Dopass.com

Since story has been thrust into the forefront of my brain today, let's talk about it for a bit. I've been meaning to bring up this topic for awhile, but I've been struggling with how to do it. I'm still not sure this is the best way to do it, to be honest, but since it's on my mind it's now or never. So, here goes.

What's the purpose of story in games? Is it simply a contrivance designers use to wrap context around the game's interaction with the player? There are many, and I suspect they are the majority, who feel this way. It's not wrong or right to feel this way, but is that really all stories do for games? Is the story simply there to justify your actions, or is it more? Aren't stories important because without them our games are just a set of rules we use to play? There's nothing wrong with story-less games, don't get me wrong, but if you want to grow beyond mere rules and provide an experience, isn't story important? If you want your players to care emotionally about your games, don't you need story?

Every few months - at least twice a year - some jackhole will ask the completely asinine question: "Can games make you cry?" Yes, I said the question was completely asinine. Now some of you just recoiled and are likely already composing your scathing flaming e-mail. But, honestly, it's a worthless question. You might as well ask if the world revolves, the sky contains oxygen, or whether or not hexavalent chromium really causes cancer like people say... You'll get an equally useful answer.

You see, the yahoos who ask this question never mean what they're asking. What they often mean is, "are games more than just toys?" or "are games art?" They often point to people's lame diatribes about how games stories "kill games" or cite endless worthless forum conversation from people who have never played a game that made them cry and they use to justify their assumption: That games are worthless toys that can't possibly have any substantive value.

Comic books went through this, and occasionally they still do. Television went through this (and occasionally, still does). Movies went through this (and still do). Books, plays, radio, you name it - every single medium of expression has been questioned regarding its "value." Often, these charges come from the previous generation, from people who can't accept the new medium because it supplants their preferred medium. Just as often they come from the current generation, who having seen mass saturation of the medium now begin to wonder if it's as special as they thought it was when they "discovered" it. Either way, it's a worthless question.

The question isn't, "Can games make you cry?" it's "Have games made you cry?" If the answer is still no, then you have to ask yourself, why not? I did this very thing recently, when I realized that, despite doing many incredible things for me, games had not truly made me cry. I'd felt regret at the death of a digital pal, I'd learned morals from the citizens of Sosaria and I'd learned more science, history and philosophy than I ever learned in any of the schools or universities I attended, but I'd never actually cried. So I set myself on a quest to find games that could make me cry.

I played ICO, and felt regret when I realized what I had to do, but no tears. I tried old school games and even spent hours trying to find some way to save Floyd, but alas I could not - yet, still I did not cry. I played the Ultimas, since they had had such an impact on my morals as a youth... I took away even more lessons than I did as a child, but still no tears.

Finally, I stopped and began to think about what it takes to make me cry. I need strong attachment to characters - I need emotional ties to the game. In short, I needed a good story. However, more than that, I needed a story where I was in control, where the emotional strains the story made me feel were the results of my actions, my choices. I realized that, because of my own emotional make up, I would never cry just by sitting and watching the emotional action unfold. This is why movies don't make me cry, either.

It was then that I remembered something critical about games (even independent of story) - Games are about choices. Empowered by this remembrance of a basic principle of a gaming, I wrote an essay about it, which I posted to our game-dev wiki.

It was then I understood for myself: There were games out there that could make me cry; I just had to find them. The keys to this outcome were choice and repercussions. So I started looking for games that both offered characters I could identify with and that were heavily based on the outcomes of choices.

I dove first back into RPGs because, in the past, strong characters and choices were what RPGs were all about... But you know... I had no luck. The characters were too archetypical, the plots too vaudvillesque to really immerse myself into. I even looked at my own work and the work of my friends, since the mutant team on AA had made such an effort to evoke emotion, but no tears came (sadly AA doesn't do much with choice, regret I will always have in my heart).

How amusing is it, do you think, that when I got my answer - when I found not one, but three games that brought me to tears - it came from games specifically designed (or so I thought) to bring players joy?

Confused? Let me start with a story:

A friend of mine and I were discussing player choice and exploring repercussions in games. He mentioned a game coming out for the PSP called Brook Town High - an American take on Japanese Bishouju games. Bishouju games, if you're not in the know, are Japanese games about dating. They're typically pornographic (hentai as they say) and typically formatted as a sort of "choose your own adventure" - they are very story heavy and positively drip with dialog. (How do I know that? I'll get to it, hold up) So, back to the story.

