4 réponses à ce sujet

[Sc2mashimaro]

ME as a series has had a lot of choice/dialogue work done to make that a strong element of the story-telling. Telltale recently showed you can basically make that the primary game mechanic and, if your story is strong enough, it works very, very well.

Mass Effect games clock in between 20 and 40 hours depending on which one we are talking about and how many side quests you do and how long you take to decide things. Now, I understand that much of that content does not require as much room as each of the choice based parts of the game, but I am REALLY curious how deep you could make a choice based game go.

What I mean is this - make the game 1 1/2 to 2 hours long, but put as much depth into the choices, tone, and consequences relating to those choices so you end up with about 10 distinct story arcs that each have tone subsets. The stories are related because it is the same character in exactly the same world at exactly the same time, but they each tell a facet of the same story - allowing a very "artsy" sort of approach to story-telling. You will probably not understand the whole picture by simply doing one or two play-throughs. Staying away from the "choose-your-own-adventure" style and focusing more on a slow reveal. It would be like telling (or reading) a story by rewinding time and starting again so that you can see it a different way each time.

Thoughts?

[MelvinTheBeef]

I like that idea, not sure if it's marketable to sink the resources of a 40 hour game into a two hour game though; even if you do six or seven playthroughs that time only adds up to 12 or 14 hours. I don't know how many people would shell out full price for something like that, especially when you consider that the 40 hour ME games, themselves, have replay value.

I'd love to play it but I don't see the money men springing for it.

[LieutenantSarcasm]

I actually had a similar idea. Telltale-style game as Anderson in the first contact war, Make it happen.

[Sc2mashimaro]

MelvinTheBeef wrote...

I like that idea, not sure if it's marketable to sink the resources of a 40 hour game into a two hour game though; even if you do six or seven playthroughs that time only adds up to 12 or 14 hours. I don't know how many people would shell out full price for something like that, especially when you consider that the 40 hour ME games, themselves, have replay value.

I'd love to play it but I don't see the money men springing for it.

A lot of games have campaigns that run about 1/4 the time a Mass Effect game takes.

The goal here is to use the unique power of the gameplay mechanic to create a new type of story-telling experience. One playthrough is a story, a second play through is an entirely different story - but related and between the play throughs a theme starts to develop. The rhetoric and values of the story-writer become plain as the rules of their universe (how consequences work) start creating a story of WHAT that world is and what kind of meaning the people in it have.

Yeah, it's probably too arty for the AAA game crowd, but it's something I think would be worth exploring.

[MelvinTheBeef]

I really hope to see a game like that some day, I can definitely see more games going the dialogue-tree route so maybe a concentrated version like what you suggest will show up sooner than later.

I would especially love if that game was in the ME universe, but that's the part I find unfortunately doubtful