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Bad guy wins...?
#133752
06/04/07 19:31
06/04/07 19:31
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 2,640
Earth
Germanunkol
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I've always wondered: what do you guys think about a game from a bad guy's type of view?
Imagine a game or movie where the bad guy's the one "telling the story"... and the good guys still win...?
Any thoughts?
I guess most people want to have a happy ending to their games... something to achieve. If you're the bad guy and loose, it'd be frustrating... even if you're supposed to. But I think it'd be interesting...
And fun to see done.
~"I never let school interfere with my education"~
-Mark Twain
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Re: Bad guy wins...?
[Re: Germanunkol]
#133753
06/04/07 19:38
06/04/07 19:38
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,305
Damocles
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First of all, the player is playing the guy,
and the player wants to win (why else put so much effort into playing well)
The other thing is, that most people considder themselve to be "good".
So the main character is mostly a "good" guy.
A way would be to still "win" the game / finish it, but
with disastreous results to your original intentions.
-> like blowing up the world, since you reaced the bomb 1 sec to late, or so.
-> or killing the Big opponent, an then finding out, this is yourself in the future.
Winning as a bad guy, is also possible,
you just need to be able to identify yourself with him (DungeonKeeper for example)
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Re: Bad guy wins...?
[Re: Damocles]
#133754
06/04/07 21:34
06/04/07 21:34
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,208
Germany
Error014
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Quote:
I've always wondered: what do you guys think about a game from a bad guy's type of view?
GTA comes to mind 
---
The concept of having to "lose" to win the game - regardless from the moral side of the playercharacter...
I think that it is a very intruiging concept, although hard to pull off. One way is to let the player play several characters to see the story from all the different sides. I think (but I may be wrong, I haven't played it) Indigo Prophecy went that way. And then there are games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus - from what I've read (again, I haven't played them, sadly), they both have a very peculiar feeling to them and you never feel quite comfortable with what you're doing.
Most people think that the ultimate goal with your game is to entertain your player, maybe make him laugh and overall to let him have fun. This is what (most) games have been doing for the last years and it goes pretty well. However, from all the games on the market, only very, very few of them tell a good, interesting story with well-developed charakters. You can do without them if you want a "fun" game or if you just want to get some feeling across ("OMG IM IN A SPACESTATION AND THERE ARE ALIENS EVERYWHERE") - but in the long term, thats nothing that could make games really evolve.
A game where you have to escape from everything and everyone whos out to get you, only to be cornered at the last moment with a decision between only terrible outcomes - that is something that right now is pretty much unthinkable for most gamedesigners. Personally, I think it would be an intruging concept. A game that after hours trying to keep my character alive, only to have him commit suicide at the very end of it - that can be either extremely frustrating or thoughtprovoking (or, possibly, both). How it will end up depends on the situation, the story and the character itself. In the end, it would be a tragedy, but if you do it right, you may be able to get a nice little message across - or just to evoke emotions in the player.
Of course, you can also ignore all that and still make a game around the bad guys (i.e. Dungeon Keeper, which is a classic game just with the sides reversed, in essence).
Personally, I think that before we can even think to create games like this in the way I described it, we have to improve the stories of our games - by alot. Most of us in this forum - well, most don't. I'm guilty of that as well: My "Experimental-Series" all have no story at all and no characters to identify with. I swear, I will do that better next time.
Let's have a look at the Showcase, shall we?
Right now, I'd say that one, maybe two (not so sure about Angelas World 2) out of twelve serious projects really thought about their story (this is from the first page of the Showcase I-forums, I only counted real games) and that the story is one of the primary aspects of the game. True, sometimes its not necessary, but its still pretty low. Some teams here tell you what there story is and you immediatly see that it was only a weak afterthought, that it doesn't make sense and that it doesn't even take a minute to completely rip it apart. As long as one isn't able to tell more about all major characters and answer most important questions about the world and the story, one isn't quite finished with the story, I'd argue. And as long as we don't care about stories, it doesn't really matter what happens in the end - you can't expect the plaer to "feel" something about "LOL A CITY" with no notable characters or anything that feels alive.
Which brings up another interesting point, really: Are we indy developers even ABLE to tell such a story in a game thats not totally linear? I'd argue that it would take way to long to do otherwise.
Perhaps this post will get me points for originality at least.
Check out Dungeon Deities! It's amazing and will make you happy, successful and almost certainly more attractive! It might be true!
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Re: Bad guy wins...?
[Re: Error014]
#133755
06/05/07 00:09
06/05/07 00:09
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 357
Florida
Hellcrypt
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Posts: 357
Florida
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Also god of war 2; where Kratos must kill Zeus and become the ultimate god. Always refreshing to be the bad guy and kill everyone who even looks at you funny.
I do not solve problems.... I prevent them.
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Re: Bad guy wins...?
[Re: xXxGuitar511]
#133759
06/05/07 06:45
06/05/07 06:45
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,538
WA, Australia
JibbSmart
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WA, Australia
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or have most of the NPCs think you are against them when you are actually for them... DUN DUN DUHN!!! (musical notes there) not like undercover, which basically is the same as being the badguy and following the story (driver); instead people blame you for something because of being framed or some sort of deal you made, or a secret that you need to protect. having to protect people who are trying to avoid/capture/kill you. points based on how many you save -- how many you DON'T kill. potentially frustrating, but in the right hands (mine  j/k) it could be an involving story and an enjoyable game. julz
Formerly known as JulzMighty. I made KarBOOM!
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Re: Bad guy wins...?
[Re: xXxGuitar511]
#133760
06/05/07 06:55
06/05/07 06:55
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 2,640
Earth
Germanunkol
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Wow, lots of answers.
"There are plenty of games and movies where the bad guy or villain is the "hero." It's called an anti-hero (well sort of..anti-heroes are kind of a different thing than a villain)."
I agree... I've played games like that. GTA, as error014 mentioned. You're definitely the bad guy... but you still don't feel like you're "bad", I believe. Or, when you win, YOU win, not the bad side wins. There's nothing wrong with you winning.
Then again, if you'd really be a "bad" guy, say like an SS member in WW2, killing innocent people, I would refuse to play the game. Killing people in counterstrike is one thing, killing innocent people in a War that actually happened sure wouldn't make me feel good, and I'd not like to see something like that in a game.
Error014, i liked what you said about stories. You're totally right. Stories aren't as good as they should be.
Maybe that's the reason it's so hard to make games with the "bad" guys winning.
You talked about a game that in which the player does everything right and still "looses". I've played a game like that, although I don't remember what it was. There was someone attacking you, and you kept on getting pushed back. But in the end, I still won, so it doesn't count... ^^
I guess all the games where you're "bad" either don't give you a story to it or don't give a choice of action, or else they make the being "bad" right. Like Prince Arthus or whatever his name is, in Warcraft 3. He gets turned bad while trying to save the world from evil.
Micha
~"I never let school interfere with my education"~
-Mark Twain
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