Waiting to Respawn: Don't Take The Story Out of Multiplayer

Last week, Bitmob staff writer Rus McLaughlin pondered the usefulness of narrative elements in multiplayer modes in his piece “Multiplayer Doesn’t Need A Narrative.” You can probably guess his stance from the title. McLaughlin admits that certain games have incorporated

Feedback Loop: Many choices, or none, make a game.

Is just one choice all it takes to turn a novel into a video game? Before you say yes, consider when a game is created out of many choices and when we are left with none.

Richard Eisenbeis looks at Katawa Shoujo in an April 24 Kotaku article. Eisenbeis holds up the dating sim/visual novel as proof that one choice is all it takes to turn a novel into a game. It is a shallow analysis and the implication that one can stick a choice in a novel and have a game is just false.

If we step away from the screen with only Eisenbeis’s assertion, we lose out on understanding what developers have to do to take a story and turn it interactive.

Creating a good game means understanding the times when a million choices create an interactive work and the instances where no choices are required.

Why some game developers shouldn't like games

Why can’t we gamers accept that someone who doesn’t love games with the fervent passion we do can make them? I’m proud to say one of my favorite games of all time—Katamari Damacy—comes from the mind of someone who doesn’t

Why Shadow of the Colossus is Overrated

Warning: This opinion piece contains detailed narrative spoilers but few mechanical spoilers for Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, Prince of Persia (2008) and God of War. To celebrate the release of The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection, I

Naughty Dog Dishes on Storytelling and Uncharted 4

The Uncharted series has mesmerized gamers with its exceptional graphics, precise gameplay, and innovative environmental interactions but what really sets it apart from the average shooter is its ability to tell a great story. Naughty Dog’s focus on weaving history

Battlefield 3's Campaign Will Depict Intense, Authentic War

Battlefield isn’t a series that sells itself on story. Sure, there’s a campaign component and there’s work put in to it, but it feels like something you play when EA’s servers go down. It’s engaging enough, but it’s got nothing

Less Is More

Remember the trailer we posted for El Shaddai? Now, at the time, I couldn’t exactly tell what was gameplay and what was a cinematic. Now, I realize why: there was no HUD that cried out “THIS IS GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE,” and