It was fun for a mindless 15 minute commute on the train. As a paragon of what interactive fiction should look like, in my opinion it falls vastly short. The text is on a third grade comprehension level and I found the choices, as written, to be silly and hardly bares resemblance of anything more than a trope filled click-flick.
It’s primary value, at least to me, was showing a few snippets of how choice code works, beyond that, I am disappointed at how that game is held up in the reviews I’ve read.
That is really helpful, @Fiogan. I’d read it before, but never with a real eye at “how should I start my story.” Thank you for pointing out that section of the Guildline.
I think it depends on the tone of the story. I’m happy as long as it fits with the story being told. If it’s heavy into the action and chaos then BAM drop someone into the chaos but if the story slows pace for too long then that high point at the start tends to do more harm than good.
Though I prefer to start off in a way that eases the reader into the world and try to give them a reason to care about their character.
Accessibility is one of Dragon’s many charms. Both its language and its tropes point that way. Of course it’s no Choice of Robots… but depending on who I was trying to interest in COG’s work, I can think of plenty of people for whom Dragon would be a more winsome gateway than Robots.
And the light-hearted, funny tone is done better and more consistently in Dragon than in almost any other COG; I wish more people had picked up on it, so we’d have more Star Captains and Eerie Estate Agents amid all the seriosity.
Eh, yes, it is accessible. That is a good part about it.
For me, a person who takes his fantasy seriously, it wasn’t a very fun read. I enjoyed Star Captains more, since I’m not humorless, and can enjoy tropes and puns with the best of them.
My point, is that Choice of Dragons does open media res, and in a way that I find grating. I would have enjoyed the tropes in that game if they were fleshed out and felt the text had more impact or higher stakes. I played Choice of Wizard, several times to achieve all the endings, merely because while tropish and more game than story, it offered a bare amount of immersion that I was willing to buy into.
Oh gosh, I’m not sure. In my writing I feel like I combined both, but I also build up? If that makes sense. I’m a descriptor, I can’t help it, so most of my writing starts out as like, “…the birds singing sweet melodies of freedom in my ears as the morning surfaces from the shackles of night.”
And I like my writing, so I guess a little bit of both. If people do it well then it’s okay. If I’m sitting here and suddenly some creature tries to eat my face and I don’t even know why I’m a little put off like, that’s rude. Please tell me o’ monster why you wish to rip of my face. “The monster swipes at your face and you jump back with a shout, tumbling to the ground. It pounces upon you! What do you do!?”
Idk… cry? Like send help I don’t even know where I am or who I am, how am I supposed to just fend off the monster out of the blue. I like me some descriptive build up.
Depends, but one thing I like across the board is for the author to put the choices in an organic way. Instead of asking “what type of person are you” and jumping to choices like “rude and strong-minded” or “roguish and mysterious”, why not put a situation (a bar for instance) and ask the MC what do they do, and they write a scene where they sit and loudly order a drink or something like that.
What I mean is: I wouldn’t like the begining to feel like a questionnaire. In a way, Choice of Alexandria manages to do in a very nifty way.
And, when it comes to action, I think it varies. Not every story demands action, and you can make scenes interesting with small things, like a chouple discussing or a lonely person visiting the parents they haven’t seen in thirty years, as long as the prose is good.
I like having a nice intro before the action starts (in any game, the very beginning when the stakes aren’t yet very high and you get to find out about your character’s ordinary life is my favourite part - Fallout 3’s begining is still very high on my list), but really long intros that are basically just three pages of info dump will make me close the game immediately.
Don’t explain to me about all the little technical details, let me find out about them myself. Instead of telling me that ‘monsters and humans have been torn apart by a war lasting 5000 years and also here’s a 2k info dumb about the different kinds of magic’, let my character go through their life seeing the effects of it all.
In medias res can work at times, of course, but it’s not my prefered way of going about things.
Someone’s reading my mind. I swear I was about to start a thread on almost this exact topic.
I’ve been working on my own CoG, and if I’m honest, really struggling with it. I think the problem I’m having is that I tried to start the story the way I would have started a novel. Right in the action. From a writing perspective the problem this creates is then I have to force all these choices about who the MC is into what should be emotional scenes, and I was finding it very cumbersome.
What I decided to do was write a short (one page, two max) introduction to the world. Then go into an unadorned character generation section. This way I’ll let the reader decide who their character is before I drop them into the adventure.
Choicescript games occupy a space kind of between books and video games. In video games having the very short introduction, then the character generation, then starting the adventure is pretty common, and I hope that it’ll work well in my CS game.
