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Ludonarrative assonance

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As opposed to "Ludonarrative dissonance" of course.

One of the reasons Half-Life is so good is that it really puts you in the shoes of a scientist in a shitty situation.

Half-life is a linear FPS for the most part, with its shooting sections punctuated by exploration and puzzle sections. The puzzle sections are what make it really special. When you try to solve a puzzle, you're gathering the information you have to arrive at a conclusion (based on that information). Science works the same way: you have knowledge, and you try to fit it together cohesively. With both scientific experiments and puzzles in half-life you arrange what you know, think of a possible result, then test it.

To progress in half-life you must employ a stripped-down version of the scientific method. This makes you feel like a scientist. It helps when NPCs talk about how you went to MIT and stuff.

What other examples can you think of where a game's mechanics support or enhance the narrative?

I guess you could say any game where you play a soldier and you shoot stuff, but let's try for something not so obvious.

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In Duke Nukem 3D you play a professional ass-kicker. While the mighty foot is also you melee weapon it serves an important role in combination with the freeze and shrink rays Without the mighty foo those enemies wouldn't die.

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To progress in half-life you must employ a stripped-down version of the scientific method. This makes you feel like a scientist. It helps when NPCs talk about how you went to MIT and stuff.

As Gordon lifts the cinderblock out of the dirt, he groans, walking over to a wooden board pivoting on an old, unused piece of concrete sewer piping. He drops the block on one end of the board, wipes the sweat of his brow and thinks to himself "Thank fuck I got a Phd. in theoretical physics for this."

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I genuinely thought it was a running joke that Gordon was not a scientist til I looked it up on the internet.

Ludonarrative assonance is pretty easy, you just have to make a game where everyone's a ridiculous cartoon character. Gears of War is a shooter that wants to have this hard, heavy tactile feel; no floaty jumps, no lasers, no energy shields or whatever- So it's a game about chunky men stomping rock-monsters underground. That fiction opens all the right doors for them to go as far as possible with that kinaesthetic identity (I just made that phrase up).

That's it on the large-scale anyway. On the small-scale I guess Dom's wife dies, and he's really sad, and then you active-reload and he goes "SHIT YEAH!!".

Metal Gear Solid 2 syncs up really well if you've never played the first one. Cos Raiden doesn't have a clue what's going on or who anyone is, and neither do you. He's the victim of this huge orchestrated re-telling of the events of MGS1, and that's pretty much what you play.

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As Gordon lifts the cinderblock out of the dirt, he groans, walking over to a wooden board pivoting on an old, unused piece of concrete sewer piping. He drops the block on one end of the board, wipes the sweat of his brow and thinks to himself "Thank fuck I got a Phd. in theoretical physics for this."

that's the catch, that any of the puzzles he encounters can be solved by a 10 year old

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Ludonarrative assonance and dissonance are extremely prevalent in games. Almost every game has one or the other, I'd say, to at least some degree, and many have both.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - The game rewards risky behavior. The narrative is that you are a nutter engaged in risky behavior.

Orcs Must Die - The game is about killing orcs. The narrative is about killing orcs.

FTL - The game is about desperately running away from the rebels. Even with the pause button, the game itself is an extremely frantic experience.

The Stanley Parable - I don't even have to write about this game.

BioShock - Clint Hocking's favorite example of ludonarrative dissonance is one of my favorite examples of ludonarrative assonance. I could write an essay on this and I might someday but the short version is that I think he's approaching things from a game designer's perspective and arguing that the design of the game doesn't say anything about Objectivism, which is true but irrelevant, because as far as I'm concerned, the narrative is as much about freedom and choice as it is about Objectivism and in fact the Objectivism stuff is a side issue in the main narrative. The game itself, at least until the last section where it breaks down and introduces MASSIVE dissonance, is a perfect example of assonance which is why everyone remembers the twist.

Crysis - The greatest fun in this game comes from using your awesome super suit to terrorize Korean soldiers and once the Koreans start showing up in super suits it turns into a bit more of a slog. And then the aliens make things worse. The narrative is about 4 Americans sent in to take on an island full of Koreans, because Americans are fuckawesome, but then the Koreans step up their game, the Americans have to send in the big guns, and then suddenly aliens and nothing is happening according to plan.

Thief - Duh? Especially when the narrative is "Garret is sneaky and steals stuff" there's admirably little distance between the ludo and the narrative in Thief.

Thirty Flights of Loving - The jump cuts!

And so on.

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I dunno if I'd agree re: Half-Life.

What scientist would know how to perfectly use every single weapon he picks him? He never served in any armed force. He's a genius from MIT, and suddenly he's all up in wild combat everywhere! Yeah, he solves puzzles sometimes. But the SHOOT SHOOT BANG BANG far outweighs the simple puzzles you run into. X:

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What scientist would know how to perfectly use every single weapon he picks him? He never served in any armed force. He's a genius from MIT, and suddenly he's all up in wild combat everywhere! Yeah, he solves puzzles sometimes. But the SHOOT SHOOT BANG BANG far outweighs the simple puzzles you run into. X:

A man can't have hobbies? Gordon's actually a gun nut on the weekends and hits up the range.

