“Melodrama” within video games

Today I was reading these articles about “Melodrama” storytelling type within video games and how most all games use this style tell it’s story; I found this really interesting topic as I’ve never really thought about games storytelling style because he comes to a topic like this I always think about how to tell certain stories/themes through a gameplay style (mechanics/game design ideals). Here are the two links and I truly recommend reading these two articles they opened up my mind to some new knowledge about storytelling and how “Melodrama” is used in games.

http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/06/we-do-melodrama.html

http://www.educationarcade.org/SiDA/melodrama

Here I quote from Brainygamer article describing what “Melodrama” is:

“Melodrama: the triumph of moral virtue over villainy, and the consequent idealizing of the moral views assumed to be held by the audience." --Northrup Frye

Melodrama teaches, consoles, punishes and rewards; it submits the phenomena of life and human conduct to the immutable laws of justice and offers reflections upon men's actions and feelings." --Henry Jenkins

“Melodrama” is the ideal story type for games reflecting human emotions/conditions in exaggerated idealize form where the player is empowered or rewarded for their actions of moral justification/honor of fighting evil within a typical game story archetype of good vs evil. This story style gives the player motive and purpose to work/build towards something; this player’s mindset/focus is most commonly required and encouraged within RPGs with predictable and empowering progressive experience becoming from “Zero” to “Hero” story formula. This story formula is also often used towards gameplay structure/pace and scenario planning for diversity within side scrolling platform/adventure games like “Castlevania” series and “Metroid” series. These titles have a “Melodrama” inspired structure where the beginning of the game, the player is a “hero” that has all superpowers/weapons then the player loses these weapons becoming a “zero” and the rest of the game, the player has to gain back all these weapons to become “hero” again to reach the end of the game. This is clever way to create emotional connection with player via progression of empowerment and motive to gain these items back. What this structure also achieves (which I think is most clever part of this design structure) is player’s previous experience of all weapons provides the player with clues/suggests to overcome puzzles/obstacles as the player is aware what weapon/power may be needed for solution or what can be used instead for similar result adding extra depth to the navigation of the levels as well as the gameplay.

This aspect of “Melodrama” influencing or apart of game’s structure is linked to my previous post about “Mise en scene” (which is amazingly odd timing considering I wrote “Mise en scene” a few days ago) in games or as I may call it “Pattern en scene” in this case, where “Melodrama” is story style within games that requires the elements of push and pull, positive and negative, “hero” and “zero” you get the idea. To achieve this “Mise en scene” is required to allow the build up to manipulate the player’s emotions between sections of the game for the element of push and pull to work. “Melodrama” needs “Mise en scene” and “Mise en scene” needs “Melodrama”.

This certainly explains why this is such popular story type within games and it’s going to be interesting to see how designers use this thinking in the future to expand storytelling using different styles, themes and moods.

Written by: Jonesy

Do Video games use “Mise-en-scène” like films? What is “Mise-en-scène” for video games?

I will begin this topic by analysing “Mise en scene” within films. For films good “mise en scene” suggests hidden depth within the story and metaphor from all aspects placed within the camera shots. The best example of “Mise-en-scene” is the final scene of the “The good, the bad and the ugly” which in my opinion is one of the best films ever made. Here is the clip of the final scene of “The good, the bad and the ugly” if you have the time to watch, as it is quite long but it’s so beautifully shot and paced:

Even if you haven’t seen the film and you don’t know the overall story. From this scene alone you can figure out small fractions of story/narrative from the suggestive filmic language with the close ups of their faces creating tension and the way they walk slowly and cautiously far apart within the circle from these shots telling the viewer a lot about the story and the characters. The viewer can see obviously these three cowboys are enemies with nothing to lose who are about kill each other within a quiet graveyard in no man’s land and they are all after something with great greed, the viewer can discover all that and that’s all you need to know to follow the story anyway. That’s creativity defined film making with a good use of “mise en scene” using engaging and suggestive filmic language and editing adding so much depth to otherwise uneventful gunfight with only one “Bang”. You are probably wondering how this has anything to do with games, as games don’t include such aspects of editing or filmic language in them although I believe games actually do to a certain extent with a different approach on this subject.

