Good writing: What does it look like in games - April 2023 podcast 

I feel that, in the movies for example, writing is often very close to directing. Meaning, if you have a clear vision for a movie (and got some communication skills as well as a bit of technical know-how) you can probably direct it. In games though, I rarely see the design of a game mingle with the writing in the same way as say, a Mad Max: Fury Road does. In this movie, the writing WAS the design. Pretty much every "written-and-directed-by- movie" falls into the category of an inseparable process of writing and directing: The one flows into the other. When I think about games that do something similar, I think Bloodborne or (as you mentioned) the Nier games. Also, experimental ones come to mind like "Everything" or "Fight Crab". But I still feel there's a lot of potential in finding new ways to craft a game - to toy with the artistic process so it creates completely unique experiences. I think about writing in games along those lines because I was challenged about my view on gaming by the late Roger Ebert, who famously stated that video-games are not art. I don't agree with this statement, but I did find his arguing interesting when he said that video-games ultimately resort to telling their stories through different forms of art: When they show the player a cutscene or lengthy dialogue boxes full of text, the game basically turns into a movie or book for the time being until gameplay, and therefore the actual game (as he understood it) can start again. PS: People who skip cutscenes disturb me so much as well XD One of them is a friend of mine. He's nice and all, but something's clearly wrong. I hope he changes his ways one day.

I bet Kazushige Nojima wrote the laughing scene in FFX

Can you point me to a good analysis of narrative design in Platinum Games? Because I never could get into them - actually, hated storytelling aspect in Bayonetta and Vanquish, even though I finished them both. I feel like I'm missing a lot of context here.