Rocksteady: Games are More Like TV than Film
Arkham City developer talks narrative.
Batman: Arkham Asylum developer Rocksteady Studios has been talking about the recipe for success when it comes to licensed computer games, including its own design philosophies.
Game director of highly-anticipated sequel Batman: Arkham City, Sefton Hill, referenced the fact that the games industry seems to be getting closer to the movie industry - but declared that games are more akin to TV shows than films.
"In terms of narrative structure, I think games are much more analogous to an episodic TV series than a film. You have, say, 15 hourly episodes to fill, each requiring its own narrative arc but each plugging into an overarching storyline," he told the Guardian.
"It requires a lot of planning to make sure that every single hour is consistent with each other, is feeding and driving towards a compelling crescendo, while remaining implicitly self-explanatory so players can pick up and play at any time and know what they are doing." Hill also lauded the "instant feedback loop" that the games industry has that allows developers to "tailor the experience to exactly what the player is doing."
Read the rest of the interview here, it's a fascinating discussion.
Game director of highly-anticipated sequel Batman: Arkham City, Sefton Hill, referenced the fact that the games industry seems to be getting closer to the movie industry - but declared that games are more akin to TV shows than films.
"In terms of narrative structure, I think games are much more analogous to an episodic TV series than a film. You have, say, 15 hourly episodes to fill, each requiring its own narrative arc but each plugging into an overarching storyline," he told the Guardian.
"It requires a lot of planning to make sure that every single hour is consistent with each other, is feeding and driving towards a compelling crescendo, while remaining implicitly self-explanatory so players can pick up and play at any time and know what they are doing." Hill also lauded the "instant feedback loop" that the games industry has that allows developers to "tailor the experience to exactly what the player is doing."
Read the rest of the interview here, it's a fascinating discussion.
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