The good news: gaming narratives do seem to be progressing, in general. Whether looking at mainstream titles that far surpass their predecessors, or an ever-growing independent movement without the need to actually sell their game to consumers, there is a noticeable increase in the amount of quality games that are actively trying to use the full potential of the medium, and an increase in the tact of those games.

… Partially.

I cannot deny that there are good, or at the least, entertaining narratives in some of these games, but the problem is that these games don’t seem to fully attach themselves to the idea of telling a story in a game. The problem since the very beginning of narrative defined games is that they want to tell a story that resides in a game, rather than telling a story with a game.  I’m not breaking down doors with this revelation, and (if this were directed at game makers) I’m really just preaching to the choir, but even with those that are attempting this, it doesn’t quite seem like they understand how their ideas are actually translated, or even that they just don’t give the player the credit they deserve.

When Bioshock came out earlier this console generation, there was no shortage of fanfare. From people remarking on how wonderful its city locale was to people going as far as to assert this is the first game that can be called art, it’s hard to look at the game without a little cynicism and some heavy criticizing glasses. With that said, Bioshock does do some things quite well. The atmosphere is thick enough to drown in occasionally, and the story presented as it is keeps the pace at a nice flow, and allows the player to take in the story naturally. There is a problem, however, and it seems glaring to me.

 (SPOILERS ABOUND). Towards the end of the first major portion of the game, we meet what is shown to be the first major “enemy” of the game: the city’s creator Andrew Ryan. We get a nice scene here, and we kill him and all that, and not far from that we discover that he’s not our main enemy. As it turns out, we’ve been led along by the final boss, controlling us with a phrase implanted in our head as a sort of mind control mechanism. This is a decently clever device, at this point. It’s a step back for the narrative to be self-aware. To say: “as the player, you’re being led by us, the creators of the narrative. Break free”.  Whether seen as cheeky, or “deep” or whatever, it is a clever concept. The problem is that it only extends that far. The narrative reflects it only slightly; now we are not led by that final boss explicitly, but we’re given any more freedom in how we actually play the game (perhaps we’re given less, considering how the game flows). It’s not even as if it’s inherently a bad thing, but the game seems to drop the point completely, instead building solely on the explicit narrative. Once the game is over, that singular moment felt more like a fetish, or fascination, than it didn’t a wholly developed idea.

The concept of “bringing the game back” as Bioshock does isn’t a new idea. Obviously Metal Gear Solid 2 does this very thing, and before that we have games that at the least, can be interpreted as the narrative being aware of the fact it’s not “real” (I don’t want to bring up the “Super Mario Bros 3 is just a play production” thing). But the thing about Metal Gear Solid 2 or Flower, Sun, Rain, and the like, is that they aren’t using it solely as an empty deconstruction on the game being a part of the narrative. Metal Gear Solid 2 used it’s self-awareness to make a statement on our concept of memories and intuition. Flower, Sun, Rain used the exploratory aspect of games as an analog the quest for “truth” (and even now it’s hard for me to play a game with extensive side quests without questioning my intentions). These games reflect on themselves, but are never enthralled with it. It’s a means to an end, rather than an end themselves.

What really spurned me write about this is a small source game called, The Stanley Parable, which I find to be a bit of wasted potential. The concept of the game is thus: You are Stanley, a guy that works mindlessly at a computer just pressing buttons based on a series of instructions, which you are content with, until one day when your instructions stop coming in, and a narrator pops in to tell you what to do. You may follow the narrator’s instruction, or you may do your own thing, the two of which result in a number of endings with this or that to say. Some of them are clever; most of them are, frankly, pointless, when considering what the game seems to intend to achieve in the end. The “true ending” in some fashion, is what seems to be the least understood and most over-examined concept with “you’re in a game” scenarios, in which the player destroys the “game” that binds him, and finds “true freedom”. I cannot find any bit of intrigue in this concept as presented. Who is “free”? How is he/she “free”? Does the gamer exhibit any of this “freedom”? Isn’t the character still bound by a determined world? None of these are answered in any meaningful way. The character is just “free” to enjoy a life of non-existence, as the game abruptly ends.

My suggestion for the Stanley Parable, and of similar games, is to actually extend that into something that is relevant to the player. If you’re using it to describe freedom from some power, try to understand the mechanisms of power at play. If the actor is free from the control of the game, what is the player free from? What is the actor really even free from? The Stanley Parable equates gaming with work earlier, but drops it throughout the game. It could easily use the analog throughout, treating the freedom as a refusal of labor (the same concept was done in Every Day the Same Dream, but that’s never stopped anyone). When you look at a “normal” narrative, they have some point. An action movie is there to entertain; the story provides some danger, some course of action, mostly just a setting for the “fun” to take place. A comedy uses its premises to make the viewer laugh. Many more “self-critical” or metaphorical stories are there to inform or to at the very least make a person think. And if we are to consider the Stanley Parable of this ilk, what is it informing us of? If it’s not informing us of anything of significant consequence, shouldn’t it relate a point that exists outside of itself? If a game isn’t about anything other than itself, why exist?

In saying that, there is utility in making a game solely about its existence of a game.  For example, The Path is very much about the conception of a game, and the purpose of a goal, and what a goal (and completionism) provide to (or detract from) a game. The difference between something like that and The Stanley Parable, is that the Stanley Parable, and Bioshock, are not about anything of real significance. They are merely about bringing to light that you’re in a game, but nothing of a real conclusion in place. With The Path it’s at the very least a critique on how games are designed, and their limitations and faults. While it's still not a perfect comparison, as for every way you can describe the critique of game form you can add every individual moment the game extends beyond, exploring sexual maturation, appreciation of art/nature, etc; it has a wide breath, but in it's overarching form, it's emergent by it's defiant structure. Even if a significant part of a game is about its existence as a game, it has to have a reason for highlighting it. Giving us a "Freedom" that is only achieved by not playing the game is just pointless, lazy, and almost insulting, bringing the idea that we need to be taught this just for the application of itself.

Perhaps the real answer is for a developer in that situation to be completely reckless. A very plain idea I've had floating in a conversation came with the idea of using the separation of a player and an actor to enforce the manner of control and freedom of a game. It was underdeveloped, but essentially the idea was your narrative function was to gain freedom, against a government or against a group or some other force, and the player succeeding in that, only to not really be free. In order to establish a "true freedom", the remainder of the game is spent with the actor "rejecting" player controls (a jump button results in him sprinting or doing nothing at all, that sort of thing). Coming from that, the narrative revises the player function, no longer being "one with the actor", but rather being their own external control (This also brings assumptions of power and desire to control and such, but that's another issue). It's not that I think this is a particularly sophisticated idea (and again, underdeveloped and in brief for the sake of this piece), the point I want to make is that there needs to be an interactive representative of freedom that the game tries to promote, and a relation to something the player can understand.

It's not that I think The Stanley Parable or Bioshock (or other games, those two were just fresh in my mind), are bad games or that their creators are ignorant or anything, the point is that if we are being encouraged to delve into games, and into their functions, they should give more back. There is plenty to take from those games, but none of that is physical. Ideas here and there, but when the game tries to reach out and slap us, it simply misses the mark and continues as usual. It's nice to have a progression, that more games and more high profile games are trying to "slap" the player, but it's a aimless step barely in the right direction.