Video games & imagination

A speculative question today.

Surahbi writes to ask:

“Some video games are more complex and thoughtful, and they can even prompt new writing ideas. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, as an aspiring author, and I think I’d give some games a try just in case they give me plot or vibe ideas. Wondering what you think about that.”

I think the more space that a video game leaves for the imagination, the more plot or vibe ideas it will generate.

What do I mean by that?

Some games wouldn’t work well for that kind of thing. Something like THE LAST OF US or another very heavily narrative-driven game probably would not generate much in the way of plot ideas.

However, something like CIVILIZATION or MASTER OF ORION or a similar strategy game would generate more plot ideas, because your mind will construct a story out of the actions you take in the game. Like, THE LAST OF US or BALDUR’S GATE 3 has a story, though it’s more interactive than a movie. By contrast, a random or procedurally generated game might generate more plot ideas because your mind is constructing a story out of the random events of the game.

For example, in the fantasy tactical sim BATTLE BROTHERS, you play as the commander of a mercenary company making your way through a fantasy world, and the game world is randomly generated with each playthrough, with a plethora of random events. With your imagination, you could construct an entire epic around the random events of the game.

There are non-game products that have something of the same idea – like a deck of cards with different plot ideas, and you draw out the cards at random to build a plot.

But, as ever, it depends on how your particular imagination works.

That said, I still think execution of the idea is often more important than the idea itself. Like, the most popular plot in books is “good woman meets good man, complications prevent them from having a relationship, but they work through said complications in the end”, and that same core story has been retold millions of times. It’s the execution of the plot that matters more than the actual idea itself.

We’ve all read books that had interesting concepts and failed to deliver on them. All you really need to tell a story is a character, a situation, and a conflict for that character. The ideas are easy – writing them down in an interesting way is the hard part!

-JM