CGM September 2014 issue preview

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CGM #07 Cover is a portrait of the legendary comic artist Frank Miller. Influenced by Frank’s signature black and white silouhette illustrations. Frank Miller article on pg. 40

SCHOOL’S IN wayne santos

T

CG Magazine #07

here’s a down side and an up side to no longer being in school. The up side is that once September rolls around and school starts, there’s no dread from realizing that the next 8-10 months of your life are road mapped with classes, homework and the maintenance of an awkward social life. The down side is you don’t get to enjoy 2-4 months of vacation time; the arrival of summer doesn’t mean the work ends. But for both comics and games, the end of summer vacation is also a signal of sorts.

On the comic side, it means that all those comic adaptations that hit the big screen are now over, and it’s time to concentrate once more on the printed stories that define the medium. On the gaming side, it means the drought is finally coming to an end, and the anticipated games of the year are now just two or three months away.

For gamers in particular, the arrival of September also marks a hint at the future of the industry from the country that saved the industry, Japan. The Tokyo Game Show— once the harbinger of everything futuristic in games—allows companies like Sony, Nintendo, Sega and others to strut their stuff.

Sometimes, this is a great preview of things to come, as with Sony’s announcement that themes are coming to the PS4 and Vita.

Other times, it’s a cruel tease of things that will never be, such as Sega’s announcement of Yakuza Zero, a game that has a rabid—but small—fanbase in the West, and, as a result, may not be translated into English because the sales outside Japan don’t justify the cost of the effort.

There are also strange glimpses into a future that would never be considered in the West, the sort of thing that makes those familiar with the culture shake their heads and say “Oh, Japan, you whacky country, you…,” because such efforts could never happen in the West. Such is the Tekken team’s vision of how to use the Project

Morpheus virtual reality technology. Here in the West, Project Morpheus has taken players under the sea to deal with sharks, or put them in the prehistoric era to feed dinosaurs. In Japan… Project Morpheus is being used to try and sneak a glimpse of a teenage girl’s panties while “tutoring” her in her bedroom during the summer. This, if nothing else, shows just how much of a divide there is between the imagination of the east and the west when it comes to exploring the potential of new technologies.

More importantly, with a new month comes a new issue of CGM, and after the Buyer’s Guide, we’re returning to form with content not just about the products, but the industry itself. In this issue, we cover topics like how music works in games, and how children, once the pillar of both the comic and gaming markets, have been left by the wayside as their respective media chased legitimacy in their bids to be taken seriously by the audiences and critics at large. We also have a big blow out on Sin City, its creator, Frank Miller, and a cautionary tale about how sometimes creative freedom isn’t necessarily what an artist needs to do his best work. And of course, there’s the usual array of interviews and reviews with all the games of the summer, including the inevitable debut of Diablo III on newest generation of consoles. It’s business as usual this month at CGM, so dive in and check out what we’ve got for you.

Wayne Santos

Senior Content Editor

CGM07 | SEP2014

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CONTRIBUTORS Raynika Awotwi

Phil Brown

Brendan Frye

@RaynikaAwotwi Raynika Awotwi is a writer for CGMagazine. She parlayed into CGM directly from an internship with Magazines Canada. Raynika loves to engage cideogames in a deeper context, which is one of the essential reasons she contected magazines so much.

@thatphilbrown Phil Brown is a writer for a variety of publications about a variety of topics. He loves movies, games, comic books, regular books, and comedy. As a result, he has very little life outside of these obsessions and is fine with that.

@bfrye26 Brendan is an editor and writer who has worked in journalism for 7 years after studying film at Western.

He is a lover of story and narrative, and is a firm believer that games have the potential to rise above just being a product.

CGMAGAZINE

www.cgmagonline.com

EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brendan Frye SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR

Lisa Granshaw

@LisaGranshaw Lisa Granshaw is a full-time freelance writer based in New York City. Her work has been published on multiple websites and in a number of magazines including the official Star Wars magazine, Star Wars Insider.

Alexander Leach

Doug Mercer

@alexanderbleach Alexander Leach wandered out of the woods of Eastern Ontario, with a servicable beard and a love for RPGs. His Twitter is @alexanderbleach.

