I thought Xan’s comments comparing games to TV series was very interesting, especially now that so many people digest and experience shows through “box sets”.

Games often get lambasted for poor story-lines but there are very few tales that would remain absolutely compelling when stretched across a canvas twenty hours wide. I think there is a lot that story-focussed games can take from looking at how good TV series structures their season so that they remain entertaining and interesting over the period of 26 episodes.

Ronald D Moore, when re-imagining the Battlestar Galactica TV series, said that he looked at storytelling in shows like Hill Street Blues. They’d have story-lines that began and ended in each episode, another story or two that spanned several episodes and also longer story arcs that ran through the entire season.

Narrative heavy games, like RPGs already use a lot of those techniques. Take Fallout 3 for instance. It has an ongoing story arc, that lasts the length of the entire game, but it also has self-contained “single episode” stories, in the form of short quests, and longer story arcs with tales spanning several quests.

I like the idea of a TV series approach, giving the player bite-size narrative chunks and not relying on just one single story to support the weight of the whole game.

Great show guys, looking forward to the next one.