Two highlights from DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

Right now, I am playing DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN, a new title by Quantic Dream studio. As its predecessors – Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls – the game uses cinematographic language with its mechanics based on decision trees. During most part of the narrative, you must take significant decisions that will affect the course of the game and result in different ends for the story. The trailer below shows the gaming dynamics and main plot:



Besides the immersive narrative and beautiful graphics, I want to comment on two great features of this game.

1) The ending phase screens show the complete decision tree of each chapter. This is a very cool feature from DETROIT, you can observe in details what type of consequence your acts generated inside the gaming narrative. This visual aid helps players understand how each character works in the ambient. Below, there’s an example of this feature.



2) The opening screen always has an interesting content. Every time you start to play DETROIT, there’s one opening screen with a very sympathetic female android named Chloe giving you a technological trivia. I was playing it in June 7th and she told me that that day was Alan Turing’s (the British mathematical genius) date of death. Then, last Saturday morning she told me “this is a perfect way to start a good weekend”. The android also takes interesting surveys, asking players about the interface between human and machine. It is just a “content snack”, but it helps to contextualize the gaming experience in a more immersive way. Below, I’m sharing some of these moments:



Another great acquisition for my collection.

#GoGamers

LIFELINE

LIFELINE (3 Minutes Games, 2015) is a mobile text-based game focused on a narrative with a very simple gameplay. Written by Dave Justus, the plot is about an astronaut (Taylor) trying to survive in a strange place after a spaceship accident. To survive, he needs your help to take some decisions inside a claustrophobic alien ambient.



The gameplay is always based in two decisions presented to the player in the end of certain speeches from the astronaut. The idea of “decision trees” (that we have already discussed here) is the interaction’s core inside the gaming universe. The astronaut will always offer two options to the player to continue the history with different outcomes. The image below shows the main idea of the gameplay:



But, beyond the very immersive narrative, that game has a very different component: the real time between astronaut’s actions. In some moments in the story, it’s possible to ask the astronaut, for example, to climb a mountain. The game stops and after 3 hours (the time Taylor took to climb the mountain) he starts a new part of the narrative. So, many decisions in the game are affected by these kinds of choices.

To understand the game better, check the official trailer below:



In a time full of complex games, it’s very good to find some elegant and simple game design based in a good narrative.

#GoGamers

The butterfly effect as a gameplay element in UNTIL DAWN

Until Dawn (Supermassive Games, 2015) is an interactive drama survival horror video game. It’s a mix between Alan Wake’s atmosphere/scenario and Beyond: Two Souls’ choice-based mechanics. I recently played this game on PlayStation 4 and the experience was awesome. The launching trailer below explains the game’s main plot:



Until Dawn works with a choice-based mechanics, very similar from Quantic Dream games, where you must choose one option on the screen. Your choice will determine specific paths and different endings (I talked a little bit about this subject in this post about decision trees).



The plot is about a group of youngsters in a cabin in the mountains one year after the mysterious disappearance of two of their friends. Supernatural forces and a serial killer complete the script.

One point to highlight in this context is the idea of the ‘butterfly effect’ as a gameplay component. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. So, the game takes this idea and materializes it in an important part of the plot. Every time you make an important small decision, the interface shows a small butterfly, this means that your action will have a crucial importance in a near future.

From the middle to the end of the game, some flashbacks show how your choices interfere in the continuity of the narrative.

It’s a new way to tell an old story. The “butterfly effect’ makes great difference inside gaming ecosystem. You star to think more about the small decisions and how they can change the end of the game. Another good point: if you are truly involved with the narrative, probably you’ll play again to test other decisions (or if you’re lazy, you'll see the different endings on YouTube). =)

#GoGamers

Beyond Two Souls

I put away GTA V (for a while) to start playing BEYOND TWO SOULS (2013), that is the new interactive drama action-adventure video game for PlayStation, developed by French publisher Quantic Dream.

In the publisher’s site is the plot of the game: “Born with a connection to a mysterious entity (named Aiden) with incredible powers, Jodie was different. In an adventure spanning 15 years of her life, your actions will determine Jodie's fate as she faces extraordinary challenges, danger, and heart wrenching loss on a journey to discover the truth of who she is. Beyond promises an emotionally-charged journey unlike any video game before.”



As the publisher's previous project, HEAVY RAIN (2009), in BEYOND TWO SOULS the player is invited to experience a kind of a movie with special commands. The game works in what we can call “decision trees” and the narrative is driven by choices the player makes.

The idea of these “decision trees” is to offer the players some choices to create uncertainty and unpredictability among the narrative. Sometimes you have time to choose what to do, sometimes there’s time pressure to choose one way and at moments you have to choose some actions just to add charming flavour to the universe of the game.

To create a perfect balance between game and interactive movie, Quantic Dream brings real famous actors to the production, and you can see Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page acting side by side, but in a different interface. It’s not new; we have lots of games with famous real actors, but BEYOND TWO SOULS brings a new experience in using this cast to create the atmosphere of the game. Check the trailer below:



The narrative is the main point of the game and in BEYOND TWO SOULS players have a chance to use a second screen experience downloading an special app in mobile phone that gives some complement interaction to the story. The connection between different narrative elements give to the game a unique kind of experience.

As Dille and Platten (2007, p.52) remind us, there are a pallet of media elements (voice, sound effects, music, cinematic, text, graphics, commands, etc.) to tell a gaming story. The authors also say “think of them as story elements. Don’t forget – story in video game is anything that helps you immerse yourself into the game-playing experience. Story isn’t just characters and dialogue. An interface element can be a storytelling device”.

In the last year, we saw many games with a focus on the narrative and I’m very excited with the evolution that kind of game will have in the generation of consoles.

Now on to your opinion.

Reference:

DILLE, Flint; PLATTEN, John Zuur. The ultimate guide to video game writing and design. New York: Skip Press, 2007