@DougMercer23 Doug is a writer who spends most of his time preoccupied with movies, TV, comics and games, not necessarily in that order. Otherwise, he’s writing a passion project or toiling away as a freelance journalist.

You also don’t want to test his movie trivia.

Wayne Santos ART ART DIRECTOR Jo Enaje COVER ART Jo Enaje ADVERTISING/MARKETING CORPORATE RELATIONS / MARKETING Melanie Emile CONTRIBUTORS

Wayne Santos

Jake Yanik

@realwaynesantos Wayne Santos has been playing and writing about games all over the world for over ten years. Rumor has it his Replicant lifespan is just about up, but he won’t let that--or a couple of Blade Runners--keep him down.

@Phab1o Jake Yanik is a trained chef, bartender, amateur Pen&Paper game creator, and satirist. When he’s busy procrastinating those ventures, he also sometimes makes words happen that other people enjoy. That probably also makes him a writer.

Raynika Awotwi Phil Brown Brendan Frye Lisa Granshaw Alexander Leach Doug Mercer Wayne Santos INTERN Edward Bayley

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES PHONE: 416-516-2894 FAX: 416-516-4763 EMAIL: Ads@cgmagonline.ca (ISSN 1920-9150) CGMagazine is published bi-monthly by Creative Junction, Part of Ronald P Frye & Co.

CGMagazine does not claim copyright in the screenshots herein. Copyright in all screenshots within this publication are owned by their respective companies.

Entire contents copyright 2014. CGMagazine All rights reserved; reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Products named in these pages are trade names, or trademarks of their respective companies.

Follow CGMagazine on Twitter, Facebook and by RSS FEED to get the latest about comics and gaming. We will also give you all the sneak peeks as what you can expect for the coming months. Find all links for this and more at www.cgmagonline.com CGMagazine is a proud member of Magazines Canada and supports Canadian content and industries.

CGMagazine is printed on FSC Certified Mixed Source Paper.

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CONTENTS SEP TEMBER 2 014 # 07

COMICS GAMES FILM/TV FEATURE

Think Of The Children How Gaming Forgot About The Kids A Whole New (Open) World Non-Linear Gaming Is About Player Possibilities Avengers Assemble Where Do Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Go Next?

08 14 20 26 30

Kickstarting Con Artists The Dark Side Of Online Crowd Source Investments.

Girl Groups The Story Of One All Female Game Studio

FOCUS

Noir Is Not Dead The Black & White World of Frank Miller’s Sin City Popularity Contest The Music Industry Makes In-Roads To Games

40 48 52

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For Movie Review

REVIEWS Diablo III: Reaper Of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition

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Firefall

Dark Souls 2: Crown Of The Old Iron King (DLC)

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Tales Of Xillia 2

HARDWARE

Fluance Bluetooth Speaker System

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SMS Audio STREET by Star Wars Headphones

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END GAME

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne CGM07 | SEP2014

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Visit www.magazinescanada.ca

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F E A T U R E S INTERVIEWS BRIEFS OPINION

Think Of The Children

CGM07 | SEP2014

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FEATURE

Illustrations by Jo Enaje

Think Of The Children

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F E AT U R E Children were the first big audience for games, but that hasn’t been the case for years. That’s not necessarily a good thing.

THINK OF THE

CHILDREN HOW GAMING FORGOT ABOUT THE KIDS

words by wayne santos

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The games industry, as many within it are proud to say, has matured. Games like The Last of Us and Bioshock have proven that both the artists and the audience for the medium are ready for sophisticated narratives, emotional nuance, and complex, challenging ideas. It was something that needed to happen, and in many ways, was inevitable as gaming struggled to find an identity. However, during this maturation process, something was lost. That something was respect for the audience that embraced gaming and turned it to help buoy it into the success it is today; children. →

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wayne santos The Electric Babysitter When games first came into consumer awareness in the 1970’s, they were the domain of two markets; technology enthusiast early adopters, and children. Often the early adopters were actually already parents, but there were obviously children lured in by sales displays at electronics stores, or seeing—in a preAmazon and Internet world— images in a Sears catalog that seduced them with promises of playing games on their very own living room TV. Whatever the method was, some children found themselves playing Pong or shooting at squares using a light gun with early consoles like Atari’s first hardware, or the Coleco Telstar Arcade.

