Replayability: Been out cold for a couple of days, due to a strained ancle. I know that the brain is my main tool and hence, a injured bodypart shouldn't really put me out of the academic game. But it's just been hurting too much for me to concentrate properly. And so I started reading Lord of the Rings again (so I'm prepared to review the movie properly and of course to discuss it further as an very elaborate example of a virtual world in the ph.d.thesis;)). Still as a addictive as the first time, I read it, so I've spent a lot of hours on the sofa these 2 days....Which leads me directly to the first link of today: Replayabliity, Part One: Narrative"", by Ernest Adams in Gamasutra. He's writing about how to think about constructing narrative games that are replayable. Turns out he has somewhat of a Janet Murrayish stance: if the designer can just come up with a great and compelling story (f.i. like the Lord of the Rings!), then people will want to relive/replay again and again...Well, gamedesigners aren't Tolkiens nor Shakespeares in Spe, so that's a bit much too hope for: content solving what to me seems to be an intrinsicly ontological problem. If the game includes a good story (or rather strong narrative cuing), you (or at least I) "suffer" through all the annoying game elements of solving puzzles and shooting villains in order to get to the end of the story...And once I've learned what the story is all about, I won't suffer through all the tedious and timeconsuming puzzlesolving etc once more, even if some kind of "chartasistic" kick is my reward. However, if the gameplay itself is fun and I'm entertained while working my way through the game, I'll be happy to make do with even a moderately interesting narrative while replaying it because it's simply a good game. So seems to me that in order to make the ultimate replayable narrative-oriented game you would have to come up with something that had both a good story and an interesting gameplay/gaming content. The narrative game depends on suspense in the sense that you are constantly postponing the moment of resolve. In the replayable game, time itself seems suspended while you are struggling to "make it right" with the objects etc you're handling. Thus, how to prevent these elements from getting in each other's way, is somewhat of a paradox yet to be solved, I think. Not saying, that I wouldn't like to solve it myself. I'd love to make my StoryMOO mystery replayable. But somehow it's only fun discovering who the murderer is once...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 14:18