That is what I’ve been trying to do: write an opening that describes the world, without overly defining the MC. My work is science fiction/fantasy. Many novels in this genres have 70 page expositions, where the world and principle characters are introduced.
That doesn’t work well with Choicescript. I’ve attempted to do that in less than seven pages. I’ve got feedback that some have found my introduction boring, without having a defined character and that I’m telling, rather than showing.
My problem is that I can’t show without telling a bit about the world you’re stepping into and I’m trying to find a balance.
Opening in media res presents many of those problems you just highlighted. Seldom do I enjoy it, preferring a slow build and then big action.
I did what you did. I wrote a two page history of my world, and then attempted to make that narrative the opening scene. I want the MC to make meaningful choices once the world is defined, not as soon as it starts.
I actually like the ‘throw the MC out of an exploding helicopter and go from there’ opening.
Exposition is tricky - I do get a bit bored by novels that want you to sit through five pages of history lesson that’s only tangentially related to the current situation and characters. I preder it drip-fed.
You can also make reading it optional, like Choice of Rebels. Kind of like “Would you like a bit of background before the story, player”. I think that would work.
I think of all the CoG I’ve played, Robots is my fave intro. I can get picky about framing devices and dream sequences, but the payoff of the dream is just so brilliantly executed. Works well from both a story and gameplay aspect, since it’s a tiny microcosm of the game, but thanks to its dream nature the stakes aren’t a problem. Then again, no other game can use that same set up now
I have to admit, when I see an exposition dump (especially in a sci fi or fantasy setting with lots of made up words) first thing before I meet my character, my eyes tend to glaze over. It might be the format itself too - reading long paragraphs on mobile without any breaks is kind of painful. And worldbuilding exposition without characters tends to be dry, to say the least…
The intros that get me engaged quickly are usually along the lines of the PC being on the precipice of a new chapter of their lives (so it makes sense that they’re thinking of things that should be common knowledge), with a lot of asking me what kind of character they’re going to be while introducing the world in digestible chunks.
[quote=“Vertigo, post:33, topic:23171”]Kind of like “Would you like a bit of background before the story, player”. I think that would work.
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With any choice that will lead you to read the background story regardless
I’d say it’s each individuals preference. I, personally, like when things start a bit slow and introduces you to the game’s elements. But I do believe it can be equally interesting if you get dropped into the action, if done right. A mixture of both can be done as well. You start as a soldier on the back of the truck transporting you and x soldiers, from those 2-3 being your friends. Short chit-chat, bit of explanation, and you arrive and jump into the action.
My example wasn’t the best, but I hope It was understandable and made sense
That’s actually a great example, and it basically describes how I’ve changed my WIP’s intro as a result of the comments from this topic. Thank you very much for the input!
These two things don’t need to be mutually exclusive. In my understanding, in media res doesn’t mean “start in the middle of a literal action sequence.” It means to start in the middle of the story.
For example, take the movie Deadpool. Spoilers: the story is about this guy, Wade, who meets a woman at a bar. They date for a year and fall in love. Before getting married, Wade starts dying of cancer. He undergoes experimental surgery/torture and gets superpowers. It’s that kind of movie. Insecure about his now-disfigured body, he lets the love of his life think he’s dead while he hunts the evil doctor that torture-cured him. After maybe months of hunting down the villain, Wade finally finds him.
That’s when the movie starts, in media res. Wade’s story is almost over but the movie just started. And it doesn’t start with a fight. It starts in a cab where Wade is chatting with the driver, a supporting character. They go over the backstory and learn a bit about each other.
This is an example of starting with an action sequence but not in media res. That movie’s story was about a terrorist blowing up buildings and Kirk tracking him down before they learn about his true motivations. The movie started just before the inciting terrorist attack, not with them already tracking the villain down.
So an interactive story could start with action but not in media res. And it could start in media res but not with action. Or any other combination of the two. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Maybe the best intros are the ones that—action-packed or not—are the least confusing and put the least amount of pressure on the player to make “the right choice.”
In Media Res does mean to start in the middle of the story. But, it doesn’t have to be like Deadpool (where they go back and show you the beginning later.)
It could also be like Knights of the Old Republic, where Revan’s story includes a lot of stuff that happened before the start of the game, but we never see it. It just gets referenced over the course of the game.
Edit for further clarity: When I said “jump into the action,” I didn’t necessarily mean starting with an action scene. I meant ‘the action’ as in the ‘things that are happening.’