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I'd go ahead and believe he maybe is "trained" in the use of a pistol or revolver or even shotgun. Crossbow, if he hunts. But a rocket launcher? NO SIR.

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Orcs Must Die - The game is about killing orcs. The narrative is about killing orcs.

Alright, this pretty succinctly covers the surface discussion. I also came into this thread thinking "Oh well if the game's about what you're doing, then thumbs up!"

So- more interesting examples would be like The Walking Dead. Your actions in the game help you feel the same way the characters feel, and the things your thinking about are the same things the protagonist is thinking about in this plot. That's what really makes Walking Dead a super inspiring game to look at right now.

Character relationships and decision making is something I think people have really reached out for in a couple games this generation, and it's awesome to see it realised so well.

You CAN make a load of decisions in how good you are at lockpicking in Fallout, but to compromise how much one character trusts you for the sake of helping another character- AND for that decision to be not be made for the sake of what armour you might get out of it- is an idea that still has a load of room to be explored.

ALSO-- A great example of ludonarrative DISSONANCE (or assonance, I dunno) is Defcon 5. That's the game where you launch nukes right? I've never played it, but it communicates extermination of a percentage of the human race through bleeps n bloops! It's a really smart experiment anyway, that and Pandemic are about global-scale ideas told in eerily under-played ways, and the connection between what you're doing and what you're seeing is the game's main storytelling device.

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ALSO-- A great example of ludonarrative DISSONANCE (or assonance, I dunno) is Defcon 5. That's the game where you launch nukes right? I've never played it, but it communicates extermination of a percentage of the human race through bleeps n bloops! It's a really smart experiment anyway, that and Pandemic are about global-scale ideas told in eerily under-played ways, and the connection between what you're doing and what you're seeing is the game's main storytelling device.

Eek noooooo DEFCON is perfect ludonarrative assonance. The narrative is "everyone dies" and the game punches that shit into your gut in a way few games have. The ambient sound is of people coughing and dying, but subtly done so that there's just a constant aura of death. Your score is basically measured in the millions of dead people you kill. The antiseptic aesthetic perfectly mirror's

as seen by the people who are launching nukes (the players of the game). The narrative is that you are in the war room, making the decisions. The gameplay is exactly that, and done perfectly.

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Eek noooooo DEFCON is perfect ludonarrative assonance. The narrative is "everyone dies" and the game punches that shit into your gut in a way few games have. The ambient sound is of people coughing and dying, but subtly done so that there's just a constant aura of death. Your score is basically measured in the millions of dead people you kill. The antiseptic aesthetic perfectly mirror's

as seen by the people who are launching nukes (the players of the game). The narrative is that you are in the war room, making the decisions. The gameplay is exactly that, and done perfectly.

I totally agree, though i think there's some intentional incongruity in the sterile presentation to discomfit and disturb the player, but deliberate ludonarrative dissonance is another topic entirely.

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If the narrative were "you are a person on the ground experiencing the war" then there would be massive ludonarrative dissonance but DEFCON is depicting the people in the war room and in doing so it inspires zero ludonarrative dissonance.

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I hate to be "that guy", but I think "resonance" is more appropriate than "assonance" in this context (if you need a "-ance" word). Assonance has to do with particular sonic qualities of vowels which isn't so directly applicable (even metaphorically) to games. Unless you want to explain the difference between ludonarrative assonance and ludonarrative consonance.

sorry. ignore me.

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I agree. Half-Life, for instance, with its application of scientific method and scientist protagonist, could be described as a ludonarrative resonance cascade.

yessssss

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I hate to be "that guy", but I think "resonance" is more appropriate than "assonance" in this context (if you need a "-ance" word). Assonance has to do with particular sonic qualities of vowels which isn't so directly applicable (even metaphorically) to games. Unless you want to explain the difference between ludonarrative assonance and ludonarrative consonance.

sorry. ignore me.

yeah I didn't think too hard about it when I made the thread late last night. I like assonance and consonance in poetry. I figured you could stretch a metaphor. Now that I'm thinking about it I don't really feel like doing the mental acrobatics. Your word is better.

"Oh well if the game's about what you're doing, then thumbs up!"

I guess we could narrow what we're talking about here. Half-life stood out to me because interaction with puzzle mechanics built/supported your character as scientist without explicitly doing sciencey stuff (with the exception of the much-discussed intro).

it also stood out to me in opposition to the classic Bioshock criticism of ludonarrative dissonance because it's an example of mechanics not tied directly to the story nevertheless reinforcing the story.

So I guess "mechanics not tied directly to the story nevertheless reinforcing the story" is what I'm really curious about.

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