In Praise of Ultima 4’s “Narrative Through Gameplay”
Radek Koncewicz at Gamasutra has written an article praising Ultima 4 as a masterful demonstration of the concept of using gameplay as “the main vehicle for narrative”.
The videogame equivalent of “show, don’t tell” is often said to be “do, don’t show.” It’s good advice, and when applied it can make for some very powerful experiences, e.g., Braid’s ending.
Unfortunately, it’s also a difficult guideline.
…
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar had a pretty good go at it, though.
… the virtue system allows the player to fail. Hints are still dispensed throughout the game — and can be actively sought out — but it’s not necessary to be aware of all the rules right from the start. There’s no game over screen if virtue is lost; no invisible wall, or awkward text prompt, or an automatic checkpoint reload. The event is simply recorded, and retributions can be made later down the road.
Unfortunately, he links to the old Ultima wiki at Wikia instead of The Codex of Ultima Wisdom (Akalaupdate: Mr. Koncewicz has been nice enough to update his links) for certain points of information and key examples, but otherwise it’s a great article that expertly dissects many of the strengths of Ultima 4’s unconventional story.
Someone should inform him of the new way of things so his article may be improved with the correct link.
Also, you should post a R.I.O.T. so there is an immediate place to post for those of us making the transition to the new, all-encompassing site. I mentioned this before, but I don’t think the R.I.O.T. should necessarily come jam-packed with pre-selected topics. An empty canvas is probably more than enough for many readers/posters.
Also, my username was eightvirtues, and now it’s sanctimonia. All well and good, but eightvirtues is the name of my company and domain. Minor annoyance, so I’ll save ye from the rack for now. 🙂
On the tech front, it took visiting the new page to update the old page using Chrome. That’s why for the life of me I couldn’t tell what was going on with the site update. Going to the old Aiera domain just showed the UU 20’th Anniversary article with no link to the new site. It was weird and a first in my web browsing experience. For a moment I thought you’d lost your marbles.
Wikia… How I loath thee.
I made a post in the comments section, since I couldn’t figure out how to contact the author directly. Anyone know?
Mr. Koncewicz was nice enough to update his links.
Any game that encompasses you so thoroughly you go and find a pen a notepad is a masterpiece in my book. I wish the dosbox version had a frameskip or speed up option. I just can’t do turnbased battles anymore without a speed increase option.
Micro Magic said, “Any game that encompasses you so thoroughly you go and find a pen a notepad is a masterpiece in my book.”
Great quote. Needs a T-shirt. I did that with IV, and for me it was the first time for any game. I wrote people’s names and interesting things they said in a binder. Later I painted location icons and names in runes on the cloth maps. Part of me thought I was ruining their integrity, and the other part thought it would be a cool and useful thing to do.