Grant Morrison on Game Narrative as Environment

July 24th, 2010

rsz_1return-of-bruce-wayne

I was very impressed to read a recent interview with acclaimed comic book writer Grant Morrison who, with brilliant articulation, identified the medium-specific advantages of video game narrative (environment as character) and then elaborates on how he’d like to introduce these elements into the comic book medium. This makes me terribly excited because Morrison is fantastically talented, really understands whatever subject matter he chooses to become invested in and is testing out this new approach on nothing less than Batman, w00t! In anycase, I’ve pasted the particular excerpt below, please click here to read the full interview.

IGN Comics: We also know you often draw much inspiration from the world around you – music, film, research, etc. Is anything in particular informing your development of Batman Inc?

Morrison: So many comics are still inspired by Hollywood movies, (many of which are now inspired, in turn, by comics in that pop-will- eat-itself way), and by extension a kind of approach to narrative which dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics and the fundamentals of Greek Drama, almost two and a half thousand years ago, in the name of our dear lords Hermes and Zeus Almighty!

It occurred to me, immersed in my 50th hour of Just Cause 2, how far beyond that silent audience, proscenium arch, here’s some well-paid ‘actor’ pretending to be someone else experience we’d gone and how very timidly other forms of storytelling entertainment had reacted to the challenge of the beast in their midst, this ultimate choose your own adventure playground that in some cases simulates ‘life’ and terrain so effectively it’s like actually like going on vacation (how many gamers know the geography of Silent Hill as well as their own town? Do streets and locations from Liberty City, Panau, or Saints Row, turn up in the dreams of other gamers like they do in mine? I’ll lay odds they do. These amazing virtual environments appear in my memories as real as Chicago or London. Paris, Venice, New Delhi, Jogjakarta or any of the non-CGI cities I’ve been to.

Although many current video games are constructed on a narrative spine which follows the basic action movie hero-beats-baddie script, it’s never that aspect of the player’s interaction with the virtual environment that’s important. I know I tend to skip the cut scenes in games without losing any awareness of the arrow of narrative progression. Batman Inc. is an attempt to do a comic influenced by the storytelling structures, images, senses of scale, movement and perspective and so on that I’ve absorbed from games. The experience of actually being Batman in the Arkham Asylum game was profoundly eerie and I’d love to find a way to capture that depth of involvement and identification with the character and environment. I’m not sure how much of this I’ll be able to realise but this is where I’m beginning my thinking on what might make Batman Inc. different from other books.

Batman Inc. is Brave and the Bold meets Just Cause or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare! That’s my pitch! Throw in a dash of Mission Impossible and a pinch of The Magic Christian and it’s nearly there.

As research for my book Supergods, I re-read a lot of my old comics and got really excited by that old ‘musical’ approach to writing superhero comics I saw especially in the work of Roy Thomas (the Kree/Skrull War is an amazing orchestration of plot, characters and ideas into a multi-levelled narrative that uses several interwoven voices – including blended 1st, 2nd and 3rd person captions – to practically conjure sound onto the paper. Almost every scene has some reference to sound, in fact, from the opening, apocalyptic door slam, through Black Bolt’s whisper and the continually pointed out lack of sound in space), Steve Engelhart, Doug Moench, Don McGregor and the others of Marvel’s ’70s auteur generation.

The popular ‘cinematic’ approach to comics has largely done away with those poetic narrative captions but an even greater loss is that free flowing multi-perspectival viewpoint – when was the last time you read a comic that addressed the character directly ‘You are the Batman!!’ before sliding into an omniscient 3rd person narrative voice, ‘He is the Batman!!’ then shifting to a 1st Person ‘I am the Batman.’ voice, all in the same story! That kind of writing has a metamorphic, psychedelic and very refreshing quality that seemed to tap more directly into the way comics can work together as words and pictures. The dance between writer and artist seems more fluid and the comic book artist is set free from the constraints of being a mere storyboardist, the writer gets a chance to express his or her own voice rather than just the voices of the characters etc. So with this book, I’m trying to find a road into that kind of multi-narrative approach that feels modern rather than retro.

We’ll see how it works out and how far it seems appropriate to push in that direction but these are the influences I’ve been absorbing and the thoughts I’ve been having at the beginning of the process. For me, it’s about seeing the familiar from a slightly different perspective.

