So I've started playing Telltale Walking Dead with a friend and I just watched the last scene with Clementine and Lee in season 1 and I need to talk about it because it's so good both from a storytelling perspective and a game design perspective and both and I just need to talk about it though I'm sure everyone has already heard it before.
There's a million things about that scene that I love so I'll prolly rant about it again later but right now I'm goin with the bit where it intertwines the gameplay with the narrative really well in that way you can only get with the medium of video games, where the gameplay provides a unique vehicle for the story that you can't get in other forms of media.
Cause the way Lee progressively gets further and further towards the progression of becoming a walker ultimately passing out and waking up somewhere new with Clementine having dragged him in there and called that shot is the first hint of it being someone other than Lee making the big choices, and from that moment the focus of gameplay begins to shift, not a lot at first but just enough, when you get up and walk to the other side of the room it's not just Lee you're moving along as you walk it's Clementine with him, as the gameplay begins to slowly pass the torch, until Lee gives out and can no longer move and from then it gets really good.
Cause oh my god the way the rest of that scene (and therefore the game) plays out being Lee calling out to Clementine, telling her what to do, and her taking all the action, makes it so that while you are still Lee, fundamentally, you're playing as Clementine, making the transition between the two, both as the player characters and as the in universe transfer of the responsibility of survival, the weight of the world that Lee can no longer protect her from, feel much more real and impactful as it's literally changing the way you as the player are engaging with the world itself. It's that sort of thing that makes me love the narrative potential of video games so much, the way you can wrap the player up in how the game and the characters work and use that interactivity as a means to incite feelings and impact the experience. The narrative potential of video games as a medium is so incredible and that scene did so good with it I love it for that.