At this time, it was hard for anyone but a technology enthusiast or a child to get really excited by videogames.

This was a monochrome world of simple beeps, and squares on the screen; The photorealism of something like Beyond: Two Souls over 30 years away. But the potential, and more importantly the interactivity, was already there. Graphics eventually graduated to colour in the 80’s, although they were still simplistic by today’s standards, but for children, with nearly unlimited imaginations, this was enough. The dragons of 1979’s Adventure are laughable when compared to 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, but a child doesn’t care. Videogames were like fiction, only instead of words creating images, it was the squares and blocks of colour that told the story. Text adventures like Zork merely reinforced this, while later consoles, such as the NES 10

Think Of The Children in the mid-80’s, continued to fire up the imagination with games like Legend of Zelda and Metroid, hinting at huge worlds, full of adventure, just beyond what the children themselves were seeing on screen.

A few grown-ups here and there might have played from time to time, but games were something that were the domain of kids.

These early games were both adored and reviled for their addictive qualities with younger players. For some,

Adventure

Dragon Age: Inquisition

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they were a perfect pacifier, keeping children quiet and well behaved for far longer than a 30 minute cartoon.

For others, they were a disruptive influence, pulling children away from chores and homework. For an entire generation of children, games were something that belonged to them. A few grown-ups here and there might have played from time to time, but games were something that were the domain of kids. Even Hollywood confirmed this, with movies like The Last Starfigher and The Wizard. If you were young, games were for you.

And perhaps one of the most important reasons for this was that games, unlike adults, weren’t patronizing.

Games didn’t coddle anyone, regardless of their age. This was one of the reasons why children flocked to the medium; it was a level playing field where a person’s income, education or age didn’t matter, only their ability.

Mario Bros.

wayne santos Respect & Mastery When games first invaded homes (and shopping malls in now defunct arcades), game design had yet to develop into rigid schools of thought. There weren’t philosophies such as “30 seconds of fun,” or focus groups to expose difficulty spikes in certain portions of a game level. Games could be terrifically hard, both in manual dexterity required, or puzzle solving ability, sometimes both. In this way, they didn’t condescend to children the way many other media—like television and film— had already done. Defender for example, was Defender no matter who played it in the arcade. A 10 year old child had as much

Think Of The Children opportunity to get his or her initials on the high score board as a teenager or adult. Games were equal opportunity. It was the same thing on the home console front, with games like Zelda and Mario Bros. demanding that players give their best. Games didn’t coddle anyone, regardless of their age.

This was one of the reasons why children flocked to the medium; it was a level playing field where a person’s income, education or age didn’t matter, only their ability.

This unprejudiced view also made important inroads when it came to gender. Toys, strictly aligned themselves along gender roles with toys just for boys or girls. Games didn’t make this distinction. Asteroids was CGM07 | SEP2014

no more a boy’s videogame than Maniac Mansion, anyone could play these games. It was this magic combination of provoking the imagination while challenging any child— regardless of race or gender—to give their best that proved so alluring to young gamers of the 80’s, and it was the reason the industry exploded. As those children grew up, so did their income. They took part time jobs, they bought their own hardware, they went to college, graduated into full blown careers, and they kept buying and playing games.

But they wanted games that appealed to their level, and so the industry responded. Games grew up and prospered.

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wayne santos The Price Of Success The industry, the media and the audience for gaming grew up as the decades passed. By the time the first decade of the 21st century had elapsed, games were a very different landscape.

Enough time had passed that many who grew up playing and loving games were now part of the industry. They were adults now, and they wanted their beloved medium to also be adult, or at least be taken seriously, and not just regarded as a diversion for children. So, much like comics, games embraced the more sophisticated and darker aspects of art and life.

The more realistic graphics paved the way for more emotionally and psychologically realistic content. The carefree innocence of swinging over moats in Pitfall was replaced by the moral dilemma of shooting innocents in an airport in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Franchises that once dominated the scene, like Jak & Daxter now pulled in far fewer sales than dark, gritty survival tales like The Last of Us. Games and people within the games industry wanted the medium to be discussed with the same level of respect as cinema. And in

Games are now far from being regarded as just one curious, electronic niche within the toy industry. many ways, they succeeded.