Article Spotlight: A Fine Line: Making RPGs Accessible (The Grind)

June 14th, 2010

paper-mario-conveyor

Moving, travelling and then finally starting work overseas has left me with a month-long void of stable internet. I’ve been extremely lucky in that my initial accommodation was smack bang near a free wireless access point, transmitting free, stable internet at the mercy of the CCP’s filter (so no Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, democracy, pornography or anything that is idly swept up). Then I moved across the street into my own apartment and my freebie internet became less stable but still willing to be kind at times, hence I’ve exploited said moments of decent transmission to catch up on my backlog of reading.

In which case I’d like to open a new segment called “Article Spotlight” where I basically take an interesting article I’ve read and use it as a launching pad into further discussion, maybe to develop my own ideas, maybe to critique the arguments of the original author. As was made apparent to me by the direct referencing of other writers by Richard over at the Critical Gaming blog some time ago, there is a vital lack of discussion between most writers on the web. The enthusiast media run a rotisserie of news articles and most blogging communities are too insular to directly address the work of their community. With that said, let’s start.

A Fine Line: Making RPGs Accessible

Article Link

I currently lack the connection to listen to the respective podcast, so I will just respond to the written article.

In A Fine Line: Making RPGs Accessible, Kat observes the way that the abstract rule systems of most RPGs are often poorly conveyed to the player, citing Pokemon, Resonance of Fate and Infinite Space as specific case studies. What she concludes is that these games largely explicate their rules to the player through text (of which sometimes the text itself is insufficient), as opposed to internalising the tutorial into the functional fabric of the game. Furthermore, she references Final Fantasy VII to say that sometimes these games do not even emphasise the importance of vital subsystems, as is the case with the junction system.

RPGs are quite tricky in this regard since they are more heavily steeped in abstraction than other genres such as platforming, fighting or racing. As an extension to what Kat is saying, I think that the recent trend of adding “RPG elements” to other genres is an attempt to make logical the abstract rule systems of most RPGs. Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and GTA: San Andreas are good examples. The core gameplay of these games are not embedded in abstract rules, but rather 3rd person shooting, 1st person shooting, platforming and 3rd person action/driving. Since the “RPG elements” are contextualised with the (more) logical systems of platforming, fighting and action, the statistics and grinding make more sense to the player. The two systems are often compartmentalised due to their inherent nature (menus for RPG elements, live gameplay for main genre, for instance), which make it easy for players to mentally organise the constructs of gameplay. As such, complexity in these games stems from the patterns of relationship which players observe and capitalise on between the role playing and action elements.

Gusty-gulch

I digress. To the point: Pokemon, Resonance of Fate and Infinite Space are badly designed, albeit in a genre which is tougher to design well for (due to the complexity of the abstract, often statistics-driven system). What these RPGs ought to do is to establish their rule structures around logical concepts (or as with Strange Journey, at least throw the player a bone once in a while). Pokemon‘s is fundamentally quite a common sense system as it is based around the elements (water beats fire, for instance), however, as Kat briefly alludes to, Pokemon has evolved to the extent that it requires an encyclopaedic amount of knowledge. Consequently the prior tutorial structures no longer provide sufficient in aiding the player’s understanding of this knowledge. Fire melts ice, but is weak against water is quite easy to grasp. How fire holds up against light, dark or steel is less so.

A good example of a well designed RPG is Paper Mario, previously I commented:

“Perfect across the board and so far ahead of the curve that it was accused of being an RPG-lite at the time. It took J-RPGs another six years until they began to incorporate real-time action elements into their tiring RPG sub-systems.”
And it is still ahead of the curve. Providing a counter case study to Kat’s examples of Pokemon, Infinite Space and Resonance of Fate, I’ve jotted down some quick bullet points as to how Paper Mario is an accessible RPG:
Each attack involves a short, one dimensional sequence of interactivity as opposed to just selecting options from a menu
The statistics (HP, FP, Star Power) are streamlined and explained promptly and at suitable points in the game
The statistics in the game increase quite slowly, putting the focus on the player’s mastery of the attack sequences and matching the best buddy character to the right situation
Mario’s main move set (jump and hammer) alongside his allies have functions outside of battle which help consolidate their purpose within the battle system
Paper Mario assigns easy to understand visual and functional (attacks) characteristics to Mario’s supporting cast; they each have a sole property which defines them, ie. electricity, invisibility, etc.
These cast members are limited to supporting roles, emphasising the importance of customising Mario
The out-of-battle exploration supports the combat in the form of hidden badges
The menus clearly explain the benefits of equipping each badge

