Silly/not serious or Serious Stories

[Mr. Mayhem]

Prefer Silly/not serious or Serious Stories?

 

[polywog]

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[Saki_Sliz]

I would say that many here try for serious or well writen works, I would say that half the projects/games we see posted on here tend to be 50/50 split on the subject. I myself might prefer... cartoonish or exaggerated storytelling, but I am still exploring the concept to see what would qualify and what aspect defines a more stylized form of writing. Silly writing tends to show up more with cartoonish writing, but a balanced must be met, a balance that I don't think is yet defined or well explored yet.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I would say that many here try for serious or well writen works, [...]

I have to disagree with your opposition between cartoonish and well wrote story

In fact, the more the game is cartoonish, the more the writing have to be good for the game to be really enjoyable. Which lead, in the end, of the majority of cartoonish games being cartoonish against the will of their author. They wanted to write seriously, but the dialogs are so stupid, the pace ridiculous, and the CG so much incoherent with what we read, that they can't be seen otherwise than as a cartoon.

Take The DeLuca Family (again) by example. It's a serious story. Against his will, the MC works for a mafia family, Luna's past is dark as hell, there's blood and violence ; the death count of the game is at the level of a RPG game. But who can seriously imagine that one of the Capo of a mafia family can be a girl who apparently never quit her rollers, and dance people to death ? Who can seriously imagine that, in the middle of a rescue mission to save the two daughters of the boss, two of the higher ranked will fight together ?
All the members of the family are a cartoon, yet the story is also a serious one, and a really well wrote one.
To a lesser extent, there's also Heavy Five. The story go more on the "pure serious" side, but like the MC say, more than once, while he get to know the crew of the Vanguard, "they are all crazy".
It's easier to write correctly a serious story, than a cartoonish one, because the second need way more subtlety. As crazy and cartoonish as they are, the characters and situations have to stay believable, and their craziness have to be coherent with the story. Which is a really difficult exercise.

Everyone can write a serious story, it just need to stay serious and strict. But to correctly write a cartoonish story, you've to let your imagination go wild, while you still take all this extremely seriously. Your brain constantly do the spits between the two sides, and have to never mess by inverting the roles.
Whatever how crazy your imagination goes (like the said Capo and her rollers, by example), when you'll start writing the scene (which isn't limited to the dialog, but also to the pace of the scene and the building of the CG), it's finish, you've to be serious, totally serious.
And, trust me, doing seriously things that are totally crazy, is far to be something easy. Your aren't seriously crazy, nor serious to craziness, you are serious and crazy in the same time.

Silly writing tends to show up more with cartoonish writing, but a balanced must be met, a balance that I don't think is yet defined or well explored yet.

The balance isn't this difficult to define :

• A serious story/game is serious, point. It's the easiest one to define. The story is serious, the writing is serious, even the UI is serious. If you turn back the game, you'll see "Made In Germany" on its back side.
• A poor/cheap story/game is "nothing", in that you can't take it seriously, but you also can't take it "not seriously". One morning, the author had an idea, one month later the first update was released, and it haven't stopped since.
• A cartoonish story/game, is seriously crazy (see above). The story is purely believable and coherent, but the situations and characters can't be take seriously. Take any Tex Avery cartoon by example. Once you've accepted the animorph part of the universe, it's serious stories. But how can you take seriously Vil Coyote (not sure that it's his English name), when you see how crazy are his plans to catch the road runner ? "The easier it is, the better it will be", do not apply on a cartoonish universe. Back to miss roller, she would be hundreds time more efficient with a gun, that with her rollers and blades.
• And finally there's the "not serious" story/games. They aren't cartoonish, they can't because they are just full of none sense, but they are voluntarily full of it. Right from the start, the story/game isn't something that will be serious and that you'll have to take seriously.

In the end, every single story/game stand somewhere in this scale. But more than a straight line, it's more a 2D graph, with seriousness as X axes, and craziness as Y one.
A serious game being above 75% seriousness, and below 25% craziness, a cartoonish game being above 75% seriousness as well as above 75% craziness, and a "not serious" one being below 25% seriousness and above 75% craziness. The "poor/cheap" ones being above both 25% seriousness and 25% craziness.
And the void is filled by games who "tried to be".

Edit: To clarify a little the "graph reading".

 

[polywog]

Some members of the audience cry while other laugh watching the same thing.

 

[Rich]

Personally, I like story lines that are at least vaguely believable, which probably puts them more into the "serious" category, but I also enjoy some "snark" built in. While the general story line might be serious, the characters don't always have to be - people have senses of humor, why not characters in a story? That's one thing I really like about Nottravis 's writing.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

n fact, the more the game is cartoonish, the more the writing have to be good for the game to be really enjoyable. Which lead, in the end, of the majority of cartoonish games being cartoonish against the will of their author. They wanted to write seriously, but the dialogs are so stupid, the pace ridiculous, and the CG so much incoherent with what we read, that they can't be seen otherwise than as a cartoon.

Well that is the polite way to put it. XD I try to be logical, so when things happen unintentionally, I am horrible of judging or rationalizing what is going on.

f you turn back the game, you'll see "Made In Germany" on its back side.

XD I just lost my shit laughing to that

I like how you broke down the idea of serious, cartoony, and poor into two dimensions. I was thinking there would be three, quality, effort, and spastic, but all low effort games tend to be similar, with your two dimensions of seriousness and craziness, I like how you compress effort and quality into the term seriousness.
I feel the definition of the term seriousness in this context would be equivalent to the amount of attention and effort the maker puts into their work, while the definition of craziness would be measured in how spastic things are, how often new and exaggerated details are brought to the reader's attention.

I find that the Total Drama serious is my golden goal, but I don't want to make something that would be considered fan fic or a copy. Even the art, I can express as having a mathematical bear minimum while providing max effect. Even the writing I find is ideal of what I think is cartoonish. Things like characters with fixed and exaggerated personalities. Mythic Manor had similar characters, which I found made it easier to understand what the best interaction is with each character (shy girl, is obviously shy), but suffers from characters being 1D for a good part of the story at the start (I haven't played the latest updates yet).

 

[anne O'nymous]

XD I just lost my shit laughing to that

It was voluntary ; in a way, the living example that serious and crazy can live together in peace. And after all, playing with cliché is one of the key for a cartoon approach of a story.
I used Vil Coyote as example, if one of his crazy machine was labeled "Made In Germany", for once he wouldn't have been the victim of a defective machine, but the victim of a machine that would have worked too perfectly.
It's a cliché, but it imply that we'll all react to it. By example, Pepé le Pew being French is enough, we know that he'll be a seducer, a "French lover".

I feel the definition of the term seriousness in this context would be equivalent to the amount of attention and effort the maker puts into their work, while the definition of craziness would be measured in how spastic things are, how often new and exaggerated details are brought to the reader's attention.

Exactly, which remove part of the subjectivity that can come with the "quality" and/or "effort" you talked about, and that need a referential.
Put, lets say PhillyGames to change, and me side by side. My code will have a better quality (more stable and all) and in the same time I would need less effort to achieve this. But at the opposite side of the spectrum, his CG would be way better than what I can possibly do with ten times more effort than he needed.

But the with the seriousness... Whatever if there's few bugs, if the CG aren't the best possible, or if the dialog sometimes feel odd ; all this depend of the natural capabilities of the author and his experience. You'll see the seriousness in the coherence between the CG and the story, by the depth of the characters, and so on ; which depend more of the attention than to the knowledge.
Which also explain why "not serious" games can also be really good and pleasant ones. Because the seriousness don't refer to the author, but to the result. The author take seriously the fact that his game will not be serious.