Mini - Review, Consortium

It isn’t often that you’re framed within the confines of your computer, within the fact that the game you’re playing is just a game, and that the events that you perform can be done over and over with different consequences happening each time. Consortium is exactly that game, taking a good look at what it means to be a game in 2014, or rather what it means to be playing an alternative dimensional, multi-fractural event via satellite, or at least that’s what the game sets it up as.

It’s unassuming and confident in what it is. A Canadian developed, Kickstarter funded, choice smorgasbord, with funny dialogue options, and somewhat poor shooting sections. But you know what?

It didn’t patronise me, it didn’t turn snarky at all, it went through all the various computations no matter what zany ideas I had planned. It held mystery, it held game lore, it held interesting dialogue that made me want to look up half forgotten films and crime pulp fiction.

And it achieved what the Stanley Parable achieved, a twisting turning plot that pushed you from one set of events to another, made you question your role, your ethical choices in this fictious world, and time and time again would prove to be self-aware, and fun.

To run through the game’s plot quickly (which is not at all recommended), you take control (literally) of Bishop 6 on a high tech plane, in one of many multi-verses and... interact with the crew. At a glance that's the entire premise of the game. Except as you start playing and mucking about it isn’t, you find out that you're imposing your will onto Bishop 6 as some sort of foreign entity, that there’s a spy on board the plane,  a conspiracy (maybe),  terrorist jets flying dangerously close to your port hole and pages upon pages of information to flesh out the world. In short a lot of content in a tiny area (think Gone Home but with people!).

Talking to characters feels like a dangerous game as topics get closer and closer to the fourth wall until they eventually break through. And when it does… the game keeps going. It’s as though the developers had thought of how you could possibly break the game, over and over, and then decided to account for all the possibilities they could think of. The result? A fresh game with every play through.

It’s fun, it’s crazy, it challenges the way you think about playing games- the closest thing I can think of would be The Last Express in terms of the closed system that exists while playing a narrative based game.

It gives that freedom to play in a different way and rewards you for it, giving out more and more in-game lore till you stumble across a different mystery. And unlike Stanley Parable it doesn’t try to make you feel bad for trying different things – at least in the way the dialogue is delivered. I’d love to say more about Consortium, but the game is meant to be explored. Giving too much away ruins the experience (at least from my perspective of just hearing that it’s a good game, and then discovering a whole lot more).

There’s only two ways that you could really fault the game, the clunky combat sections, which while interesting aren’t really fun (though they do provide for some different choices/results in the narrative), and the short length of the game. Both of these faults are completely understandable in terms of focusing on the positives. The combat can be seen as not a major part of the game (it’s nothing spectacular), but allows for the player to experience things differently, but also gives a sort of "fail state" to what would otherwise be a safe game. The length of the game is due to the width of content available - understanding everything that occurs within the game requires a lot of replays, as events will occur at the same time (two important conversations at once, much like The Last Express). While if the player's goal is simply to get to the end of the game the narrative will definitely not be long enough, however if the player (like me) is interested in exploring the world and characters and unresolved story arcs then there's definitely enough content to explore and "Work through" (good ol ergodic literature). Case in point, you can spend hours seeking out data entries.  

If anything an apt comparison would be The Last Express, although not as dynamic as Consortium, The Last Express manages to incorporate an adaptive AI that would move around the train carriages, taking into account the player’s actions and location to incorporate it into the plot – making different play throughs interesting to say the least. It’s interesting, as well, to compare to The Stanley Parable as well, since the themes of choice and metagame/metanarrative constructions is explored within that game as well. Except in a not as much a fun way, you're constantly butting your head against the fourth wall, as opposed to it being integrated into the plot (as it is done in Consortium)

In this comparison it seems easy to place The Stanley Parable as snarky and self-righteous in the way that it presents itself, waving  philosophical waxing all over the audience in a disparaging manner. Although both games wish to point to the set nature of plots and the limits of video games, it felt for me that The Stanley Parable went further to alienate audiences (or rather me) with its arrogance, irritating with it's pompous the voice acting, and slowly but surely ending with players eventually stopping their play. Which may or may not be a satisfactory ending depending on the player. 

So yeah, a pretty fun game, that I'll try to compare more with The Last Express, and other games that seem to take in their stride the constraints of videogames (I'm looking at you Outcast).

