#ludonarrative dissonance

[prokopetz]

I love it when farm animals in strategy games have their own little pockets of visibility in the fog of war, because the fog of war is ostensibly a visual abstraction of military intelligence-gathering, which implies that the goat is submitting intel reports.

[askagamedev]

I saw a video about cutscene incompetence, basically where a character in a game who is easily able to handle a situation when we are in control is unable to do the stuff we can do in gameplay or does something obviously stupid to further the plot (say, letting yourself get handcuffed in the recent Far Cry game). Why does this happen from a design perspective?

The term is called "ludonarrative dissonance" and it's the incongruity between the player character in gameplay and the player character in narrative. Generally, this happens when the narrative design doesn't work closely enough with the gameplay design to ensure a cohesive narrative and gameplay experience. This often happens because of the different speeds at which these get designed - not all gameplay systems exist or are mapped out when initial narrative design happens, and we can continue working on gameplay long after major narrative voiceover recording is already set in stone. The player character complaining about killing a narrative enemy stands out as weird while the party already slaughters thousands of nameless minions in gameplay for levels and loot.

The opposite concept also exists - it's called "ludonarrative harmony". These are games where the gameplay and mechanics of the game work in tandem with the narrative to reinforce and help each other hit harder. The Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney games are a pretty good example of this - the player is using detective and interviewing skills to advance a case and find a killer. The things the player does and the narrative usually line up well enough that the elements feel congruous and work together to become more than the sum of their parts.

The general importance of this depends on how important the team leadership cares about it. If the creative and team leadership wants to embrace ludonarrative harmony, they have to enforce it through the team's tasking and prioritization.

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[clairedelune-13]

“Keep him [Lucanis] away from Treviso. From the Crows!”

Me Ok.

Also me: *Returns to Treviso for side quest with Luc in my party*

Illario:

[lilu787788]

Ever since I watched Shadow and Bone, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. The narrative was telling me one thing, but what I was actually seeing - the choices the characters made, the consequences of their actions lacked logic. I had hoped that Season 2 would correct this, but instead, it only deepened the problem. It took me a while to realize that Alina’s and Aleksander’s actions fit perfectly into ludonarrative dissonance. The story insists that Alina is the hero, the one destined to bring balance, while Aleksander is framed as the villain, the force that must be stopped. But when I step back and actually analyze their decisions, the truth is far more complicated than the show allows. Alina’s journey is presented as noble and necessary. She struggles, she learns, and ultimately, she destroys the Fold, a moment meant to symbolize her triumph over darkness. But the world doesn’t work in such simple terms. The Fold, though dangerous, was also a shield, an unintentional barrier that kept Ravka’s enemies at bay. Removing it did not bring peace; it removed a layer of protection for the very people Aleksander had fought for. The consequences of her choice are massive, but the story never truly forces her to reckon with them. As for Aleksander the narrative insists that he is the villain, that his power is something to be feared, that he must be stopped. But everything he does has a purpose. He does not destroy for the sake of destruction. He is not a tyrant seeking power for power’s sake. He has spent centuries ensuring the survival of a people who, without him, would be hunted, persecuted, and erased. At its core, his fight is against the extermination of Grisha. He does not act out of blind ambition, but out of a clear and painful understanding of what happens when Grisha are left vulnerable. He builds, he leads, he prepares for a future that others refuse to see. This is where the dissonance becomes impossible to ignore. The story portrays Aleksander’s strength as dangerous, while Alina’s is righteous, even though she wields the exact same kind of power. His methods are condemned, while hers are forgiven, even when her choices lead to instability. The story insists on reducing Aleksander to a villain, but when I look at him, I see a man carrying the weight of centuries, a man who has loved and lost, a man who understands that survival is not guaranteed butit has to be fought for. Alina does what she believes is right, and her heart is in the right place. But the story refuses to acknowledge that Aleksander, too, acts out of necessity, out of love for his people, out of a relentless drive to build a future where Grisha are no longer at the mercy of kings and armies. What frustrates me is how the story insists on simplifying something that is not simple. It tells me that Alina is light and Aleksander is darkness, when in reality, they are both so much more. They are two people carrying impossible burdens, two people who could have stood together but were torn apart by forces greater than themselves. And that is the real tragedy—not that Aleksander needed to be stopped, but that no one truly listened to him.

[twosides--samecoin]

Being a Logistically and Materially Sound post-apocalypse has never been one of Fallout's goals, even going back to the Interplay games. It's fun to look at Fallout with a "wait how would this work in the real world" lens (I did this when figuring out how much fuel a vertibird would need if it were crossing North America, also for research into much work would be needed to recover irradiated soil vs the "plants fruit 3 days after planting!" Fallout 4 gardening system, because I was curious about figuring those things out) but sometimes I think it's useful to remember that this is also the game series where aliens and a dude that became a tree is canon. Sometimes you gotta throw your hands up and be like "yeah this universe contains 0% realism sometimes and it's fine". Nobody ever asks about the veracity and logistic possibility of the Prydwen or Robobrains or aliens with pew pew guns or disembodied talking brains floating in formaldehyde because we can all suspend disbelief for those things, but point at the Unrealism of the Armoured Exoskeleton which is like. One of the more plausible aspects of this entire game series and the crowd goes wild. People approach me to consult about Fallout worldbuilding for their mod and fanfic writing and even as the "here's how I would think this Fallout Thing would work in the real world" person even I'm like "yeah sure go figure it out if you want but it's ok if you don't, not everything needs an answer"

