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ahoodedfigure

I guess it's sunk cost. No need to torture myself over what are effectively phantasms.

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Writers Matter

I've been told the direct opposite to my face, especially for small games. But writers do matter. I'll put down stuff as it comes to me, feel free to add games you've experienced where the writing added to the game.

I like that this article was published after I started this list:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-18-its-been-a-poor-poor-five-years-for-fiction-in-the-video-game-industry

"submitted by" means someone else gave me the idea, but I haven't played a sufficient amount to agree or know what they're getting at, while

"recommended by" means that someone thought of it first, but I see where they're coming from.

List items

  • Probably the essential example of what a writer can do for a game, even in a tiny company.

  • Many of the dialog options would not have been nearly as good had they not felt like a human being was saying them, and not a machine just working out the options.

  • As much as I feel like I'm on a series of railroads, and as often as I feel that it's content being sprayed into holes sometimes, some writers, sadly without their names attached to their specific work, have made many of their games above the norm, especially when it comes to humor.

  • Terror isn't just about jump scares or gristle.

  • Thanks to Podunk.

  • It's easy for me to forget this when the lines are repeated way too frequently when you make a mistake, but the humor is quite good in this game. It helps that the direction of the cutscenes complements the writing so well, but the writing is part of what makes this game memorable, even if you don't remember individual lines.

  • One of my favorite settings in gaming, brought alive through the Less Is More philosophy of writing. Every book and line of dialog was just as much a treasure as any golden goblet.

  • I can't say I was uniformly satisfied with the voice acting, and the writing sometimes used daggers where it could have used sewing needles, but it worked. With the writing, Bioshock becomes memorable.

  • I won't argue that the themselves books were always great, though there are a few gems, but without writers making quests and inserting little surprises, sticking to the setting's rules and bringing back old references, it wouldn't be the Elder Scrolls.

  • This spills over into voice acting, but those manuscripts in the bestiary were wonderful.

  • Submitted by Ghostiet. Definitely layers of the figurative going on in this one.

  • Submitted by Ghostiet. Both of these submissions probably are enhanced by loving translation work. You run the gamut, from literal translations that make no sense, though sometimes give birth to immortal memes, then there's the stuff that's so localized it doesn't make sense. Striking that balance can create some memorable experiences.

  • Submitted by VGK.

  • Bit ashamed I didn't think of this first. Recommended by eroticfishcake. Great science fiction ideas during certain key points in the game really elevate it. It felt like a novella stuffed full of very big, transcendental (and creepy) ideas.

  • Submitted by eroticfishcake, unless he meant the new one.

  • Recommended by eroticifishcake. Along the lines of Bioshock, the story is played out mainly through people coaxing you do to do things through your earpiece, and coming to pieces in recordings.

  • Submitted by eroticfishcake, in the less-is-more vein that's damned important for any game that doesn't focus on the text as a main mechanical drive... Oh, that brings me to:

  • Not sure of...

  • ...the difference, since IF implies text even if... well... this is getting confusing... Would virtual novels be included in either of these? Even the ones without the hentai?

  • The game by itself is combat, but the little text snippets and the choices you get in them add atmosphere if you read them. I think I often didn't read them, but decided I should read them to discover the context of my actions. There's a somber, desperate air to everything that you wouldn't get just blowing up spaceships.
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