This issue of accessibility that Kat and her Grind cohorts have discussed (godamn internet, I want that podcast now!) is a pressing issue for modern RPGs, particularly now as the genre is losing relevancy to other genres which are streamlining themselves far better. Western RPGs have been a part-saviour here considering their introduction of meaningful contexts, yet most RPGs still seem to wallow in esoteric rules, niche fantasy, high school or medieval contexts, marathon play times and repetitive, meaningless grind. It’s no wonder the genre is losing face in an industry that is slowly realising it’s potential. “RPG elements” is therefore a positive change, change from the ground up through logical contexts and embedded tutorials though, is critically needed.

Additional Readings

Critical Conversation – Critical-Gaming Blog

Paper Mario – Mario Wiki

Side Comments

On the flight over from Australia I began playing Rune Factory 2 and I just don’t understand the logic behind some of the exercises. For example, the player ought to embark on fetch quests and other such time fillers to earn respect and money (since you are COMPLETELY stoney broke to begin with and the market for purchasing seeds is obviously a racket) from the local community. A message board in the town centre displays the citizens minor complaints and on tending to a ‘request’ you must find the villager, talk to them and then serve their need. The problem is you have no idea where these people are. Sure, there’s a whole bottom screen dedicated to a map, but why display their location on the map? Instead you must talk to a faux fortune teller who for a hefty toll (defeating the purpose of the quest now, isn’t it?) with give you a vague and almost entirely useless text description of where this person is located. Helpful, isn’t it?

Selective Tweets #2

May 29th, 2010

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You didn’t think I would pan this out into two articles, did you? Well, I did, so deal with it. ^_^ No seriously, I’ve said some semi-nifty things on Twitter, eh? Give me some cred. You subscribed yet? No?! Herm, maybe we can pad this out into 3 articles…

Can’t think of anything to write about Wipeout Fury for the blog. It definetly sports a madder, more aggressive vibe.

2:15 PM Aug 28th, 2009 via web

Eliminator mode= awesome, detonator = entrancing, Zone Battle= kinda lame, awesome package, piles of content

2:22 PM Aug 28th, 2009 via web

I reckon I probably will enjoy Metroid Prime 2 more than MP1&3. MP2 brings the tough bosses and nails the macabre, alt design

10:33 PM Sep 10th, 2009 via web

Will try to substantiate into an article soon.

Quadraxis was certainly a highlight, loved the multi-tiered design and ingenuity of the spider and boostball techniques. Killer music too.

10:44 PM Sep 10th, 2009 via web

There’s something very 1997 which I’ve always admired about the Turok (N64) boxart http://tinyurl.com/mrz8ue

6:07 PM Sep 12th, 2009 via web

Battle of the Bionosaurs, that’s such an awesome name. I’d really like to suss out the 2D Turok games.

11:04 AM Sep 13th, 2009 via web

Momiji (Ninja Gaiden) and Shigure (Ninja Scroll Animated series) have a more than strong design and personality resemblance

6:47 PM Oct 14th, 2009 via web

Band Hero gets “Paralyzer” (Finger Eleven), oh, that sucks >_<

9:33 AM Oct 16th, 2009 via web

Three of my favourite songs (If You Could Only See, Impression That I Get, Paralyzer) are in that game, god.

Why is Rock Band so full of shitey Southern American rock? I’d kill for some Powderfinger, Silverchair, Thirsty Merc or anything Australian

11:33 AM Oct 22nd, 2009 via web

So pleased I have no affiliation with the alt. gamer/Asian-wannabe crowd at UniSA…sure I’m partial, but those people make me wanna barf.

9:40 PM Nov 3rd, 2009 via web

I try to avoid mentioning games much in my social life (unless it’s of mutual interest) and keep things pretty segregated between here and there. I dunno, most of the gamer people I’ve met in my life tend to conform to sad stereotypes and can’t seem to separate their hobby from social etiquette.

