Comment on Gaming Pet Peeves
gcheliotis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I’d prefer text over audio, so long as I can skip the text when I am done reading. (Grr argh to the games that have both, but won’t let me skip because the NPC isn’t done speaking.)
Being able to choose either as the primary information delivery would be fantastic.
True, reading is faster. Narrating I find more pleasant, more engaging if done well. But that’s personal opinion. So having an option would be great. And yes to making dialogues or narration skippable. I think most games do that nowadays. To be honest, if I am really immersed and interested and the voice acting is top notch I may not skip at all. But that should be left to the player to decide.
I like the way bioshock did it
I like the way bioshock did a lot of things (1 & 2, anyways)
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.
gcheliotis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I get it, but I like having the option of having a voice actor narrate the text to me rather than having to read everything. Especially as I mostly game on a TV that was not meant for reading.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Audio processing disorder (AuADHD) so being narrated at is pretty much white noise for me; so can’t relate.
gcheliotis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Huh, never heard of this before. Does it affect music perception too?