Obviously in a game like ICO or Shadow or even something like Flower where you leave almost everything to the player’s imagination, that’s one direction to go. Sometimes with the exposition in games you have to lay things out because you don’t want people to miss the detail.ĪH: Yeah, those are more extreme versions of what I’m talking about, but we’re all in the same category there, which is choosing, based on your genre, how much you leave to the player’s active imagination. Our genre almost requires that we rely on traditional cinematics and storytelling methods, so the challenge for us is, how do we make that not too passive an experience? It’s an interactive medium, and you want people to feel like they own the experience. I think it’s very cool what different people are doing, whether you’re looking at BioShock or Portal or Half-Life or Flower, I mean there’s just so many ways to tell stories. People always talk about “What’s the right way to tell stories in an interactive medium?” and I actually bristle a little when people start getting too pedantic, because as I said earlier, I don’t think there is a right way. Is gaming becoming collaborative performance art? The game’s the stage, we’re piloting the actors within certain design parameters, and a third entity–not necessarily a gamer–watching what we’re doing like a movie, maybe even interacting by saying “go over there” or “see what that does” or asking “why is that person doing that?”Īmy Hennig: It’s interesting the way you put that, I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. GO: My wife was watching me play Uncharted 2 last night, and she kept interrupting to ask questions, slowly tuning in the game. Even though we have an hour and a half of cinematics, as you’re playing through the game, you’re still getting the constant updates and in-game dialogue between the characters, the banter and such, which continue not only the story, but the character development as well. It doesn’t stop when the cut scenes stop. Also, the way the story continues even while you’re playing through the action sequences. We hear time and again people saying that they really enjoy playing it with their partner or spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend because the person sitting on the couch next to them, even if they’re not playing, they’re still completely engaged because the characters and the story draw them in. Evan Wells: I think this is what makes it such a great spectator game.