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Heavy Rain is a kind of game that had a really broad audience. How did women react to the game?
DC: Well, they reacted in a very surprising way: Each time I meet someone who played Heavy Rain, my next question, "Oh you played Heavy Rain. You played it with your wife." And the guy said, "How did you know?" "Just because 95 percent of the guys who played the game played it with their wives or their girlfriends."
And it was already the case on Fahrenheit, but even more on Heavy Rain, and it's very interesting, because the story gamers tell us is always the same. "Oh, my girlfriend is always upset because I'm playing these games, shooting at things all day. But when they saw me play Heavy Rain they said, 'Hey, wait a minute. There's a story, there are characters, and there's a female character, and wait a minute...'"
So they sat on the couch and they played together until the end, and fighting about what you should do or not do, and say this, say that, and do this... And so it became a collaborative experience with the husband, who's the gamer, and the wife, who never plays games, and has no interest whatsoever in games.
And that's something very interesting to me, because I think it shows something. It shows that it's possible to get women interested in games, and I'm not talking about with casual games or whatever. But in this type of experience, they can have interest, because they feel interest in the characters, and they feel an interest in the story, and they want to know what's going to happen next. So that's very interesting to me.
Have you spoken to any women who weren't in that situation, who weren't the girlfriend or the wife, who actually picked the game up themselves?
DC: Yeah, of course. And, yeah, this is really the story they told me. It's really like, "My husband is always playing games where they're shooting things all day and it really makes me mad, but this is the first time I was interested in the story, and we discussed." Many people argued, actually. Especially the scene where you need to take care of your son, in the beginning of the game.
Guys tend to give just pizza to the kid, if they give him something to eat, where the women say, "Wait a minute! What are you doing? Did he do his homework? Did you put him to bed? You can't leave him on the couch watching television like that!" It was almost an argument, which was really funny.
It was also funny to see -- I met some couples where the husband was not prepared to cut his finger for his son, and the woman on the couch was saying, "Hey, what are you doing? You can't leave like this!" The male is saying, "Well, wait a minute. There's probably another way." And the woman was really like, "No, you need to do it. If that's the only way to save your son, you need to do it." All sorts of discussions like this were very, very interesting. It was really fun to hear.
Heavy Rain
When you hear stuff like this, does it feed back into the way you want to design in the future? Creating more tension, creating more situations that different people would approach different ways?
DC: Yeah, definitely. The best part of the development of Heavy Rain was listening to people talking about just how they -- first of all, how they were passionate about their experience. How they thought it was their story that was different from their friend's story, and how emotional they could be about it, and how they remembered some specific scenes in a very strong and vivid way. That was something very intriguing and very interesting to me.
That was really my biggest expectation with Heavy Rain. Can I create an experience that will leave an imprint in people's minds? Or is it just something like you turn off your console and then you forget about it? And, no, Heavy Rain left an imprint in some people's minds, and that's really what I was looking for.
And is that something you do through choice, or something you do through theme, or what happens in the narrative?
DC: I think it's a mix of different things. First thing is to create identification. It's to create characters that you feel you want to understand, and you feel you can resonate with. So you feel empathy for them. So then you're on board. And once you're on board, and you have this empathy relationship, then you share what they feel. So when they laugh, you can laugh with them. When they're sad, you're sad with them. When they feel nervous, you're nervous with them. So it's a very interesting and a very important relationship that you establish, and that's how it works.
Do you want to build on the gameplay basis that you made with Heavy Rain, or do you feel that there's a need to do something different to shake up audience expectations?
DC: My biggest concern about Heavy Rain was not so much what people who played it thought, because the feedback has been consistently very positive about the game. It was much more about the people who didn't play Heavy Rain, what they thought of the game. Just the image they had of it.
And I'm always shocked to hear people say, "Oh, Heavy Rain, it's like Dragon's Lair, with prompts sometimes, and that's not really a game." Wait a minute. There are less cutscenes in Heavy Rain than in many first person shooters that I can see these days.
So the game was really not about cutscenes. It was not about watching. You were in the shoes of the character. You were making the choices, and you were telling the story through your actions, and not through prompts, or whatever. So some people just stay stuck outside the game, having an image, an idea of what it is that in my mind was wrong.
So this is definitely something as a game creator you want to address, because you want as many people to try your game and give it a chance. It's not a matter of money; it's not a matter of sales. It's a matter of, "Hey, we worked really hard to create something we believe in. Please try it, give it a chance!"
