Indie hit Dear Esther is "a bit like story Minecraft," believes creator Dan Pinchbeck, as the evocative game allows players to imagine their own story, without forcing them into a particular narrative.
As part of his talk at GDC Europe today, Pinchbeck of thechineseroom noted that the abstract and ambiguous first-person exploration game barely gives you any real details about characters and plot, instead allowing the players' imaginations to run wild.
"We're not in the business of writing a plot -- we're in the business of giving you the tools to create your own," he said of the 250,000-selling Dear Esther. "There is nothing more powerful than your own imagination."
Building a story is "an inevitable product of playing a game" for players, whether a solid plotline is offered or not. Players make a story out of pretty much anything they do, he argued, and developers just need to provide the tools.
For example, if a game offers a physics toolbox, gamers will take these tools and create fun and plot from these. "Developers just have to make sure the toybox is fun," he added.
Rather than forcing a player into a set storyline, says Pinchbeck, studios should be looking to use story to deepen the tone and complexity of the game world, and create an emotional connection between the game and the player.
"Use your story to represent the unrepresentable," he urged. "Story is inevitable - so why write the obvious?"
Gamasutra is in Cologne, Germany this week covering GDC Europe. For more GDC Europe coverage, visit our official event page. (UBM TechWeb is parent to both Gamasutra and GDC events.)
I really enjoyed Dear Esther because I felt like there was actually a complete story there to begin with and I was piecing it together. To me, it almost felt like a murder mystery in places. Also, it used some of the best narrative techniques I've ever encountered in a story based game.
Vomiting random story fragments then letting the player walk around a desertic place is nothing like giving the tools of formulating his own narrative and the comparison with Minecraft is silly.
Want a game that THRIVES at giving the player narrative tools and letting him go crazy with it? "Comic Book Hero: The Greatest Cape" is the most obvious example using comic book publishing concepts, contexts and lingo for the player fill the blanks on his own. Several simulation games have entire websites dedicated to people crafting rich stories using rules and tools from said games, while the closest one could get with "Dear Esther" is a discussion about said games plot.
Funny, sometimes when playing Dear Esther I thought, "Hmm, I wonder if there's any clues hidden beyond this ridge? Maybe if I walk up... oh, an invisible wall." That's definitely a feeling I never had in Minecraft.
Dear Esther is a lightly interactive delivery mechanism for a single narrative (which you can experience in different orders). Minecraft is a highly interactive, procedural set of systems for producing an infinite number of very personal narratives... they're incomparable.
They are comparable, but at a very base level. Both leave major loops open in the "gameplay" that relies on the players engagement to work. Dear Esther with it's story, without the player willfully thinking about the audio snippets / marks / locations the experience becomes a dull void of finger meets "w" and in minecraft there is no quests or goals beyond the basic survival so unless the player invests there really is nothing there.
So I'm guessing that is what Dan was aiming at with the comparison.
Yeah, I wouldn't take the comparison too literally. He's not saying "Our game is like minecraft!", more like the gameplay concepts in minecraft has parallels with the storytelling concepts in Dear Esther. At least, that's how I interpreted it.
I think Minecraft and Dear Esther have much in common but not in the field of narrative. Check out this book I'm writing: http://www.artificial-infinity.com/ is another point of view beyond how player constructs the story playing Minecraft or Dear Esther.
Want a game that THRIVES at giving the player narrative tools and letting him go crazy with it? "Comic Book Hero: The Greatest Cape" is the most obvious example using comic book publishing concepts, contexts and lingo for the player fill the blanks on his own. Several simulation games have entire websites dedicated to people crafting rich stories using rules and tools from said games, while the closest one could get with "Dear Esther" is a discussion about said games plot.
Dear Esther is a lightly interactive delivery mechanism for a single narrative (which you can experience in different orders). Minecraft is a highly interactive, procedural set of systems for producing an infinite number of very personal narratives... they're incomparable.
So I'm guessing that is what Dan was aiming at with the comparison.