Fate, Agency and narrative

I was having a discussion with my supervisor (as one is prone to do at university), and the discussion of agency, as inevitably happens in games discussion came up, but it came up with a twist in regards to Life is Strange.

Although not made explicit Life is Strange is one of those games which lets the player run along with their choices, or the twoing and froing that can occur within a videogame. Much like the rewind power in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Life is Strange uses time mechanics to go and provide players with an in-game mechanic. Although while PoP uses it in conjunction with it's in-fighting, to provide that perfect fight, Life is Strange does the same thing, but instead of it dictating whether or not a sword thrust made it to your belly, it instead allows players more room to see the consequences of their actions, an in-game version of reloading and saving their game.

Although the game manages to game this system (in that decisions don't have their long term consequences revealed until an episode or two later), it does raise an interesting application for allowing audiences to play with choice. Although in other video games (Telltale Games in particular stand out), consequences of choices may not be abundantly clear prior to a player making them (indicating if it were the sequence of events), most players choose to make a decision, before reloading and choosing another option - indeed if the post game percentage of player is an indicator, players post completing a game will replay the game to have the "best" choice made available. Life is Strange manages to give players enough of ownership in their choices in order to see it through - but furthermore, the game makes staying with these choices crucially part of the narrative.

The plot points build upon set narrative pieces, as well as specific actions done by the player enough so that the player's effect is felt and then reflected in the plot on screen - or at least enough to grab the player's attention (see illusionary agency). Players get a chance to see all the possible choices in each section before moving on (with the rewind time function) and as a result of that their choices have a bigger impact. Purely because the game has given it's audience more of a moment to settle in with their choice, to own it instead of brushing ahead with the immediate reactions to it. Well, that's at least one part of it, the other would be the constant references back to the decisions made, and the internal dialogue that plays out in terms of referencing. This includes not only the immediate reaction, but also later consequences that occur two or three episodes later. Decisions have a staying power that seems to make a big impact in the world - that's not to mention the great use of supporting characters who both react to your actions, but also have their own lives that you can glimpse into. Although not necessary for the plot (at least in some cases), it definitely makes for a much more liveable world that has the scope for exploration. All this stuff is what I'd like to plot for my thesis, or failing that start talking about in papers (something about metalepsis).

Indeed in the latest episode Chaos Theory, in the conclusion, the effects of trying to alter too much are shown (addressing some of the concerns of the game's audience), resulting in a bizarro alternative world where there's a limited frame of reference to any of the events in the previous episodes. Here the effects of a conscientious player trying for the "best game," can be revealed, as like Max their meddling can break the world. Although the player's power isn't omnipotent, it is considerable enough to break the world. And in the same way that Max breaks her world through altering something, considered to be unalterable, the game gives players a hint about their rewinding/saving-loading power, it's a powerful thing, but it can be abused. This is probably reading way too much into the video game, but it is an interesting message that ties in well with the mechanics of the game, as well as the game narrative - it's a really interesting piece of work.

Further with this choice of player choice, is the option to read the world and the choices present in a  Nichomachean Ethics/Virtue Ethics, kind of way. In that, for the game and the player, keeping a consistent idea of a character, that is to say making sure not to deviate outside of what the character might do, the most "true," game can be had by the player. This is somewhat helped by the themes within the story of trying to consistently change fate, in line with what the main character Max believes to be best - I mean most people would try to do just that given the power to rewind time. However it really does seem that in being, at the very least consistent (as is the case for most RPG games) seems to be the most rewarding in-game as it provides a much more logical narrative than one that jumps around with character development. Though that being said, most games/narratives do rely on their main character having a consistent character which leads to personal discovery, rather than an ambivalent sense of self, or virtue. In either case keeping consistent seems to be the key to having a good narrative, or narrative experience.

Anyhow, that's my 10 cents worth of blogging for today, though I will say that the game is an interesting one to study, as it provides a lot of different mechanics and narratives in interesting combinations. Including disempowering it's players at a crucial junction - raising the dramatic stakes of the narrative, through the loss of controls (literally and figuratively). Though that's a discussion for another time.

Other thoughts would be to draw parallels from Life is Strange, and having a comparison with the Witcher 3 of the characterisation of the world, or the way that characters interact with each other (as opposed of solely with the player). There's some other games that do this well (I think Psychonaughts is up there), but these are the most recent that work with this notion of having other characters progressing in the same world as the player (or at least giving a good simulation of it). At least in a storytelling game.