So we really worked on how we can find a way of making the entry barrier as low as possible. "Please come in." Open doors. "Come on and, see, look. It looks like something familiar. But once you're in, I can take your hand and show you stuff that will really surprise you." That's my challenge as a game designer: to deal with all those things, and stay true to the experience we want to make, of course.
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I can't begin to enumerate how many misconceptions David Cage has about videogames. Don't get me wrong, awesome technology he's got but it is all a shallow shell.
I'll take Journey's or Shadow of the Colossus' emotionally magnificent gameplay systems and stylized aesthetics any time before the awfully awkward, albeit "realistic" gazillions of poligons in Heavy Rain. It shocks me that he says hes a big fan of thatgamecompany or Team ico, because to me, his approach is the complete opposite (on a side note, neither of those teams are really indie).
Writing, as heavy handed as it is in QD's games, is NOT very good. Indigo Prophecies had probably one of the most convoluted nonsensical and downright silly plots I have ever witnessed. And Although sections of Heavy rain are interesting, as a whole, the writing and direction only rival B grade tv series (thank god the supernatural elements were abandoned). From what I've seen so far from Beyond, it also seems to fall into rather juvenile conventions.
It makes me wonder if maybe Quantic Dream shouldn't be outsourcing more of its work to writers and directors who know what should be portrayed in camera.
Also, it seems to me that as interesting and "innovative" as his technological endeavours are, QDs games are basically point and click games with a really impressive layer of makeup on, they tend to forget the wholistic experiential design of games. Improvement and advancement is not solely based on how good the game looks or how faithfully the emotional depiction of a face can be accomplished.
I do find his observations on female characters interesting. It is true, that we often rely on male characters who fit in rather standardized roles and situations. While it seems more acceptable for female characters to have a wider emotional range. This also makes me think of japanese games and their often overloaded emotional charge even in male characters that is also a bit different and interesting. However, his gender politics are a bit skewed, and it seems he cant even concieve a woman playing his game because she wants to, and not because "her husband is playing".
I suppose his merit there is making the game appealing to an external viewer, not player, but that is also the problem... Don't get me wrong, I am not in a crusade against cutscenes, I think good games know when to rely on the tools they have, be it fully player controlled or not. But I often wonder if some of Heavy Rain's Quick time events wouldn't just work better as cutscenes or on the other hand, as fully controlable sections. It's NOT about how many cutscenes there are, its about how engaging for the player the whole experience is: The driving section in Heavy Rain IS like Dragon's Lair, it is not remotely engaging, I would much prefer to actually "Drive", and this twitch cutscene watching pulls me out of the experience.
As an example, in one of the latest videos from Beyond, we were shown how you can walk up to a sniper and "possess" him. But you can only possess specific targets, and once in the shoes of the sniper, you can only shoot at the story target on the exact required moment. Why? Why flirt with the variety of options if you are going to deny yourself and the player the ability to pursue them?
So I don't doubt Cage is going somewhere, but do we want to go with him?
I don't view Cage's approach to video games as the result of misconception. If anything, I'd argue that people who rail against him in the way you do are guilty of being closed minded. He's creating some weird fusion of film and games, and while there are similar projects out in the world, there aren't many of them. I appreciate that, just as much as I appreciate SotC or Journey (both amazing games, but both fit more cleanly into the definition of "video game").
I don't know if I would say I enjoyed Heavy Rain. I feel it was a worthwhile experience. I'm a father, and the loss of a child is something I'm reasonably close to, so the story of Heavy Rain really connected with me. I became extremely engaged in it, and I didn't care whether I had a full range of options or whether I was actually driving the car or just reacting to prompts on a screen.
What mattered to me were the decisions. Do I kill this guy or not? Do I cut off my own finger? I felt physically ill making some of these calls, and that is a testament to how well Cage's characters, writing and design connected with me.
I often tell people that Heavy Rain is what you describe: an old point and click adventure that's been modernized. It's true. But I don't say that in a disrespectful way. I remember how amazing those adventures were when I was a child, and I was thrilled to find that someone dared to make one for adults (and I mean that in a serious way, not in a "big tits and guns and blood" way).
Cage makes the landscape interesting. Are his games perfect? No, but show me a game that is. Are his games interesting? To some but not all.
It sounds like you don't want to go with him. Fine, go play in your comfortable sandbox. I'm going with him. I want to see what risks he takes and stories he tells, even if I have to deal with some imperfections along the way or design decisions I wouldn't have made myself.