Games are now far from being regarded as just one curious, electronic niche within the toy industry. The biggest titles match or surpass the box office take of the biggest summer movies. That`s a pretty heavy indicator that it’s not just kids forking over those dollars.

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Think Of The Children Games have arrived, so to speak, but they’ve lost something special in that maturation process. They’ve left behind the audience that nurtured them.

True, there are still games out there that children can play, but many of the same genres and categories that plague toys have now made their way into games for children. Games “for girls” have arisen that promote shopping and excessively use the colour pink, reinforcing outdated cultural clichés of how a girl is supposed to think and behave.

Games like Disney Infinity and Skylanders have capitalized on collection crazes, putting parents in a position where buying a game is just the start of an elaborate collection of figures that children become addicted to buying with their parents’ money. Even the difficulty that once pushed children to learn, persist and succeed has been ramped down significantly.

An age group that was once the primary audience for the industry is now a niche, one that is an afterthought if the quality of most modern children’s games is anything to go by.

The Hope For The Future It’s inevitable that games as an emerging medium would move beyond its children’s roots and into a broader market. Despite that, there’s still hope that the kind of quality, meritocratic gaming that children enjoyed in the past can still be had today. Nintendo continues to be a great ambassador for gaming of all ages, with every major franchise, whether it’s Mario Bros. or new franchises like Splatoon, being suitable for any age to play without condescension. Even outside of Nintendo, there are a few companies and franchises that

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believe a game for children shouldn’t be stupid or easy.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, for example, is a multiplayer shooter that both children and adults can play together or against each other.

It’s harder to find an ideal game for a child these days that challenges both their imagination and their skill.

Other genres, such as the rhythm genre, have also made great strides in being ideal for children without necessarily pandering to a perceived notion of what child gaming should be. Just Dance, Dance Central and, of course, the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises, all manage to bring fun, accessibility and skill to a player of any age. And while games like Ratchet & Clank or Sly Cooper no longer pull in the big sales numbers of games like Uncharted and Call of Duty, these franchises aren’t dead yet, and still make occasional forays into the gaming world.

It’s harder to find an ideal game for a child these days that challenges both their imagination and their skill.

But it’s not impossible. It just takes more effort. The results, however, especially for a parent that remembers the first time they beat their “arch nemesis” game, is unforgettable. Being able to do it together with a child is even more memorable, and it’s one of the reasons why the gaming industry should never forget its roots. Those roots still make up some of the best memories for people as they grow up.

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FEATURE

Areal Concept Art

False Kickstarter

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F E AT U R E Kickstarter is now the go-to site for people looking to fund promising independent efforts, from comics to games. But, like every venture involving money, things aren’t always on the level, and things can go horribly wrong.

KICKSTARTING CON A RT ISTS THE DARK SIDE OF ONLINE CROWD SOURCE INVESTMENTS

words by alexander leach

I

love Kickstarter. I have supported several, and have played and even reviewed their finished products. I’ve been overall pleased with what I have received for my support, or from games I didn’t support myself.

Many titles evoke nostalgia for games long gone, realize old dreams of jaded players, or provide new innovations that publishers wouldn’t support.

The huge payouts – millions of dollars in some cases, such as with Double Fine’s adventure game Broken Age – from eager fans speak for themselves.

However, this money is provided with the assumption that companies will use it for what they’ve promised.

Kickstarter pages offer videos, descriptions, concept art, credentials and proof of concept, much like what CGM07 | SEP2014

you’d pitch to an executive of a publishing company. Backers give their money based on these promises, but there is a risk that the game will not be completed, and the money – and the rewards promised in the right sidebar – will never materialize.

Sometimes that may be the company’s intent, or an accident, but it’s a real, tangible threat. And it has precedent. → 15

alexander leach Suspensions I’ve seen a Kickstarter suspended before. It’s actually not much to look at – the word “Suspended” next to the title, with donation boxes greyed out. It’s almost anticlimactic to behold, meant to be as unobtrusive as possible.

But Areal’s campaign, and its rage, is hardly unobtrusive.

West Games, a Ukrainian studio (the Kickstarter lists them as from Las Vegas, Nevada), presented a postapocalyptic game said to be in the vein of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. In fact, they claim to have worked on the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and that this game was to serve as a spiritual successor to their work. Their assets consisted of colourful, bizarre concept art and some unpolished game footage, fairly standard for a Kickstarter page.

