Last month, we surveyed Web entertainment genres. This month, we'll look at CD-ROM/DVD and console (Nintendo 64, Playstation) genres, with an eye to possible writing opportunities.
Genre identification is much more difficult in New Media. With rare exceptions, the boundary lines for TV and film genres are pretty stationery. Once in awhile there comes a Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (dramedy?) or an Angel Heart (film noir
or horror?). But most movies or episodics are easy to stock on the video rental shelf: Drama, Comedy, Science Fiction, etc.
Interactive entertainment often overlaps categories. At the same time, the range of genres is narrower than in film and TV, as we'll see. Here then, a genre primer, with titles you should investigate if you are exploring work in this market:
- ACTION/ARCADE
-
- Remember when you went to the fair and stopped at the
shooting gallery to knock down wooden ducks? Well, this is the
high-tech version, highly influenced by the Terminator and Rambo
movies. If you have a son over the age of 7, chances are he's playing one
or more of these games. So far, these games have been the
equivalent of Hollywood's big summer movies: eye-popping graphics
and hardly any story. The raison d'etre for these games can be
drawn from William Holden's famous line in the opening scene of
"The Wild Bunch": "If they move, kill 'em." Because these games
continue to sell so well, developers are unconvinced they need any
narrative or character development ... again, kinda like
Hollywood's summer blockbusters.
- Titles you should know
- Doom
- Quake
- Duke Nukem
- ACTION-ADVENTURE/ROLE PLAYING
- One can argue that ALL interactive entertainment is about
role-playing, since the player is a direct participant in the
experience, not a passive observer. But true role-playing means you have donned a particular persona, and must make real decisions
(something more than which-direction-do-I-shoot-in) based on the
persona. Often (though not always) your character is represented
onscreen, creating a kind of 1st-person/3rd-person duality. These
games usually provide more opportunities for narrative and
character arc: their worlds can be quite rich and textured.
- Titles you should know
- Tomb Raider
- Rebel Assault
- Kings Quest
- Wing Commander
- MYSTERY/ROLE PLAYING
- The mystery was always a natural for the interactive medium.
Exploration, finding and interpreting clues, making decisions
about whether to poke around in the haunted house or the abandoned
shed: these are some of the activities that work best at a
console. These games are usually slower-paced and more cerebral,
requiring more traditional storytelling tools. Myst is
the
biggest selling interactive title to date, precisely because it
appeals to both men and women of nearly all ages. A message
here?
- Titles you should know
- Myst
- 7th Guest
- Phantasmagoria
- STRATEGY
- There used to be board games that allowed you to gather up
armies and navies and deploy them against an opposing player. Now
they're electronic. If you like the minutiae of assembling things
and tweaking their performance, this may be for you. A
writer/designer's role here will principally be to create the
world (or universe) of the conflict. The narrative is really
created by the players as they attempt to outstrategize each
other.
- Titles you should know
- Command and Conquer
- Warcraft
- SIMULATION/SPORTS
-
Ever wanted to drive a racecar or fly a plane?
Pure simulation games will get you as close as you can get. This genre
probably least requires a writer's services, since the experience
is all first-person and story means you take off, fly,
and
land...or win the Indy 500...
Sports titles may be about simulation or strategy. Ever
wanted to coach a Super Bowl team? The opportunities for writers
are a little stronger here, as interstitial dialogue and sports
announcer patter is often needed.
- Titles you should know
- Flight Simulator
- Nascar
Where's the comedy? The romance? Probably the best CD-ROM
comedy comes out of a game called
You Don't Know Jack,
which is
Jeopardy with attitude (the game is also available for play on the
Web). Is interactivity an enemy of comedy, except when it's in a
game show format? A topic for another column. Interestingly,
while romantic soap operas are available on the Web, the genre is
all but non-existent on CD-ROM. The Web audience may skew
somewhat more female than CD-ROM's, but there are probably other
reasons for the dearth of romance in the CD-ROM arena: a future
topic again.
But what about New Media for kids? Many of the categories
listed above fit children's education and entertainment titles as
well -- but the children's market is an entity to itself, and is
arguably the market with the most opportunity for professional
screenwriters, as we shall see next month...
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