“A game is a series of interesting decisions.” – Sid Meier Coincidentally, a story is about choices too. Choices define a character. Most stories – if not all – explore characters based on their choices in high stakes situations. According to that games and story should be a natural fit. Yet, there is the problem …
Video Games add another layer to storytelling. It’s not only audiovisual anymore, but also interactive. Interestingly, that quite obvious seeming fact was a long time overlooked. Only as Clint Hocking in his critique of Bioshock in 2007 pointed out what he coined “ludonarrative dissonance”, attention seems to have shifted on how the gameplay reflects the …
The villain of Moon Knight is introduced in the first minute of the series, even before the intro starts. It’s a short and poignant scene full of symbolism. We witness Harrow in a ritual. During his preparation we can see a tattoo of a scale with crocodile heads on his arm. He pours water in …
As I walked out of the theatre of Avengers: Endgame for the fourth time, when I had finally processed what had happened in the last 10 years of storytelling within Marvel, I was left wondering: What’s next? The so-called phase 4 of The Marvel Cinematic Universe started slow due to a pandemic meddling with filming …
Competitive games show a similar structure to a story. In a team sport like soccer, we essentially pick a champion to root for. We think this team we like is morally or in terms of ability more entitled to win than others. Everyone knows exactly what the rules of the game are and what goals …
Spoiler Warning The following opinion is my first impression, after watching Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness only once. I went into the Multiverse of Madness with great expectations of a fast-paced journey through crazy set pieces along mind-blowing cameos of characters from other films and series, ending in an event with huge implications …
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – A Spectacle with Heart Read More »
As announced in a post “Mass Effect: Command and Shepard, Part 1/4“, Story Structure will take a closer look at how the game series handles its theme of leadership. We will look at what tools are used to discuss the theme, how well the different tools work and to what effect they are deployed. This …
Throughout my journey with Magic the Gathering I noticed that there are certain cards that attract my attention, until I develop some kind of obsession with them. I started wondering why that is, what exactly it was that I found so endearing of these cards. So, I started to analyze them in an attempt to …
While writing my own book, I’ve come to notice that story is often organically born out of the interaction between characters and the world they inhabit. I would have lined out a plot, with plotpoint after plotpoint. Then while actually writing it I would realize that after plotpoint A a certain character is not actually …
How does one tell a story about leadership? This series explores this question by analysing the Mass Effect trilogy. An entry is dedicated to each game in the series, to capture the development of Mass Effect from an ambitious idea with limited resources, over experimenting with the worldbuilding to the full-scale epic the series concludes …