How important do you think a narrator is?

[Valiento]

Even Roberta in the end thought narrators were pointless and took from the player's ability to become the character. That was one of her reasons for removing them in her later games. I can't remember any games by her that had narrators in her KQ7, Phantasmagoria, and KQ8 years.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Valiento

Even Roberta in the end thought narrators were pointless and took from the player's ability to become the character. That was one of her reasons for removing them in her later games. I can't remember any games by her that had narrators in her KQ7, Phantasmagoria, and KQ8 years.

Yeah, but there is such a thing as over-developing a work of art. Sierra hit on a winning formula with KQ5, refined it a bit with KQ6, and then decided to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of keeping true to their "experimenting with the latest tech" roots. And then the series took a major dump and never recovered. The end. Roberta didn't know how to quit while she was ahead. Yet another reason why contacting Roberta was such an empty gesture.

[thesporkman]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

Yes, but in the KQ6 intro the cinematic ends with the ship sinking underwater and the game title comes up. Once gameplay starts you wake up on a beach during the day with no idea how you got there or what's going on. That's different from say a cinematic which would show the transition of Alex washing up on shore and ending on a camera angle where the plank is to make the person look there as a point of interest. And even in KQ5, the introduction cinematic is fairly explanatory of what you must accomplish by the end of the game, but it doesn't tell you how to get there at all. You're basically on your own to figure out how to get past the snake, which is half the game right there!

Right. I wasn't arguing that there should be a lot of cinematics and exposition in a King's Quest game, I was just pointing out that what exposition there is usually comes from a dialogue-driven cinematic rather than narration. The narrator's job in a King's Quest game is to describe the game world and events as they take place during the gameplay, not to provide the backstory.

[thom-22]

Originally Posted by thesporkman

Right. I wasn't arguing that there should be a lot of cinematics and exposition in a King's Quest game, I was just pointing out that what exposition there is usually comes from a dialogue-driven cinematic rather than narration. The narrator's job in a King's Quest game is to describe the game world and events as they take place during the gameplay, not to provide the backstory.

Yeah, that's the way Sierra did it. Part of my point was that Telltale might not do it the same way. If they're not going to give us many points of interaction or the game-world and event descriptions that go along with them -- ie. if the game is like all their others with the single mode of interaction -- then I could see Telltale still keeping the narrator but giving him/her a different "job". I'm not saying that's a good thing, believe me. Just that I could see it going that way.

[Irishmile]

I can see where late sierra and ttg would say well the art is clear enough to not have to narrate everything because you can see it for yourself clear as day... But I like the narrator it adds the the playing a storybook vibe.

Also I never felt like WAS the kq character I always felt more like I was helping the character in a great story.... I do not need to feel like its me there.. Otherwise it would be a first person game.

I say make the effort get someone great with range to narrate I'm looking at you kid beyond.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Irishmile

I can see where late sierra and ttg would say well the art is clear enough to not have to narrate everything because you can see it for yourself clear as day... But I like the narrator it adds the the playing a storybook vibe.

Also I never felt like WAS the kq character I always felt more like I was helping the character in a great story.... I do not need to feel like its me there.. Otherwise it would be a first person game.

I say make the effort get someone great with range to narrate I'm looking at you kid beyond.

This is exactly why I never bought that "narrations destroy your immersion in the character" garbage. Sierra tried to make that argument, and I never bought it then either. Sierra failed to understand that narrations are a design choice, and they have pros and cons just like any other design choice. They treated narrations like baggage to be dumped when they made KQ7. Good narrations make the game feel like a storybook being read to you, which is precisely the right fit for a fairytale series like KQ. Heck, Sierra even made the design choice to change the narration style from first person to third person voice in KQ5 and 6. There is no other reason to make that change unless you are shooting for the storybook feel.

[DAISHI]

I do think the narration adds a certain charm. I think that when you start taking elements like that out of KQ you start to take away things that made it unique.

[Pocketim]

Hm, tough question. While I never thought too much of the King's Quest narrator, I LOVED the Space Quest IV narrator, as I felt it added to the over-the-top cheesy sci-fi movie atmosphere that made me love the game. With that in mind, I can see how the narrator in King's Quest could give this sort of vibe of a storyteller reading a fairytale to a child, or something along the line of that, that could add to the atmosphere. So I guess a narrator is kind of important.