The game recieved $64,000 which exceeded its $50,000 goal before being shut down.

Kickstarting Con Artists Kickstarter’s reason is that the project violated its rules, though which rules were never clarified. Given the vitriolic comment section and the developers’ own bizarre responses, it’s not surprising there were some issues with the poor project.

Accusations that the game’s concept art and trailers were actually for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. troubled backers.

Comments flew with accusations and challenges to West Games, debating their statements and their connections to the project. Over 17,000 comments featured on the page, filled with links to articles on the game.

Accusations that the game’s concept art and trailers were actually footage and art for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. troubled backers,

S.T.A.L.K.E.R

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and sent journalists into a frenzy of reporting.

Eugene Kim, the studio founder, and the entire studio responded in a way that further eroded confidence, attacking those who critiqued their offering. The official updates took on a paranoid bent, attacking those who had reported on the incident – and even the others who had purportedly developed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with them.

“The fact is that there are a lot of companies that make their livelihood on S.T.A.L.K.E.R., so when we showed up on the scene, they saw us as a threat and did everything that they could to stop us,” West Game’s Kickstarter said.

Comments about the journalists were far less diplomatic – downright accusatory, in fact. “We personally think that Erik Kain, the writer of the articles on Forbes, has a huge personal bias against us, and is doing everything

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Artwork

alexander leach that he can to wrongfully discredit us. His writing is the absolute antithesis of objective journalistic integrity.”

“Our community is built on trust and communication.

Projects can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts, and creators should be candid about what they plan to accomplish.”

Such a statement is quite serious when directed at a journalist, and sends a strong statement about one’s opinion of the press. Reporting on controversies regarding several rapid donations and withdrawn pledges were capped off by Kickstarter suspending the project, to the open dismay of its creators. “After Vice News

Kickstarting Con Artists wrote an article about us, people started contributing every minute, but Kickstarter was afraid of the controversy surrounding our project, so they suspended funding,” Kim wrote on Kickstarter.

Kickstarter’s policy on the quality and risks of those projects proposed under its banner are clear. “Our community is built on trust and communication.

Projects can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts, and creators should be candid about what they plan to accomplish.”

The final messages from West Games took a turn for the surreal. Kim claimed that their game’s troubles were a result of an ‘information war’ waging between Ukraine and Russia amid their recent conflicts, and he posted a letter purportedly written by Vladimir Putin asking to play the game. While their webpage still collects project funds, an interview with PC Gamer revealed that their counter was a fixed, unchanging CGM07 | SEP2014

script, rather than representative of their gathering funds.

Overall, this projects claims, coupled with its stewards’ responses, resulted in distrust and bitterness. Other incidents don’t inspire confidence – Mythic: The Story of Gods and Men, a Kickstarter with art claimed to be lifted from DeviantArt user Genzoman, was lambasted by gaming webcomic Penny Arcade’s writer “Tycho,” cancelled their Kickstarter and thus vanished off the face of the Internet. But they handled it better than West Games, who claimed persecution and conspiracy damage as they attacked their detractors. Calm and rationality is a standard of public relations; hurling insults is the domain of the forum troll, not the trusted business looking for investors.

Kickstarter trust is fragile.

We’ve put a lot of faith in these pitches to provide what they want.

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Yogventures

Kickstarting Con Artists

Yogventures, a game featuring the avatars of a popular organization of game players and video personalities, was successfully funded – but the game will likely never see release.

Broken Promises Kickstarter trust is fragile. We’ve put a lot of faith in these pitches to provide what they want. For those that are blatant scams, the trust is broken fairly quickly – they can be dismissed and pushed aside from the legitimate ventures, and don’t cast shadows on the others.

But worse are those Kickstarters that receive their funding, and then betray trust by failing to deliver on their promise. The site doesn’t release the money to the project until the campaign ends and only if the project is fully funded; actual scams don’t usually get far enough to cause people to lose money. But those games that do make it past the funding stage and receive their money now have cemented their obligation, and breaking that has debatably greater effects on the model and on players themselves.

Tim Schafer’s revival of the adventure genre, Broken Age, garnered heavy criticism due to its sudden inclusion of celebrity voice acting.

