Title.

You might’ve heard the fancy term ludonarrative dissonance, which describes something a lot of modern games suffer from. It’s the way games often tell stories that don’t fit within their gameplay loops. How a character can take 20 shots to the head in gameplay, and then die from a single wound in a cutscene. Or how in the story, characters can act like people who would never do the things they do do in gameplay.

This conflict doesn’t actually ruin a game most of the time. But the pictured game is one which is renowned for showcasing what can be done when gameplay is used as a narrative device, reinforcing rather than conflicting with the story. Using every element of a game in concert.

  • @essell
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    48 months ago

    Ixion - a by the numbers resource management game which uses narrative and music to become something very special, especially the way the decision making of the narrative feeds back into the mechanics.

    • MentalEdgeOPM
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      48 months ago

      Hell yeah!

      Another game that also achieves something very similar, is Frostpunk.

      • @essell
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        38 months ago

        Would you say the original homeworld also answers your question?

        It’s certainly beautiful and fluid

        • MentalEdgeOPM
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          38 months ago

          It does! As fleet command, the player leads the survivors of Kharak across the galaxy, doing things in gameplay that slot perfectly into the story of the game.