October 31, 2009 Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts October’s ’09 Round Table Entry – Denouement: The Gameplay Slowdown Designer Denouements How can the denouement be incorporated into gameplay? In literary forms, it is most often the events that take place after the plot’s climax that form your lasting opinion of the story. A well-constructed denouement acts almost as a payoff, where protagonists and antagonists alike realize and adjust to the consequences of their actions. Serial media often ignored the denouement in favor of the cliffhanger, in order to entice viewers to return. | more
July 12, 2009 Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts Here was the Plan, Here is the Plan I haven't posted anything for almost a month. This is not due to lack of trying. My original plan was to finish up the last of my Beyond Good and Evil related posts now taking a total of 3 month of my life to complete while the game took me less than two weeks. (Writing that post is like pulling teeth.) | more
February 24, 2009 Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts What is Video Game Completion? In the gamer scheme of things I am a freak of nature. I finish nearly every game I buy. Weird right? The fact of the matter is that most narrative based games are not completed. It was considered an enormous success by the developers of Bioshock that 50% of those who played it reached the end. Even the Half-Life 2 episodes, which are only about 6 hours long and have extremely friendly level design aren't finished more that that. | more