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There are some close calls that, as of the time of writing, are cause for concern. Tim Schafer’s revival of the adventure genre, Broken Age, garnered heavy criticism due to its sudden inclusion of celebrity voice acting (foregrounded by a question asked by a host of the Spike TV VGX awards), and only released half of the game with the promise of the second half to come. Anita Sarkeesian’s feminist video series was heavily criticized for its biased first video, and use of other people’s art and content, without credit or response to the queries. Her videos are what she proposed in her $2000, proposal, albeit with seemingly unethical use of content.

A major, recent example, however, actually has its backers denied the game they supported, and the rewards they were promised. Yogventures, a game featuring the avatars of a popular organization of game players and video personalities, was successfully funded – but the game will likely never see release. The developer commissioned to make the game, Winterkewl Games,

alexander leach suffered from the loss of a chief programmer, mounting costs, and challenges that made the game impossible to deliver – and hurt them grievously.

“In the end we negotiated that up to $150,000 would be transferred to the Yogscast with the understanding that they would use that money exclusively to create and ship all the physical rewards, AND they would help hire the main programmer that we still didn’t have on the project,” Kris Vale, of Winterkewl games, stated on the backer page. “Since the money was all spent either directly on development of the game or paid to the Yogscast to handle physical rewards and ‘licensing fees’ I’m afraid Winterkewl Games has a negative balance at this point. We don’t have any of the money left and as such can’t really offer refunds.”

He also listed the costs accrued to pay his team, showing how the money was spent. Yogcast have been silent on the matter of what will happen with the game. Offers of another property, TUG, have been made, and personality Lewis Brindley responded online regarding the fate of the money “We set up a contract with Winterkewl early on to allocate funds between the two parties. Winterkewl would deliver the game and Yogscast would receive a portion of the Kickstarter money. That $150,000 was spent directly fulfilling physical rewards for

Kickstarting Con Artists Kickstarter backers, packing and shipping the rewards, covering marketing expenses including the booth at E3 2012.”

Lewis Brindley wrote, also denoting the game’s.

Kickstarter backers give money because they expect a finished game, a product they want to see that isn’t currently in the works.

“To address a specific point that has been raised about hiring a programmer, we did discuss this with Winterkewl in an effort to help them out, although it wasn’t part of the agreement and would have been paid for directly by Yogscast. Multiple professional programmers were approached to work on Yogventures, however they all declined the position. Furthermore, the hiring of at least one programmer we courted was vetoed by Winterkewl.

There were no further funds requested from Winterkewl.”

The backer rewards provided obviously won’t include Yogventures itself – Kickstarter backers give money because they expect a finished game, a product they want to see that isn’t currently in the works.

Other rewards are merely icing CGM07 | SEP2014

on a non-existent cake, not worth the contributions on their own. The result is the possible death of Winterkewl games, the loss of lots of backer money given freely, and a mark against Yogcast for their inability to deliver what they proposed.

We give money freely to this industry. Players buy preorders and season passes in droves, purchase DLC readily, and are willing to donate money to a cause for the promise of a new, amazing game concept to be made reality. We’re passionate about games, and we want to guide the industry ourselves in order to produce new and exciting ideas.

But the potential for abuse and disaster are present. Risk can’t ever be fully mitigated, without threatening Kickstarter with responsibility that could make them liable for misuse of their system. Areal and Mythic were caught early and prevented from leading to financial loss, but incidents like Yogventures cannot be prevented even with vigilance – they’re out of our hands.

Crowdfunding makes the project directly accountable to its investors – the players – who stand to gain or lose by their efforts. Vigilance, criticism, and discussion are key, and the ongoing debates regarding a project’s viability will never abate.

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FEATURE

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Non-Linear Gameplay

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F E AT U R E Traditional linear gaming has been with us since the dawn of the medium, but thanks to more powerful technology, more players are getting to play the game the way they want to.

A WHOLE NEW

(OPEN) WORLD

NON-LINEAR GAMING IS ABOUT PLAYER POSSIBILITIES

words by alexander leach

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ideogames are all about personal agency.

Our enjoyment comes from our personal choices influencing the created world and story, with being able to change things. We like to see people’s lives made better or worse by our decisions, to see Dragon Age communities flourish or wilt based on whether we made a deal with that lascivious demon.

