Why don't more games have devious serial killer plots?

[Laroquod]

@matt w

It’s not the prophecy that gets me so much as the eight shards. I can’t keep from noticing that ever since I read about plot coupons. Off-topic warning about that article:

[rant]“It’s only in the last few decades that serious fiction has begun to make serious reference to its own fictitiousness” is one of the stupidest things ever written in a smart article. You should be banned from opining about the history of fiction if you haven’t at least opened Tristram Shandy.[/rant]

Thanks for the link. (I don’t know Potter though – sorry. Not that its structure is surprising at all.)

I agree with the complaints about plot coupons insofar as they need to be better disguised to avoid exposing the gears too obviously that turn the plot (if, unlike in Tristram Shandy, that is your goal – and interesting that you should mention it as I just saw the Steve Coogan movie based on the book: brilliant adaptation, that). I don’t actually think ‘plot coupons’ can be avoided entirely in IF unless there aren’t any win conditions. The whole enterprise is about collecting changes in bits of text until win or ending conditions have been met. The less it feels like what it is, though, generally, the better the magic. Exceptions include games that don’t take themselves very seriously: the cost of baring the mechanics is much less, then. And it can be grist for the humour mill.

Paul.

[VictorGijsbers]

Off-topic answers to off-topic rant:

@matt w

[rant]“It’s only in the last few decades that serious fiction has begun to make serious reference to its own fictitiousness” is one of the stupidest things ever written in a smart article. You should be banned from opining about the history of fiction if you haven’t at least opened Tristram Shandy.[/rant]

[rant]And what about the True Story of Lucian? From the opening paragraph:

Now I am myself vain enough to cherish the hope of bequeathing something to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood–but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect–that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers’ incredulity.

Among my favourite lines are these, describing a conversation between Lucian and Homer, whom he has met on the Isle of the Blessed:

I asked [Homer] what was the precise significance of the use of the word wrath in the opening sentence of the Iliad. “No significance whatsoever,” he answered. “It was the first word that came into my head.”

Writers were already making fun of literary critics in the second century!

By the way, I’ve never openend Tristram Shandy. (I’m wondering whether your statement about it might not be a little anglo-centric?)[/rant]

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

@VictorGijsbers

Off-topic answers to off-topic rant:

@matt w

[rant]“It’s only in the last few decades that serious fiction has begun to make serious reference to its own fictitiousness” is one of the stupidest things ever written in a smart article. You should be banned from opining about the history of fiction if you haven’t at least opened Tristram Shandy.[/rant]

[rant]And what about the True Story of Lucian? From the opening paragraph:

Now I am myself vain enough to cherish the hope of bequeathing something to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood–but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect–that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers’ incredulity.

Among my favourite lines are these, describing a conversation between Lucian and Homer, whom he has met on the Isle of the Blessed:

I asked [Homer] what was the precise significance of the use of the word wrath in the opening sentence of the Iliad. “No significance whatsoever,” he answered. “It was the first word that came into my head.”

Writers were already making fun of literary critics in the second century!

By the way, I’ve never openend Tristram Shandy. (I’m wondering whether your statement about it might not be a little anglo-centric?)[/rant]

Ha, you have me there, as I’m not at all familiar with Lucian and am surely being a bit anglo-centric. I should amend my statement to “People should be forbidden from making sweeping statements about the history of fiction that are falsified by the merest glance at Tristram Shandy.” (Which I’ve never actually finished.)

[Peter_Piers1 (Peter Piers)]

While not being in thrall to a serial killer the way that you’ll find in Heavy Rain and Andy Phillip’s Enemies (surprised no one brought it up), I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream kinda sorta qualifies.

And if it doesn’t, what the heck. Still a great game.

[gravel]

@matt w

But it seems like an easy and lazy hook for a game (one plot coupon per level!) unless it’s justified very well. Not that I haven’t enjoyed some games that do this.

Oh, absolutely. I have all kinds of fun with plot coupon games. (I actually think your linked article is kind of mean about “exploitation fiction” : it takes a lot of work to write good bad fiction. I didn’t finish it because I waded chest-deep into the pretention and then couldn’t feel my legs anymore.)

@Laroquod

Well, the prophecy thing is better than the serial killer as long as you buy the one-time special plausibility offer of… the prophecy itself. The 12-year-old saving the world thing, yeah… typically much worse than the serial killer thing, but mostly because with some exceptions it’s for obvious reasons a ‘juvenile’ genre that dispenses with plausibility, etc.

It’s actually worse for me, because you have the more-or-less inevitable “but the prophecy meant something more than was initially implied!” bits. So in Act III, we’ll discover that the dragon that will eat the children of man isn’t actually a dragon, it’s the hero’s creme brulee torch, and the children of man aren’t actually kids but a library (ideas being the things left behind by people when they die). Blah blah blah it’s so dumb to believe or pay attention to prophecy. Until next book! I hate this.

It’s also less “let’s kick this story off” than “let’s explain why the protagonists have to do dumb shit and angst about their impending deaths which totally aren’t going to happen”. At least the serial murder thing has some energy to it, making it easier to suspend my disbelief.