My friend mentioned this game because it seems to be all about choice from what he read. He was really excited about it but I had to ask, "Aren't those games all tentacles and girls with tails? That's not my thing, man." The conversation went cold, instantly. I'd insulted the guy, it turns out. He said, "No. They're not. Asshole." as calmly as he could and I knew I'd struck a chord. I trust this guy - he's a hell of a judge of games I'd like, so I asked him, "Well then, tell me what they're about." So, he began to explain...

...and several hours later I realized something important: The state of story in games today has NOTHING to do with games, it's all about the writers and the market. Games could be so much more than they are. I don't know that they should be, but they could be. He explained how this Brook Town High, as far as he knew, had no porn in it at all - that it was more of a simulation of an American high school. Yes, it focused on relationships, as all games in this genre do, but it wasn't "porno" in a sense that any of us would consider valid. In fact, it sort of sounded like a breakfast club/sixteen candles affair, but with the player guiding the action. I then pointed him to my essay on choice and he said, "See I think the guys making this Brook Town game agree with you, in fact all the bishouju designers probably agree."

I then told my friend that this is interesting, but that I was thinking about choice because I looking for a game that would make me cry and I didn't think that dating games could do that. He called bullshit, immediately. He said, "If you think that's true, go play Kana - Little Sister, they made it in English."

"What?!" I couldn't believe I was being urged to go play a porno game. "I'm serious as a heart attack. You'll cry." I looked at him askance as I sipped my latte (we were at a coffee shop) and asked, "Its not sick incestuous shit, is it? I've seen some of that hentai stuff and it's just not right, dude." He simply said, "That depends on you. Play it." and left it at that. We changed the subject then, but I could tell it bothered him that I wasn't taking this stuff seriously.

The next day, in my e-mail, I found a letter with a link in it to a site that sells these bishouju games translated into English. My friend had attached a simple comment: "Yes, most of these are just pure porn, but try:

• Crescendo
• Kana - Little Sister
• X-Change 3

Well, I went and looked at the site and X-change 3 struck me as everything that I thought was wrong about these games, but Crescendo and Kana - Little Sister had phrases in their synopsis entries like, "Some of the most touching scenes in gaming" and "this game will make you cry" so I got curious.

So I thought about it...

Games... Porn... Games... Porn... Porn Games! Hell, in a worst case scenario I check out a porn game and see some hentai art, why not check it out? I decided that, even though the subject matter felt a little icky, I'd start with Kana - Little Sister. After all, it was the one my friend recommended, specifically. I paid my cash to the site, waited for their "we bill these all by hand because there aren't Americans with any taste to justify an automated process" billing system to bill me and then downloaded the game once I got my key.

A little nervously, I sat down and started playing... Well, reading, actually.

It's just like I was told - it was heavy with narration and dialog. Touching music soared and crashed in the background and a story unfolded. It was a good story. A touching story. Kana, your little sister, has chronic renal deficiency and she's barely keeping alive. The doctors say she likely won't see the end of elementary school. Like any big brother, you hate her at first. You're jealous of the special treatment she gets and you lash out at her, but then one day while on a camping trip, you torment her and she runs away. All of the sudden I was presented with a choice. While my parents went to find her they wanted me to stay at the camp, but would I stay? Or would I head off to search the forest in the directions they hadn't traveled, yet?

I made my choice and the story continued. Based on my choices I came to feel like my sister's protector. This is a role common in my own life, I made the choices I'd have made were it really me - partly to make the connections to the characters I was looking for.

Anyway, the years wear on and she makes it out of elementary school, into junior high and high school, but always her illness stalks her. She spends more time in the hospital than out and she has few friends. I began to feel sorry for her. Not pity, but honest heartfelt regret that she would never get the life she wanted. Then they dropped the bomb on me: Her organs were shutting down. At best, she had 6 months left to live.

Knowing games, I figured there must be some way to save her, but to my surprise, the choices I made were to encourage her to experience her life while she had it, rather than to waste precious moments searching for cures that likely didn't exist. I realized that I cared. I don't mean I was interested to see the outcome, I mean I cared. I wanted this girl - this non-existent character - to be happy in her last days. To die knowing she lived a full and good life despite its short duration.

Flash forward to the end of the game and the sister dies (note: these games are about outcomes, so I bet there are ways to make choices that would result in her living, but this did not happen for me). Still I did not cry. I could feel my heart strings being pulled, but I didn't cry. I sat dumbfounded at how I was emotionally moved, but still no tears came. As the credits rolled, I came to two realizations:

1. The quality of writing, even after a poor translation job, was better in this game than in 99% of the games I had played in the last 20 years.
2. Games might not be able to make me cry, but there's no doubt that I was more emotional about this outcome than I had ever been about a movie I'd seen or a book I'd read. Being a part of the story, making the choices (playing the game) made the story mean more and so I cared more about the outcome.