What I discuss is if his approach is the best solution for the situation. In my playthroughs of Heavy Rain, I felt more weirdly confined by the interface than invited to commune in the game world. There wasn't an organic synergy, but an imposed awkward mechanic enforcement (NO! you pressed the right trigger too fast! do it again IDIOT!)..
It may not have come through, but I am most respectful for his games, even if none of them are thoroughly well written or well directed. The famous Cut off finger scene, has little bearing on the plot itself, it's there for shock value, given the realistic nature of the game, there is much suspension of disbelief needed to even accept many of the situations in the story... I found a hard time just ignoring how the killer could even put all of the "games" together.
But that's not even the point: most of the story resources are so contrived that they fall short of the dramatic unity that is the target. By the end of Heavy rain i was just wondering how many more mildly connected "levels" would we have to go through. And that's the problem, the bottom line is that it -seems- adult, but has little respect for the players maturity, and ignores any subtlety. Look for "The son's room" if you want to look for a subtle piece on the loss of a son... Hell I'd even say that grim fandango has a more interesting subtext on loss and death.
And once again there is nothing wrong with modernized point and click games, they are not new, not "innovative" as shallow a term as that is. They work in a very specific context, but often limit your posibilities clearly from the start. With many situations, and given the promises of QDs games, I am often left thinking, I wish I could have done that different, when the only real option is to press the button at the right time to continue some action.
This doesn't mean it doesnt fit clearly In the videogame definition.
Quantic Dream Games, are the epitome of adventure games in the very classic style of 7th guest or, phantasmagoria, that question has never been at the center of this issue.
I would be much more connected to some situations in the game if they decidedly gave me or took away the controls from me, instead of presenting me every few minutes a prompt to make sure I'm still paying attention.
That said, there are some fantastic ideas, like the fact that you may not be able to solve the cases if you didn't collect enough information, or the posibility to change how some characters meet, but those moments rarely feel natural or empowering for the player. And in the end it's the same conflict: Does the game's form follow the function that brings out the best of the experience? The many absolutely jarring moments in his games prevent me from agreeing.
Interjecting some amount of interactivity just because you feel like it needs to be interactive is liable to rip people out of their state of immersion. If your target audience is adults, and you have them driving a car, either let them control it or have them watch it. They're adults, they know what actually driving a care is like.
If the point of the product is about decisions, give me interaction when I need to make a decision. As in your sniper example, if the only choice once you possess the sniper is to fire at a precise moment, just show it happening, no need to make me jump through a twitch-timing hoop to continue the story.
@Matt Robb, yeah you are right im straying a bit into personal tastes with the writing, but you summarize my conflict on the experience/gameplay front perfectly.
"Shit that's not part of the protocol!" - "Shit"? Really? All of these years of engineering and knowing everything there is to know about this insanely complicated machine, and then it produces something that looks like self-awareness, and you say "Shit"?
"Yeah, but, your behavior is non-standard"
Who would SAY that to a robot that they built? A person who actually built a robot wouldn't sit there and reason with something they built. This is just bad, manipulative writing.
If you want to "grow up", hire a real writer. Someone who isn't a "writer for videogames".
However, there are examples of very good Videogame writing, although most of the time it is often a lack of writing. IE: Dear Esther's narration coupled with the setting are very effective past the initial impression. Silent Hill 2 has rather laughable voice acting, but the writing itself is great. Team Ico does fantastic things with minimalistic exposition too. And even Modern Warfare (1) had pretty solid "epic action" writing.
Comedy also has some decent representation too, such as in Portal, Bard's tale, Grim Fandango or even GTA4. All of them have great sections.
To play devil's advocate here though, I'd say that Kara demo was probably just that, a demo and it's main focus was the graphical splendor rather than a writing showcase. however, the snipets of Beyond, we have seen make me giggle a bit too. Its a strange case, but I think that when it comes down to this sort of games, the best idea is to take a bit of distance. It seems that David Cage is completely enamoured with his team's technlogy and his scripts.
Maybe it would be wiser to let go.
I don't know if it was intended, or if I was just lucky enough to absorb it in a way that made it work for me, particularly as I usually outright despise voice acting in games (I think the only games I've thought were remotely successful were System Shock 2, Enslaved, Mass Effect and the Uncharted series).
At any rate, Heavy Rain felt like having a totally different emotional experience slammed into my face. I thoroughly... enjoyed (?) it.
