Moving Pixels Podcast

Wrapping up our six week discussion of video games, we decided to consider what particular stories have stood out as some of the best that gaming has to offer. Each of us chose five games that we see as particularly notable in terms of the way that they tell stories.   While certainly any list of this sort has some subjective qualities (and, indeed, there was little overlap among our lists), the shared factors that emerged amongst our various groupings of games speak not so much to traditional qualities concerning plot but directly to some of the unique qualities of this medium in terms of how stories are told as interactive performances, are developed within immersive worlds, and feature very different kinds of relationships to characters.

There are the stories that developers want to tell us, but there are also those stories that just seem to crop up because of how we choose to play.   In our fifth episode of the the Moving Pixels Podcast's six part series on storytelling in video games, we move away from the more scripted experiences in video game stories and consider the way that stories emerge as a result of our interactions with game worlds. We consider how video games are seemingly partly plotted by the performance of their players.   Once again our particpants include PopMatters contributors, Rick Dakan, G. Christopher Williams, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross.

Curiouser and curiouser.   Given the tendency for "solution" to be an end goal in video games, it is probably unsurprising that solving a mystery is at the heart of many games' plots. In this edition of our six part series on stories told in video games, we look at the centrality of mystery to many video game narratives, including games that may or may not be considered traditional fare of the mystery genre.   Once again our contributors to the discussion include Rick Dakan, G. Christopher Williams, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross.

A lot of the discussion in the media on the kinds of relationships that video game characters foster can be boiled down to discussions of Tommy Vercetti beating up hookers and taking back his money following an "initmate encounter."   This week we continue in our series on storytelling in video games by discussing a broader sample of the kinds of relationships that are explored in the stories told by video games. We consider the centrality of "getting the girl" to player motivations in many gaming experiences and whether or not games can tell more complicated stories of love and romance.   Our contributors, Rick Dakan, G. Christopher Williams, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross, confront issues of intimacy between plumbers and princesses, monkeys and maidens, and other lovestruck pixelated heroes and heroines.

War? Love? What's the difference?   Last week I mistakenly identified the topic for this second part of a six part series on storytelling as concerning love stories in video games. I'm just going to chalk up my confusion to my unmitigated faith in the philosopy of Pat Benatar. Thus, our focus will be on the battlefield this week and not so much on the love.   A focus on combat seems a reasonable enough one in beginning an exploration of the specific types of stories told in games. After all, given gaming's tendency towards competitiveness rather than co-operation, many modern games find the battlefield an apt enough place to tell stories.   Once again, our host will be Rick Dakan, and he will be joined by several PopMatters and Moving Pixels contributors, including G. Christopher Williams, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross, as we consider what kinds of stories are told through players' experiences of warfare.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast. For the initial editions of this new feature at PopMatters, we will be hosting a mini-series of sorts. A number of regular contributors to our Multimedia Section and the Moving Pixels blog here at PopMatters, G. Christopher Williams, Rick Dakan, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross, will be spending the next six weeks discussing the topic of storytelling in video games.   For our first episode, we decided to look at "The Role of Story in Video Games," focusing our discussion on the history of story in video games and how gaming has been transformed over the past few decades in light of narrative becoming an almost inseperable part of the game enthusiast's experience of the medium.   In the upcoming weeks, we will continue to look at storytelling, but we will be focusing on the types of stories that games tell and how they do so more or less successfully, including love stories, war stories, and stories involving mystery.   So, withou