Then, just as I was about to close the window, the screen changed and I realized the game wasn't over. Kana, my little sister who had just passed, had left a diary. To get over the grief, I decided to transcribe the diary into a permanent record on my computer. It took all summer long, but I did it. As I got to the last few entries in the diary, I realized the screen was a little blurry. I thought I must be getting tired and I blinked my eyes, suddenly drops of liquid fell onto hands. I looked down and realized, I'd likely been crying for the last 5 or 10 minutes. You see, her diary told me how she felt. How she really felt. It referenced every choice I'd made and it explained how they affected her, emotionally. As I reached the end of the diary and I read the screen, the character I was playing made an admission to himself:

"I hadn't cried. This entire time, I hadn't cried. She passed 4 months ago, but I had not cried. Now, at last... I cried... And cried..."

As my own tears fell, I smiled a bittersweet smile. I'd found a game that made me cry, and it was both sad and joyous at the same time - exactly like my character.

Perhaps it was simply coincidence that I reacted exactly as my character had done, or perhaps the writer had been clever enough to guess my emotional make up by the choices I'd made. Either way, at last... I cried... And cried...

To this day, I can't bring myself to start the game again to see if there's a way to save her. It was too sad. Seeing Kana go through that again would be more than I think I can bear.

Am I some sort of freak because of this? Eh, some of you might think so, but how many people cry when they read books, or cry when they see a sad film? Why would games be any different? Why should games be any different?

After playing Kana, I decided to take the rest of my friend's recommendations. I tried Crescendo and I bought a physical DVD copy of X-change 3. Here's the run down:

Crescendo - I cried. The girl I'd chosen revealed her history to me and it turned out she had been the victim of rape. She now thought of her self as worthless. I spent the rest of the game trying to convince her otherwise... I won't tell you how it turned out, but I'll tell you: I cried.

X-change 3 - I cried. This game has this really fucked up premise that made me really uncomfortable, so I spent the game trying to avoid any of the porn sequences I could... as a result I came to an ending where I turned the main character's life around by being responsible and hooked up, briefly, with my mentor - a chemist who had once been a med student until her boyfriend died of early onset Alzheimer's. Well, that's a lie - he committed suicide because he couldn't bear the thought of forgetting his loved ones, his life. Because of his death, she changed her life completely and devoted her self to trying to find a cure for the disease - so that no one else would ever have to feel that same pain, or watch a loved one forget who he was, again. In the end, she left me to continue that pursuit, it so drove her on.

All three recommendations had been spot on. I still have to thank my friend for bringing this genre to my attention. I won't lie, I get a wolfish grin when I considered checking out the less serious - more focused on the porn - games in this genre, but at the same time, I feel like a whole new world of quality story and games with emotional resonance - real art - is open to me, now. Who would have thought that the only people in our industry to take games as art seriously would be the folks making porn games?

Which brings me to the real question: WHY are the folks making porn games the only ones in the industry to take games as art seriously? Even the games we laud as art are really still just games, with pretty skins. Mind you, that is a form of art, but what I mean is - why are the only people taking the time and effort to explore the medium as a means of emotional expression working in the one field (porn games) that will never get any attention?

Is the idea that games can be more than toys so taboo to you people that you can't even consider the possibility? Why do people deride those of us who want to do more with our games than simply provide a set of simple but enjoyable rules? Why do you lash out at so called "story snobs" - are you afraid of what will happen if games are considered legitimate art? Is it change you fear, or do you really believe that games are better off just being toys for children? Surely there are more adults than children - or to be a bit more blunt: Surely there are more adults buying games than children, so why not provide entertainment to them specifically?

I mean, one sure fire way to get Jack Thompson off the industry's back is to stop pretending we can make games that sell to everyone. If we must take an example from other mediums, then why take away the fact that all of them are striated so that some portion of the industry caters to each age group specifically, save the few genre exceptions where age doesn't matter? Romance novels are more graphic than any hot coffee moment I've ever seen, but there's no rating label on the cover to warn away the young girl strolling through borders with her mom, why doesn't Jack Thompson have something to say about that? Why don't you?

Oh that's right - it's because story doesn't matter.

- Snipehunter