More or less every 3D game has a form of “mise en scene” especially within adventure/action games with fixed camera positions (player has no control over the camera) with games like the old “Resident evil” games, “God of war” games and “Alone in the dark” games, etc. Each section of theses games are choreographed with a precise camera angles with carefully placed objects/scenery to create a certain mood/situation to try to psychically manipulate the player’s actions (what the player does)/feelings. A good example of this would be near the beginning of the first “Resident Evil” game, walking down the corridor with big windows which teases the player that something will jump out through those windows at any second, as the player knows it will happen but when will it? It isn’t just the fact that the windows are placed as a main focus within camera shot but how the camera shot is angled in a way which makes the corridor feel empty and claustrophobic making the location feel lifeless and spooky adding to build up of predictable set piece piece . That is how the emotion of tension/fear is built within the player; designers have manipulated the player’s feelings. You could argue that the “Resident Evil” games has to have controlled precise fixed camera angles to have strong “mise en scene” or for it to be frightening like a film, (filmic language and editing as the player walks around the level cutting to different camera angles) yeah sure I agree it’s a certain factor that adds to the game but other games have strong “mise en scene” without the use of fixed camera angles like 3D Zelda games.

“Mise en scene” within games is more like psychology/maths than artistic aspiration as the designers have to enter the psyche of the player to figure out if the player is able to logically understand where to go/what to do within a given section of the game without causing the player to be confused or bored due to the lack of logical reasoning to the player’s mindset. Ok, sure this is real pea and carrot design stuff for a designer which can be defined via play testing/QA testing sections, but the designer needs to decide what “mindset” the player needs to be in, in order to complete this particular section designed by having previous sections to prepare the player psychotically for this particular section. For example, In Zelda, the player is always aware that he/she heading towards a boss fight via the “Mise en scene” mentally preparing the player for big battle via using the big key on the big door, etc but without this boss build up section of the game, the player may feel alienated/confused if boss just popped out of nowhere due to the actual “mindset” required to do a such task may be too extreme/diverse from previous section. In a way, this is pacing gameplay with psychology which you could see as “editing” and “storyboarding” in regards of “mise en scene” from films which is why I think they are similar in both mediums but yet very different.

Puzzles are sections of games that really benefit from “mise en scene” as there are many factors designers have to consider such as placement of objects/ clues for suggesting solutions, ways of the player to do the puzzle, etc. This is where the designer has to decide on the difficultly of the puzzle and how players sees the puzzle as I think the best puzzles in games are simple and obvious but yet easily overlooked as you are busy looking elsewhere when the solution is staring right at you. The challenge is the balancing with making the puzzle logical but at the same time not illogically leading to frustration or feel cheated by the puzzle that doesn't make sense, understanding “mise en scene” is a strong factor to creating puzzles as they are about making the player see/look at something differently or out of box thinking, a challenge with reward of discovery.

Well designed games always keep things varied and continuously make the player guess what’s going to happen next although this is ideal aim for any designer but it’s very tricky to achieve such a goal. Recently I’ve started reading a book called “Theory of fun for game design” written by Raph Koster and I recommend reading it for any games designer trainees like myself as it gives a solid insight about psychology about why we play games. In a nutshell, he says we (our brains) constantly demand to take in new patterns of information (learning) and games give us continuous amount of patterns (which is why we as humans all play games in some form) and once you learn a pattern, our brain becomes bored of that, and demand a new pattern, although if that appears as noise/messy, our brain refuses to understand it and becomes bored again. Solid games have to remain varied but not too adventurous/ experimental that players become confused and bored.

I’m explained enough about what “Mise en scene” is within video games but what defines good “mise en scene” within games? well I remember reading this interview from Shigeru Miyamoto a few years back where he said something along the lines of that when he designs his games, he imagines the player’s face as he/she plays each section of the game to define good and bad parts of the game with sad and happy emotions. That’s what I think is good “Mise en scene” is basically controlling and understanding the player’s feelings throughout the game.

In time, there will be different term for this type of “Mise en scene” as its pretty different from film “Mise en scene”. It will become a more apparent thinking attitude/process within the industry as more game designers develop this ideology as I feel its something that is often overlooked and sadly is lacking from the titles that need it the most for a success. If you look at all best games ever made they all contain solid understanding of this term. Who knows? Maybe I should invent a term for it and call it “pattern en scene” and write a book on it.

Written by: Jonesy