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Please visit the Year Ahead post for 1994 to help us plan the upcoming games to be covered on the blog!

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Discussion Point: Game Plots

Editor's Note: Just a reminder that there's less than 2 days left (when this was first posted) to affect your will on the games being played for 1994, and who will be playing them.  Please visit the Year Ahead post and join in the comments!


 Written by The TAG Team

How to keep track of it all?

There's been some games with some pretty convoluted plots, some with simple ones.  Which are the ones that stick out in your mind?

What's your favorite plot?  Is it something simple, like a man in outdated clothing styles trying to hook up with many ladies?  Or perhaps something more complex, like a college student discovering the role of magic in the world and having to bounce between the ordinary and the mystical in order to restore balance to the universe?

What was the best premise for a game?  Or the biggest let-down?


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1 comment:

  1. MenhirMike5 February 2025 at 08:49

    I love plots with alternate timelines, and Virtue's Last Reward probably sticks out as my favorite when it comes to having to explore the same general plot from multiple "angles".

    (It also builds upon the foundation that 999 laid, and I don't disagree with anyone that thinks 999 did it better. It's probably the better game overall, but VLR's plot just left a much stronger impression on me, especially after finishing Luna's branch when everything really got going)

    Also shoutout to the first AI: The Somnium Files, Radiant Historia, and one of the seminal non-linear adventure games, YU-NO. Let's not mention Zero Time Dilemma and the second AI game though, those were just disappointing.

    What makes it work is that you don't have to do "What if?" scenarios in your headcanon but you can actually explore them as part of a larger interconnected plot. It allows exploring different character motivations and outcomes and how other characters would react to those. It makes the game simultanously non-linear, while still coming to a linear conclusion (because the plot branches often hit locks that require exploring other branches to unlock). And the idea of going back to the beginning with all that knowledge and unlock the golden path is magical to me.

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