02-27-2008, 10:09 AM
Eurogamer has posted a new interview with Hothead Games' creative director Ron Gilbert. The veteran adventure game designer discusses the company's upcoming games: Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness and Death Spank, as well as the demand for story based games.
For the full interview click over to the link provided below.
But do gamers want to be told stories? After all, the adventure genre is not as popular as it once was. At this year's GDC, Dave Jones of Realtime Worlds spoke of his belief that storytelling should be left to books and movies. Unsurprisingly, Gilbert disagrees.
"I think that's completely unfair. The main reason games don't do stories well is we don't have good storytellers. That gets lumped in, 'Well, games don't know how to tell good stories.' Well, no, games can tell stories, but you have to tell good ones.
"And you can't just tell a straight, linear story like you can in a movie," he continues. "If you do that in a game, you end up with a bunch of action sequences with a bunch of cut-scenes breaking them up. That's the wrong way to go."
Instead, Gilbert argues, game designers should look back at the adventure games of old and understand how they told stories. "The way adventure games work with puzzles, it's just a wonderful skeleton to hang a story on. I think a lot of designers today don't understand it or they forgot it. Deathspank and Penny Arcade Adventures are going back to those roots."
"I think that's completely unfair. The main reason games don't do stories well is we don't have good storytellers. That gets lumped in, 'Well, games don't know how to tell good stories.' Well, no, games can tell stories, but you have to tell good ones.
"And you can't just tell a straight, linear story like you can in a movie," he continues. "If you do that in a game, you end up with a bunch of action sequences with a bunch of cut-scenes breaking them up. That's the wrong way to go."
Instead, Gilbert argues, game designers should look back at the adventure games of old and understand how they told stories. "The way adventure games work with puzzles, it's just a wonderful skeleton to hang a story on. I think a lot of designers today don't understand it or they forgot it. Deathspank and Penny Arcade Adventures are going back to those roots."
For the full interview click over to the link provided below.
Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News