As for multiple icons, once again, hard for me to say. I wasn't a big fan of cycling through the icons in Kings Quest or Space Quest. It just felt a bit tedious having to cycle through several useless commands (seriously, how many times did you have to use the smell feature? Though some funny lines did come out of it) to find the one you want. I loved the system LucasArts used in Full Throttle though, when the icons came up after holding down the mouse button and you could quickly select what you wanted to do. I also liked typing what I wanted my character to do in the early Kings/Space Quest games, but that was hampered by the limited vocabulary of the games. Once again though, I'll say it would be more good than bad.

[thom-22]

Originally Posted by Pocketim

I loved the system LucasArts used in Full Throttle though, when the icons came up after holding down the mouse button and you could quickly select what you wanted to do.

This is what became the "verb coin" I mentioned above, because the pop-up looked like a coin in the later Curse of Monkey Island. I liked that FT/CoMI interface mechanism, too. (But I never really disliked any of the various means for choosing among verbs, the important thing was having multiple verbs in the first place.)

[jonasaa]

I think a narrator is important, but it should rather underline the story than become an entire character of its own. I am not entirely sure I enjoy the immense narration that takes place in TSL, but its great they chose a woman to narrate. I think the lady who plays the computer's voice in Star Trek Voyager would be fantastic for the official installment in the KQ series!

[MusicallyInspired]

That lady is Majel Barret and she did the computer voice for most of TOS and all Star Treks that came after that. She also was Gene Roddenberry's wife (creator of Star Trek). She's also dead.

[BagginsKQ]

TSL's narrator has more in common with space quest than KQ, Graham and the narrator even talk to each other... Way to much 4th wall breaking stuff.

But it was worse than SQ because she drones on and on, nagging and nattering, at times insulting or condescending to the player (narrator in SQ usually just insulted Roger), and tries too hard to be funny. Gary Owens actually is funny. It all just comes off feeling forced.

[MusicallyInspired]

TSL's narrating is definitely out of place. And over-explanatory. Nothing like KQ. And like you said, the humour doesn't even measure up to SQ. But it's just a fangame.

[jonasaa]

I feel bad for recommending a dead lady to be the narrator now. How about Betty White?

[gamingafter40]

I always felt like the extensive narration in the CD-ROM KQ games was a leftover from the text adventure days, when the player had to EXAMINE every object available looking for clues. There were no visual or audio cues, and as the games were strictly text and turn-based there were no animation timing hints either. So any identifiable object would have a description written for it.

In the case of KQ V, it was pretty obvious that the text was written for popup windows and felt (IMO) longwinded when read aloud. The streamlining that has occurred in this area is welcome, in my book.

And I agree with those who felt narration was distancing once we entered the "talkie" era. I'd rather have the character give me his or her impressions firsthand, from the character's own perspective at this point in the story, than some mostly-omnisicient but occasionally oddly-limited narrator. I write for radio once in a while and I always have to remind myself, "Don't TELL the listener what's going on too much -- whenever possible, find a way to communicate through sound effects and dialogue."

[leon101]

I don't think the multiple interactions are needed, if there are other good qualities. like fun puzzles, or multiple endings. A narrator would be cool, but once again, not really needed.

[techie775]

Don't forget about Leisure Suit Larry 6 & 7. The narrator in those games gave description and mocked Larry as well. I really enjoyed the narrator in Love for Sail

[Irishmile]

Yeah the narrator in the Larry games provide opportunities to tell a joke that wouldn't make sense for the characters on screen to say...

[BagginsKQ]

I'd argue that the narrator in early KQ games was there to give the games more of the 'storybook' feel. If you read most fairytale, and the narrator is the one that tells you the story, and gives you background details related to characters, events and places...

If you remember KQ is inspired by the fairy tale storybook it makes absolute sense to have teh narrator in there for that reason. As long as it doens't get too long winded. It gives the game 'style' and a 'feel'. Something it kinda of lost in KQ7, and KQ8.

[gamingafter40]

I think narration works best when it truly is narration -- setting up the story, or covering a transition handled offscreen, written and delivered as if by a storyteller (the Voodoo Lady in some chapters of TOMI handles this role nicely.) It can be very effective for framing an epic tale.

What I disliked was having an audible narrator describe objects visible onscreen -- these popup blurbs never felt like they flowed when read aloud, and they were usually much quicker to scan in text form. "An old lamp hangs on the line." "Another old lamp waits for a customer." "This old lamp is a fine-looking antique." "A rusty lamp looks just heavy enough to KILL ME NOW."

A lot of incidental details that a proper story would edit out or summarize were dragged kicking and screaming into the audiovisual era in KQ V and VI.