I don't see how much better my SW game is to the games Tlaero writes. In fact, her experience as a writer, and being an English speaker show a huge gap (for better) in terms of writing flow, grammar, intonation, and prose even. The only difference I see between the games she writes and The Warrior's Hearth (if I'm following you correctly) is that in SWtWH I don't tell the story from the MC's perspective only. The story shifts to other characters perspectives (mainly the Imperial side) and that allows me to tell the whole story, much like the movies. In the Elsaverse and Keeley's games we follow another style of storytelling, the POV style where you see the events happening from the perspective of the character you're playing or following. In SW despite following the MC you follow other events. that's not a matter of good or bad storytelling; it's a matter of choice of perspective that you want the players to follow. I chose to incorporate both perspectives because the game would be much less interesting without the Imperial side as any SW movie shows.
It's an artistic, or directing choice, not proof of skill - in that department I'm way behind Tlaero.
There's also another important factor to take into account.
Tlaero writes the script first, the dialogues, the descriptions, and since it's text only she naturally, and masterfully, injects as much information as required to pass the necessary information to the reader. Then I make the pictures to match the descriptions and dialogues. Yeah, that may result in some redundancy where the text explains what the picture shows but better be safer than sorry; many players may not be as perceptive to notice what the picture fully entails and might appreciate the text enforcing the information, others may not understand English so well and appreciate a good picture to understand the message better. The risk of redundancy finds many benefits and we are happy with it.
When I made SW, or Pandora I always make the pictures first and then add the text only after resulting in me analyzing if the picture is good enough to pass the message or if I need to add text and description. The flaw in this is that it's up to my subjective analysis if the message passes or not and some people might not get the message because the picture isn't clear enough and I didn't compensate with the text.
I appreciate you praising that I did good with SW The Warrior's Heart, I really do. I'm happy with the game.
But I don't agree when you say that I tell better stories than Tlaero. At all.
Thanks for the reply. I'm really sorry for taking up so much of your time, that was never my intention. So sorry for that.
You're absolutely correct in that it's a directing choice! I'm so glad you said that. I think that when you think of yourself more like a movie director than a book writer that's when the magic happens! "What would Tarantino do?" That sort of thing. That's when a visual medium is used to its full potential. When you spend some time thinking about what a scene is supposed to show, which perspectives are necessary to use for the point to get across and when there's some subtlety in how it's delivered thats when you
really wow an audience.
Using double exposition (image shows girl smiling, text below: "Alex smiles") Is the exact opposite of this. "Better safe than sorry" you say. No! Definitely not. It completely lacks subtlety. If it is absolutely centrally important to the reader that he really understands that Alex is smiling in that scene, then maybe a bit of text explaining it is necessary. But otherwise, "Show, don't tell".
When I get double exposition in my games (or movies) it feels like the author/director thinks I'm retarded. Does he think I will miss the fact that 'Alex smiles' unless he points it out to me, using text? Does he think I have a vision impairment and I can't see the smile? A reader wants to feel that they are smart, not held by the hand like alittle child. It's a clear situation of where you'll take something away, and shift the readers attention, by adding text. Think to yourself "when would text appear in a movie"? We have things like the opening crawl in the original SW, giving background exposition, but aside from that it's hard to come up with examples. Text exposition is used
as little as possible by the really skilled visual storytellers. There is a reason for this. Less really is more!
One of the most fulfilling tricks using visual storytelling there is, is showing some detail which on the surface seems innocuous, but then turns out to be an important story element later. Somthing only a perceptive reader would notice. Maybe it's a facial expression not fitting the situation, or an item that's out of place, that then later is revealed to be important to the plot. If I as a perceptive reader has been able to deduce a situations true nature before the "big reveal" that's when I feel really smart and get really drawn in. You can really ruin this sort of thing by adding exposition to it: "Sarah makes a weird face". Now it's suddenly impossible to not notice it any more, and the fun is gone. I've been
told how I'm supposed to interpret a situation instead of being given the option to figure it out for myself.
In VN type games though, one can't get around the fact that text is necessary to convey dialogue, but even then, if there is an option to
show the information that scene is supposed to get across without "hearing" the characters talk then that is often the more appealing choice.
It's really strange to me that I'm even saying this because i know you understand how to do visual storytelling on quite a high level
because I've seen you do it! How can one be competent without understanding that they are? Is it the Dunning-Kruger effect in action? It's super weird.
I's probably true that Tlaero is the better writer of you two, and has a better grasp of the English language. But who's the best visual storyteller? Who's the best director? Who can tell a story using pictures without text? Well you, you and you. And those skills are far more important when using a visual medium than the ability to produce good text. I'm not saying good text is not important, it is, but it's more like a topping than the main dish. And just like any topping, too much of it ruins the whole thing.
Hopefully, some time in the future you'll find a way to leverage both of your unique strengths into something that's really good. Just try to realize that to really succeed using a visual medium you'll need to think more like Tarantino and less like JK Rowling.
There definitely
is a right and a wrong way to use a visual medium. When you go watch a movie you don't see lots of exposition text. There's a reason for that.
I would honestly love it if you'd take a course in movie making, script writing or any kind of visual story telling, if only for the fact that then maybe you'll understand that you actually already know how to do it! I think it would be good for your confidence.
