I'm sure we've all been there: The very few, sometimes only one video game you've played in your life that you're certain nobody else knows about. Enjoyable games, great games! But alas, if only the world knew of them! Their distance from the beaten path goes beyond the moniker of "indie". These games have been lost to the obscurity of a tough market, only to be remembered by I and you. And was there not something about these games: a spark that has died out in our modern-day Role-Playing Shooters and Customization-Whoring games? I intend to take flint and tinder to those ashes and strike forth that spark once more. (Excuse the combustion metaphor) I think this is a proper medium for me to tell the unsung tale of a game very near and dear to my heart. And I encourage that you do likewise.
Un-rip your calendars back to the year 1995; years after the dawn of modern PC gaming as we knew it. A software company called Cyberflix releases a game unto the world called Dust: A Tale of the Wired West. The game begins in an Old West setting, year 1882, in a dusty saloon. Two men are sitting at a table playing 5-card draw. One is the infamous Kid, the other is the main character, referred to only as the Stranger. We can tell they have been at it for a while. The Kid wins another hand, with four aces and a king. But a saloon girl notices he had an ace up his sleeve. "The Kid's been cheatin' all along!" she exclaims. The stranger brandishes a knife and pegs the Kid's hand to the table. Before the Kid can draw his gun and fire, the Stranger flips the table, and dashes out the swinging doors.
We see a few screens of the Stranger walking the desolate New Mexico desert, with a narrator explaining his dire situation. No gun, no friends, and only five bucks to his name. The Stranger finally moseys up to a tiny town by the name of Diamondback, no more than a dozen buildings, but enough to save the Stranger from heat and thirst.
The gameplay is point and click, with several puzzles and mini-games as is expected with the genre, along with a target range and two shootout sequences. But what truly captivates the player is the plot and characters, not the gameplay itself. Today's gaming industry is tragically backwards from this formula.
The interactive characters have unique personalities, and through a bit of digging, you will unveil that some of them have secret agendas. The friendlier people turn out to be the conniving, scheming ones. As the plot unfolds, the player really begins to care for the little town. When you help close the gap between one of your dear friends and his fiancee, you don't just do it to see what comes next. You do it because these characters have grown on you. When you decide on one of the five ways to resolve your story after claiming the spoils of the adventure, you may be compelled to do it with the characters who have impacted you the most. You could play through a second time and feel completely different about your decision just by taking a different perspective on the events of the tale. Whichever way you slice it, in the end, you learn about your own origins by helping others.
The reason I have brought forward this game is because I feel that this vital aspect of gaming has fled the industry. The powerful development of characters, the meaningful advancement of plot, and the attachment to the people and their plea.
Am I wrong, readers? Is it not the developers, but the audience who have changed? Are we just too callous to relate to the people they present us? Or is it high time that we trade our programmers for writers and breathe life into the narratives that our games thrust upon us?
Un-rip your calendars back to the year 1995; years after the dawn of modern PC gaming as we knew it. A software company called Cyberflix releases a game unto the world called Dust: A Tale of the Wired West. The game begins in an Old West setting, year 1882, in a dusty saloon. Two men are sitting at a table playing 5-card draw. One is the infamous Kid, the other is the main character, referred to only as the Stranger. We can tell they have been at it for a while. The Kid wins another hand, with four aces and a king. But a saloon girl notices he had an ace up his sleeve. "The Kid's been cheatin' all along!" she exclaims. The stranger brandishes a knife and pegs the Kid's hand to the table. Before the Kid can draw his gun and fire, the Stranger flips the table, and dashes out the swinging doors.
We see a few screens of the Stranger walking the desolate New Mexico desert, with a narrator explaining his dire situation. No gun, no friends, and only five bucks to his name. The Stranger finally moseys up to a tiny town by the name of Diamondback, no more than a dozen buildings, but enough to save the Stranger from heat and thirst.
The gameplay is point and click, with several puzzles and mini-games as is expected with the genre, along with a target range and two shootout sequences. But what truly captivates the player is the plot and characters, not the gameplay itself. Today's gaming industry is tragically backwards from this formula.
The interactive characters have unique personalities, and through a bit of digging, you will unveil that some of them have secret agendas. The friendlier people turn out to be the conniving, scheming ones. As the plot unfolds, the player really begins to care for the little town. When you help close the gap between one of your dear friends and his fiancee, you don't just do it to see what comes next. You do it because these characters have grown on you. When you decide on one of the five ways to resolve your story after claiming the spoils of the adventure, you may be compelled to do it with the characters who have impacted you the most. You could play through a second time and feel completely different about your decision just by taking a different perspective on the events of the tale. Whichever way you slice it, in the end, you learn about your own origins by helping others.
The reason I have brought forward this game is because I feel that this vital aspect of gaming has fled the industry. The powerful development of characters, the meaningful advancement of plot, and the attachment to the people and their plea.
Am I wrong, readers? Is it not the developers, but the audience who have changed? Are we just too callous to relate to the people they present us? Or is it high time that we trade our programmers for writers and breathe life into the narratives that our games thrust upon us?
