There are two games that I played this year that I really enjoyed; Hades by SuperGiant Games, and SpiritFarer by Thunder Lotus. Now, these are both excellent games but what was interesting to me was that they’re both in genres I don’t usually care for. No disrespect to rouge-likes or management games; they just aren’t my jam. And yet I played, and thoroughly enjoyed, these ones. What’s more, they both did it the same way - by using narrative.
Rouge-likes and management games aren’t known for using story as a core motivator. Rouge-like rely on challenge, giving the player a seemingly insurmountable task to be chipped away at through improving things like gear, skill, and knowledge of the games systems (also luck, can’t forget about luck). Management games on the other hand motivate players through the accomplishment of building something efficient. Starting with nothing and gradually creating something like a massive farm or operational factory is a worthy goal. That’s not to say these types of games can’t have a great story. The NPC’s in a game like Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons have great dialog that can create player attachment. And many rouge-likes provide a narrative explanation as to justify the main characters dungeon crawling endeavors, but I’ve never felt that the narrative in itself was what motivated me to play. That is, until these last few months.
Spiritfarer is a management game that, rather than build player goals around personal accomplishments, builds them around helping the different characters you’re charged with helping. You’re rewarded for helping them with bits of their stories building to a couple of really heartfelt scenes with them. It brilliantly re-contextualizes all the usual trappings of management games around your relationships with these characters and, in doing so, changes the players’ motivation from simply building a big ship that can somehow have both a garden and an ironworks into something with more narrative depth. It made me want to do things like grow crops and abduct sheep in a way that no other management game has been able to do.
As for Hades, it weaves bits of story in between individual runs. Rouge-likes typically use the time between attempts to allow the player to gear up, exchange currency or just take a breather before jumping back in. Hades decided to use this downtime to give story progress on multiple quest lines belonging to many delightful characters (some of whom also double as skill systems). This creates a sort of parallel narrative where the player is motivated by small goals that are rewarded with story bits all through the main story of a dude trying to escape his dad. Additionally, death doesn’t feel as frustrating when you know it’s an opportunity to check in and get some solid dialogue. If Hades didn’t have this, I don’t know that I would have completed it. And I’m certain many others feel the same. Although the core narrative is great, helping Zagreus escape just isn’t as compelling to me as helping a goofy skeleton.
So, what’s the takeaway? Honestly, I hope this means more games in non-narrative driven genres will try to incorporate a story in bits similar to what these two games did. I’m really interested in the possibility of a city builder but with engaging characters adding an additional layer to governing decisions, or a racing game that puts characters and a core narrative front and center. Good writing can compel people to play games that they may have otherwise skipped. These two games were a terrific surprise.
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