for all zero of you who are interested in the art of interactive narrative, check out this old-but-interesting article about Mark Laidlaw, the dude who wrote Half Life 1 and 2. Some excerpts…
“I went through hundreds of pages of variant storylines and scripts and gameplay specs over the years. At some points I’ve been involved in the detailed design of puzzles, at other points I’ve drawn way back from level design and concentrated on writing. I believe the story creator should be an integral part of the design team, familiar with (if not directly involved in) all aspects of the game’s overall design. This may not be important for every type of game, but it’s ideal for our type of game. One thing that has changed for me between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 is that I spend more time working with animators now, since characters and acting have heightened significance in the game.”
“What I miss in games is not narrative structure, but personality or a sense of authorship. People pick their favorite writers, favorite musicians, favorite artists based on their reaction to a distinct personal style. Games are created by teams of people, but I think there is still room for individual expression in the midst of that. In the long run, I think there must be something personal in games, in order for them to endure. It’s not that I want to have some kind of message or personal statement hammered into my game, but I do want to feel that there is some kind of interesting personality or consciousness animating the world of the game and giving it an interesting shape. It’s the difference between a Hitchcock movie and one that is merely Hitchcockian. There are so many generic worlds and storylines in games. The industry is drowning in waves of sameness. Odd, interesting titles stand out in sharp relief when they appear…if you can find them at all. Fortunately, word of mouth is very effective in the gamer community, and we take a lot of delight in discovering good, overlooked games and pushing them on our friends.”