Perhaps I’m too purist and objective to be a rabid enthusiast of childish things

9:43 PM Nov 3rd, 2009 via web

Surprising discussion on the Good Game presenter switch @ Mediawatch forums: http://bit.ly/sRNWW

9:48 PM Nov 9th, 2009 via web

Good Game is an Australia TV show about games. One of the shows long-time presenters was suddenly axed without warning. The threads here are interesting.

Might buy myself Rune Factory 2 for Christmas. I’ve avoided a decades worth of bad Harvest Moon iterations, and RF looks like the exception

2:04 PM Nov 17th, 2009 via web

BTW, fans of said, bad Harvest Moon iterations deserve our pity. Damn, anti-purists.

2:08 PM Nov 17th, 2009 via web

I’m uber purist when it comes to the Harvest Moon franchise. The original is the only “true” game in the series, IMO. The spin off Rune Factory, on the other hand, seems slick. I will hopefully get to write about it this year.

Kinda funny that Aus. gets the original US CrossworDS and the recent EU release and rebranding, they’re pretty much identical.

11:41 PM Dec 22nd, 2009 via web

When the identity of a nation state is challenged by mass migration it seeks to consolidate itself by promotion of nationalistic values

10:21 PM Jan 26th via web

The next few tweets are just criticising nationalistic tendencies. I dislike belief structures (religion, cults, nationalist, patriotism, enthusiast followings).

Of course, attempting to define the traits and values that apply to an entire population fails, but we aggressively fail anyways.

10:27 PM Jan 26th via web

It’s for this reason that we have a better understanding of what isn’t Australian rather than what is

10:28 PM Jan 26th via web

Because the reality is that ‘Australian’ is a marker, an excuse to separate them from us.

10:36 PM Jan 26th via web

It’s also a trigger to connote that “what we do is normal and civilised…whereas what they, the other do is not”. Symbols of patriotism, even though we don’t truly understand them, make us feel secure in our belonging to a membership group.

BTW, did I mention that we’re all friendly bunch of larrikins who are great at sport and eat lamb? Aren’t you?

10:39 PM Jan 26th via web

And, yes, it doesn’t always make sense.

Endless Ocean 2, Excitebike: World Rally, No More Heroes 2 and Tatsunoko vs Capcom – all seem like interesting games for the Wii

11:33 PM Jan 28th via web

It’s a pity that Nintendo fans/industry alike will continue to decry the Wii for the obvious lack of quality software/3rd party support

11:36 PM Jan 28th via web

I’m sure if they all had guns and were set in first person/over the shoulder people would care…somewhat

11:38 PM Jan 28th via web

…But even then it wouldn’t be enough.

To unsubscribe to Adobe’s mailing list you an A) Click a link B) Post a letter titled UNSUBSCRIBE to their marketing dept. in Chatswood, NSW

11:06 PM Feb 23rd via web

Great Sunday editorial on Eurogamer about the 3rd party situation on Wii: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/third-party-puzzle-article

9:08 PM Mar 1st via web

Basically good games with strong marketing sell, Nintendo’s presence seems to be an excuse to pass blame for under performing in these areas

9:10 PM Mar 1st via web

Even Nintendo have weak sellers like Battalion Wars 2, Walk with me, Excitebots, Chibi Robo and Custom Robo – same reasons.

9:32 PM Mar 1st via web

Wonders why Nintendo didn’t/won’t extend their ‘New Play Control’ branding to 3rd parties, including Okami, RE0, Remake and 4, Rygar, etc

9:10 AM Mar 6th via web

It’s kinda sad how Capcom sexualised Jill Valentine with RE3′s boobtube/miniskirt combo and RE5′s catsuit, she was just fine before.

about 1 hours ago via web

In RE; Umbrella Chronicles her original body figure is dressed in her RE3 get up which is quite interesting

about 1 hours ago via web

They also made her more slender which doesn’t fit with her RE1 body image

about 1 hours ago via web

Valve are so going to announce HL: Ep3 at E3 and I am so going to look for ways to shit bricks on them.

about 1 hours ago via web

Yes, I’m still sour on the Half-life series. Half-life 2‘s legacy was mostly overrated (it’s just gimmicks!!) and, as I tweet later, the cast are trying too hard to be ordinary. I also look forward to making fun of Alyx falling in love with a soulless avatar.

Posted in General Gaming | Comments (2)
Tags: twitter

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