JON INGOLD
Narrative Engine
Write it like you stole it
So I played a game today – a charming indie affair with lush character designs and gorgeous animation. Characters were going through dramas and tight situations articulated in a low-key style, but it was always OK because every time something difficult was raised, the other characters were just really, really nice about it. Everyone was understanding and, honestly? Pretty cool. Certain individuals were confused, yes, but their social group never piled on the pressure. It was a supportive, warm and wholesome environment. I hated it. can understand the desire to create games like this – ‘cosy narratives’, if you will: our real world can be a bleak place full of undeserved suffering and intractable problems. We’ve seen in the past decade how callous the powerful are, and how much fawning their callousness generates. The systems that are meant to keep us safe seem to fail more than they succeed. For young people, the economic outlook in the short term seems as dark as the environmental one is in the medium. We don’t need fiction to show us the worst of humanity because he keeps standing for re-election. Why wouldn’t you want to retreat to a world where the baddies give up quickly, or maybe don’t even exist at all?