Years past since I played Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit but even after all this years, I have so many moments stuck in my head like it was part of my own life. Personally, many interpretations of morality come from games. Sounds weird, but Final Fantasy 7,8,9 have played a huge role in my interpretation of good and bad - maybe even more than Disney did ^^
Heavy Rain doesn't get into the leage of those 3 FF parts in my personal list of most important games of my life, but is is still quite high ranked. It was short but so amazingly intense like no game before. And the moment I write "like no game before" - I mean it. Even though I cannot open all doors, even though the sex scene was weird - still I was so... under pressure the whole game. It was amazing.
I think the script is great when it makes me connect this much. It may not be of the highest art but it feels like it just wants me to feel like this and it does.
I'm looking forward to Beyond and I hope it will be as amazing as I expect it to become.
He should direct, since he seems to have learned along the years to do that well, and hire professional writers that not only know what they're doing with a pen, but also don't suffer from the second language English aping - which usually translates into generic unnaturally sounding garbage dialog.
As far as game mechanics go, there are no conventions and there are no rules. If what he does works, then that's all there is to it. The freedom and the constraints within that freedom are to be judged on their own merits, and how they work within the greater scheme.
It is disingenuous to give Heavy Rain shit for being a "button prompter" but to excuse Call of Duty and give it's 9's and 10's across the board. As far as linear, mentally stunting, livid garbage goes, Call of Duty and games like it win in every category. And an FPS is a genre that's an industry standard to boot, thus should be the most refined.
Give me one of Cage's games any day of the week.
But please. Please. Stop writing your stories. Make an outline and have someone who knows what they're doing write the dialog, the plot, the arcs, and everything in between.
Also true about ragging on Heavy rain for the button prompts, but then again Bagging on CoD just because it has become iterative and generic is weak.
Modern Warfare 1 had great epic action writing, much better than most of its contemporaries. It had button prompting for sure, and it was simple but it also never appeared high browed as a "superior innovative artform" and for that I felt very connected and entertained by it.
Just as a pointer though, Heavy rain still holds a 87% in metacritic, with all its deep flaws.
Of course that hasn't got anything to do with anyones's enjoyment of Heavy Rain (Which I enjoyed quite a bit, I even replayed it a few times). But you have to realize that there is something unintuitive and intrinsically broken about your game if in your third play through, you still fail twice the prompt for opening the door, or have your character running into a wall because the controls "dynamically adjust to the camera".
I'm not criticising the shape, concept or function of the game by itself. The conflict I have with it apart from the writing, is that seeking "innovative" controls and interaction, the game fails to feel adecuate.
No, it is not innovative, and it doesn't adecuately adapt to our interactions. And this might not seem as much but when a game depends so heavily in our immersion, it is a fatal flaw.
Giving an example that has also caused conflict because of the not-game discussion. Dear esther uses arguably completely mundane controls and interfaces, nothin in the surface is new about thechineseroom's game. It feels natural and effortless to run around the Island. The innovation is in depth not on gimmicky control mechanics and long winded badly written exposition.
And in this sense, its great for an action QTE in Heavy rain to feel clumsy and frantic.. but when even the most basic actions feel equally frustrating, it causes a fracture with the player's experience.
I know this might sound almost Draconian, but different is not always better, sometimes standards are there for a reason. As developers we should learn to aim for new when possible, but fall back into known when the situation requires.
Read here:
http://www.videogamer.com/ps3/beyond_two_souls/news/david_cage_i_remember_how_sc
ared_we_were.html
"Q: You're moving towards a TV-like setup?
DC: Yeah, where I could continue to have the vision and the ideas - I have ideas for the next four or five games. This is what I love and I really enjoy but at the same time, instead of me spending a year away from the studio writing the damn thing, I could work for the team - people who could be more talented than I am, and bring in new ideas that I've not thought of - and work together in creating this thing. So, we're starting on this right now."
Well I have personally never played the game as I heard it was full of Quick-Time-Events.
And those are horrible, hence I avoided it.
"What did you learn form Stig? -I learned they were interested in what we are doing"
"Have you spoken to any women who actually picked the game up themselves? [starts the answer with "yeah" but then keeps talking about how they played with their husbands]"
"Indie games?" Cites only the most famous semi-indie developers.
I find it interesting that he points out games like Shadow of the Colossus and Journey, which have little to no writing and rely mainly on gameplay to deliver the narrative and engage with the player, when his games are the exact opposite.