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Your focus as a creator and consumer?

Jamin Grey · 2014-08-20T15:36:51

Splitting off of this topic, I mentioned that between two writer friends and myself, we each write exploring a different 'focus' (for lack of a better word). One writes books, another manga, and myself games. All of us are currently unpublished, so unfortunately I can't link to any of their works as examples. (Copy+paste from my post in the other thread:) ---------------------------------------------- I realized that alot of our differences in creative ideas come down to what our "primary focus" is. One of them holds story as the primary focus, and the world is merely the setting for the story, and the characters are the vehicle for the story. Don't get me wrong, her worlds and characters are very awesome and aren't shortchanged at all - but the characters and world are tools to tell the story. The other artist/writer holds her characters as the primary focus. She creates worlds and writes stories to explore those characters. The world and story becomes the tool to explore the characters. And I am always world-focused. I create stories and characters to flush out and explore my worlds. I try to make interesting stories and interesting characters, but they are the lens through which my world can be explored. Now just because these three focuses are our primary creative inspirations, it actually, oddly, isn't very noticeable in our works [unless you are really analyzing them]. I read my story-focused friend's work because I enjoy the world she created. Just like I read Tolkien for the world, whereas others read Tolkien for the characters, and still others read Tolkien for the plot. A good work should be enjoyable to readers coming with any of those three perspectives. ---------------------------------------------- So, my questions are: 1) Have you noticed this concept before in your own works? What focus do you personally find yourself creating from? 2) Have you ever noticed a specific book or game lopsided in favor of one over another? I might suggest that Elder Scrolls games, for example, are primarily world-focused (but that'd be easy to debate, so I'm not firmly holding that stance). I never played Mass Effect, but it might be less noticeable whether that is character-focused, universe-focused, or story-focused. 3) What other possible 'focuses' are there? I'm not talking about things like gameplay or graphics. I mean 'focuses' that are equally applicable to books. [really, my primary question]

Writing for Games Game Design

Started by Servant of the Lord July 20, 2014 09:35 PM

10 comments, last by JohnnyCode 9 years, 10 months ago

JohnnyCode

1,084

August 20, 2014 03:22 PM

Revealing a world with characters who lives in it, and feels in it, is not any trivial task. A game that masters this is a rather artistic piece of creation- if it then allows player to explore and consume this all- it is then being remarkable experience. I have experianced in my rich games consuming life, only 2 of such being close: Gothic 2 and Risen 1. "you are being on the wrong end of the sword- so speak!"

JohnnyCode

1,084

August 20, 2014 03:36 PM

Servant of The Lord, you have quoted me in the very sentence that we both were apointing towards as we were enjoing tes3 TES3. I have defeated Dal Gurag, and have been lurking around liking Vivec soul. But yes, this enormous experience that Bethesda has created, realy suffers from the exact thing you and I have apointed.

and that means something. (I have turned off Fallout 3 after plaing it for 3 minute= tes 3 in apocaliptic seting, as a tes 3 veterain? nope)

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Your focus as a creator and consumer?

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🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉

Your focus as a creator and consumer?

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