan 24, 2023
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So, a🧵from someone who has an inkling of how these things come about, and for those who might be interested to know how to avoid it. This isn’t a narrative issue in the way it might appear. IMHO it's come about due to narrative/level design & object placement misalignment. 1/16
This is not meant to serve as a critique of the game. I've not played it. But more a general look behind the scenes of development and how things like this can occur for those who are not already reliving their personal narrative traumas. 2/16
It's a basic hint line, and these are often considered mechanically and not narratively which is part of the problem. They are often written very early or very late. My guess is that the line was written without context – so probably early. 3/16
In all likelihood the writer either didn’t know where exactly the bag would be in relation to the character or perhaps that context changed during development. Maybe the level hadn’t even been fully designed at the time. 4/16
I think it’s highly unlikely that the writer would’ve chosen to write that line knowing that the bag was right there at the character’s feet. If the bag was on high shelf, or someplace where it would take a bit of time/effort to get to, then the line would’ve worked better. 5/16
Perhaps it initially was, but maybe during play-testing it wasn’t obvious to the player so the placement got changed, but the line didn’t. Maybe it was recorded late and there was no more time with the voice actor. 6/16
Potentially you could’ve kept the bag at the character’s feet if it had, say, broken and the money had spilled out meaning that it would’ve taken time to gather it. Again the line would make more sense in that context. But we’re talking extra animation, extra expense. 7/16
As a writer, knowing the narrative context of a line is important. But in games we don’t always get to know it, or it changes, and no one thinks to update us. Happens a lot and has definitely done so in the games I’ve worked on. 8/16
Some may have heard me talking about Lara’s first kill in TR2013 & her later reflection on it with Roth – 2 scenes which were initially written with no other kills in between. And how adding lots of kills lessened the impact of what was meant to be a big character moment 9/16
It came about because the various dev teams had different (& understandable) goals. Narrative wanted the character moment, realising what you’re capable of & it shaking your sense of self. Mechanics wanted to get to the new gun-based gameplay now you'd finally got a gun. 10/16
And gameplay wanted to ramp up the tempo and put the player in a more active position. All understandable, but with a fundamental conflict. The good ol’ ludonarrative dissonance. The story was saying one thing and the gameplay was saying another. 11/16
Narrative fought it. We lost. Well, mostly lost – they did reduce the number of kills. Because 9 times out of 10 when you see scenarios like this occurring there's a writer behind the scenes wringing their hands and mopping up their own blood. We saw it. We know. We tried. 12/16
And this is what’s happened here, albeit in a smaller way. The story is saying ‘Frey cares more about her cat than money.’ Sure. The cat is ALWAYS more important. But the gameplay is unintentionally saying ‘Frey is an idiot; she could’ve easily had both.’ 13/16
It’s not just ‘the word bits’ which tell your game's story. Everything does. The level design, animation, gameplay, music etc. And everyone has to be singing from the same song-sheet otherwise narrative will swerve off in different directions. 14/16
It’s why I personally believe that an entire game team can benefits from learning more about storytelling – not just narrative folks - because so much underpins the narrative. 15/16
So… yeah. This is just a roundabout way of me saying that it probably wasn’t the writer’s fault. 😀 16/16
