The Verge: In 2004, when he was still a student at Carnegie Mellon University, Neil Druckmann participated in an exciting group project. One of his professors just happened to be friends with George Romero, widely regarded as the father of modern zombie movies, and he tasked his students with creating a game concept that would be pitched to the venerable director. Romero would then pick his favorite and the team behind it would build a prototype. Druckmann's idea was to merge three of the works that most influenced him as a creator: the game would feature the gameplay of PlayStation 2 classic Ico, a lead character much like John Hartigan from Sin City, and would be set during the zombie apocalypse of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
10 comments:
First of all, this is a great game, very well conceived and structured. I haven't played it myself, but have enjoyed watching someone else playing through most of it.
It is so great to read about the process that went into creating the plot, characters and premise of this game. I think that video games like this one are one of the coolest things happening in the art-meets-technology field right now. It's such a great storytelling tool, and because games are by essence interactive, they are able to connect to their audience in a way that books or film never could, while still telling a compelling story with complex characters.
Not having really played video games since my brother used to make me play something involving trolls and some big monster we were never able to get past, I think it's fascinating to read about the amount of thought that goes into the storytelling of a video game. Beyond just the knowledge of computers and coding and graphics, etc that goes into building a video game, there are people that are basically playwrights creating the character and story arcs.
What I love about this blog is that it is able to showcase so many different things that we as theatre practitioners could look at doing in the future. It's a whole big wide world out there, and there are hundreds of industries that need storytellers and designers and managers, most of which are not theatre.
"The Last of Us" is a fantastic game. I also haven't played it myself, but watched while someone else played. I was sucked into it from the beginning. The storytelling is incredibly well done. You get completely attached to characters and then thrown through loops when something happens to them. The game artistically looks fabulous and I think it really shows a great step in gaming. More than being a video game though, it's a story -- a sort of choose your own adventure. I wouldn't say it's a game full of super fun gameplay when a lot of it is walking around, through a sort of guided path. It's a video game much different from what people generally think of as video games. I really enjoyed reading about the process. I'm finding more and more that video games are a great platform for art and story telling and I'm incredibly intrigued by it. There is a lot of potential there and I think it's possible for anyone to achieve -- just look at some of the games being made through Kickstarter. We're getting such a variety of games, stories, and interactive media and it's really exciting!
I am not one for video games but this sounds more like a movie or just a mix between "Walking Dead" and "Y: The Last Man" both of which I love.
I totally agree with them though. I think that failure is the most powerful tool for creation. If you are shot down but persist and work with the critique that you are given then you will come up with a product that is better than before. You have to believe in your ideas but be open to adaptation and improvement.
I love that video games have morphed into something that is more about storytelling than shooting people.
As someone without video game experience, I was surprised by how interesting that aspect of the article was to me. I chose to read this one because of the title "The power of failure" but when I saw that it was about the process behind a video game, I wasn't sure if I should read on. I'm glad I did though, because it was actually really interesting to learn about this game as well as the efforts that went into its realization. I was aware of the argument that there is a lot more art and story-telling to video games than many people realize, and this article definitely helped me see that.
The attitude towards failing in this article could apply to any project. I really like the quote about how failing as many times as you can at the beginning of the process will make a better final outcome. I think we sometimes try to make things to perfect at the beginning of the process and then get too attached to certain ideas and are not able to develop them for the better.
I really enjoyed this article and I think it is really great how imaginative video games are especially because people spend so much time with their eyes glued to that screen. I only play video games when I am home, but I watch my roommate play and I am intrigued by the graphics and the story behind the game. So much of video games i s creating that world and story line. There are so many different mediums of post apocalyptic stories it is important to keep them fresh and intriguing.
It's always interesting to see what it takes for something to be created. It's also refreshing to see and hear about how something didn't initially work but with hard work and perseverance it eventually came to fruition. It's also very interesting seeing how important the storytelling aspect of the shows are and what goes into that. Storytelling is a constantly changing medium and it's good to see video games really embracing and enhancing the medium.
Same with camille I havent had the opportunity to play this game myself but i have seen someone else play it and it is definitely one of my favorite games. Games like this really make me want to know about the process of making the game and what went into making it so it was very cool to actually get to read about it. One of the things that makes this game so great is the way they tell the story, its very effective. Its also a beautiful game and has an amazing color palette.
I never realized that there was so much focus on the actual story of video games. My impression has always been that the goal of any of these games was to shoot as many enemies as possible, which is why I never was interested in them at all. I was very impressed with how much focus is apparently put on the story arc and the "characters" of a game- it seems like it's like writing an interactive movie. After reading this article, I actually would be interested in trying this game. I was also glad that the video game company rejected the misogynistic idea- I know a lot of games objectify women, and I'm glad some companies are starting to realize that.
It amazes me how much video games have evolved.
Nowadays the successful video games have such elaborate story lines. It is almost like watching a movie or reading a book however sometimes you control the story-line and the characters.
I love seeing the pictures from the video-game. They look so realistic.
I feel like video game making is really an art form. You have so many people working on it from writers, to designers, to programmers. It really is similar to making many other types of arts.
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