By that turn of logic, we LOVE nonlinear games – that is,

games that don’t herd us along a fixed storyline, but rather have multiple options we can pursue. This is somewhat of the norm in western RPGs, but it takes the form of ‘side quests’, extra missions that are optional and don’t generally progress the main story. Actual nonlinear games are somewhat difficult to come by, if only because true nonlinearity is unclear.

Note that I’m sticking to RPGs for the sake of plot, because they’re the main game in which CGM07 | SEP2014

‘nonlinear narrative’ actually matters. Plot and writing is largely incidental in most other games, and is only treated as garnish. Granted, it can always enhance a game without much downside, such as how the mediocre gameplay of Bioshock Infinite is overshadowed by superior writing, but plot is only really considered a core element of the RPG genre, and is most focused on there. It’s therefore easier to find welldetailed examples. → 21

The Elder Scrolls Online

alexander leach

Elder Scrolls games rarely have any urgency to their main plot. After the initial intro, you are left to wander freely through an expansive landscape, filled with minor quests and stories often only nominally tied to your being.

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The Elder Scrolls Are Terrible At Being Specific The first example to honestly come off the top of my head, when I think of a nonlinear RPG, is the Elder Scrolls series, the most recent being the heavily-hyped and demographic-breaking Skyrim, and the online RPG so creatively titled Elder Scrolls Online. I will discuss both, as well as the other core games.

Most Elder Scrolls games, with the exception of aberrant spinoffs like Redguard, start off very similarly. You are a blank slate, dumped unceremoniously into a wide, open world (almost always in prison). In most games, you would immediately find yourself directed to the main plot point, with every action you take.

These games are no different, with Skyrim having a dragon to report to the nearest authority.

However, Elder Scrolls games

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rarely have any urgency to their main plot. After the initial intro, you are left to wander freely through an expansive landscape, filled with minor quests and stories often only nominally tied to your being. Skyrim lets you do whatever you want, and it means your impact is limited.

Beyond the quest chain to reach the lofty goals, you can do very little with your power.

You can be the head of the Mage’s Guild, an archmage others are supposed to look up to and who makes great decisions. But you can also be the head of a warrior’s lodge, or a thieves’ guild, or even a guild of assassins – or all of the above.

And how much does this change the world? Very little. Beyond the quest chain to reach the

alexander leach lofty goals, you can do very little with your power. You can’t lead your circle of warriors or school of mages into a war, or expand your power – only procedural, random quests can be done. You can’t use your noble status in a town to amass a personal army (only get yourself out of arrests).

In short, there seems to be little actual effect on the world.

Why is that? Well, it’s part of the design philosophy. If you’ve got multiple little plots and adventures to have in a wide, sandbox world, you’ve got far more adventures that threaten to overlap. For example, what if you were tasked as member of the Dark Brotherhood to kill the Thieves’ Guildmaster? How would that affect your ability to be said guild master? In order to allow you to do both, the two cannot influence one another.

Changing the world must have consequences in order to have meaning – you have to see

A Whole New (Open) World evidence that your choice has changed things beyond cursory dialogue. The more widespread these changes, the better. Many games that actually have agency like this limit it to two ‘outcomes’ per branch, and tend to direct people towards an outcome.

Having even only two results takes a great deal of work from the writers and programmers, so imagine having dozens, and having to painstakingly plot out which ones influence the others.

In theory, it could be possible to allow both actual agency in changing the landscape and multiple choices. However, it would mean a truly stellar amount of development work in order to actualize. Every branch quest would have to be plotted out, scripted, and animated, and all of that would have to be tested by beleaguered QA personnel to ensure that the variant plots work correctly, especially when certain options are closed.

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Creating Your Own Character & The Cost Of Personal Impact RPGs in the west tend to follow a “create your own person” format – elements like gender, profession, and even species are left blank and up to the player. How the character responds to situations is also left up to the player, moreso than games with established personalities. In many earlier games, these characters lacked their own voiceacting, creating the ‘silent protagonist’ convention.

This has a downside, however, of further lessening the impact your character has, because the character cannot assert themselves.

They have no actual voice, merely the responses you pick – without a vocalization, it’s merely you responding.

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