As a greater critique of Gaming CritiqueTM, I think ludonarrative issues in games is a fascinating topic, but I also think ludonarrative dissonance is a term that's often misunderstood & misused to illustrate someone's dislike of a mechanic or whatever, rather than being accurately used to describe moments where ludonarrative issues are happening. I'm gonna say that staring at an empty power armour shell and saying "but WHERE'S my TEAM OF ENGINEERS and MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and IS THE STEEL HAND-POURED OR RECYCLED" isn't one. Something not having an answer in-universe doesn't make it a ludonarrative problem! It's just an unanswered detail! Like sometimes video games can't be built to address every plausible explanation for every possible worldbuilding question the player's gonna come up with; this makes worse media when creators start trying to stay ahead of fans like that. Also, fuck, there are fanfic writers who have written stories about the Brotherhood of Steel that has plausible logistics/resources planned out. It's ok that the answer isn't contained in the game with a neat lil bow on top u feel me

[issak]

So Nexus Mods eh?

Really help with the immersion for certain games no ?

Like better lighting, more Realistic Clothes physics, smoother textures, realistic chainmail armor and so on...........

Or you know removing ..... certain articles.... during cut-scenes where their presence creates Ludonarrative dissonance ....... yeap .... that's all there is to it. No intrusive mods in here, only when the narrative calls for it, nothing to see here.....

So with that OUT of the way ......

Pizzles of Bohemia

Cough cough

Really sell how dire The boys opening scene of the game comes to be, say what you will about Hans Crafted outwards "Persona" but if it weren't for "it" they would both had died then and there.

You don't say Jan Ptáček......the whole camp is here but whatever COME Jindra Bathe with me, Take off your clothes and Stop being a stick in the mud, with all that duty and stuffy honor, I just want to have fun with you.

Maybe I'm laying it down a bit too thick.... better to bring it back into the BRO-zone

And INMIDIATELY after the game gives you back control, we are in a High School Anime plot, Sir Hans is reliable to fault to his Faults.

Let's sneak Butt naked up to these unsuspecting Girls, What could Possibly go wrong? I'm A Noble Don't U Know?

You are Like a little kid aren't you, Why are you giggling? Don't you go to the bathhouse all the time back home? Aren't you always claiming how the "bath Wenches" are all over you there, how is this better? Sir Hanush Would be So angry at you if he were to learn of this behavior.

Henry is judging you so HARD right now, you've made him upset, he knows where this is going HAAAAANS!!!

Everything went to shit and Now Henry has a new hole on his back (granted Henry had a hand on this outcome this time) M.r Knight In Birthday Armor.

Props to Henry For Fighting an mercenary Naked, and then wrestle him over a cliff edge to their apparent demised. Anything For the Safety of Lord Capon in Henry's mind

Hans: you are lucky to be alive, you fell on top of that guy a...

Henry: What are you wearing? Hans: What ?

Henry: you were Naked 5min Ago? what are wearing? what's more why is that bloke Naked ? Did you.... Hans: Like he is going to need clothes now! I'm putting them to better use! Henry :......... Can .....can I have some Sire? Hans: You expect a Noble to be gallivanting NAKED in the woods at NIGHT ?! God's wounds that fall must have scramble you head More than I realized Henry: I don't need them all just some, Sir Hans I'm Naked!

Hans: No time They could be here any second now ! Henry: But Hans: I need them All HAL! Now GET UP! You are not Allowed to die on me!

Hans after dropping a Hallucinating and feverish Henry like a sack of potatoes on poor  Bozhena's Floor with no strength left in him "Please PLZ Fix him, He is all dirty, and filthy, and cover in BLOOD, and a Peasant, and HE IS ALL I HAVE !!!!

After the worse of the wounds are taken care off, it's time to explain to the delirious man the situation.

Yeahhhh that would be the fever and blood lost talking, maybe table this discussion for the morning after.

It's a new day, Feeling better Lad? Your pal got quite hurt trying to protect you last night.

WHERE IS SIR HANS ?! WHAT WRONG WITH HIM? HOW HURT IS HE? Curse these wounds I can't get to him fast enough.

[miki-hasugi]

Welp, today it's Dark Souls 2's "irrational" placement of areas

like, the infamous elevator going from Earthen Peak, a valley downhill, "up" to the bottom of the lava-submerged Iron Keep or running below sea level from Heide's Tower "down to" No Man's Wharf being above sea level.

It's good actually. Cause it's ludonarrative harmony/consonance

First off, why? Like why care about this? Those who like DS2 might already accept it as is and those who don't would write it off as bad design. Regardless, I hope that this interpretation is interesting. It might not be canon or accurate or full of holes, but if it gives you some thoughts about how your next DS2 playthrough can be different then this interpretation does its purpose.

Taking DS2 out of the franchise and just as a standalone game, it does one thing well in the way Half-Life or GTA does its story world well: the "sandbox". Whatever the player does to the world, there is a consequence that feeds back into that action, acknowledging and recording that the player does it. Not just consequence, but recording in the way that it creates an emergent narrative about what the character, controlled by the player, becomes. The famous example in Half-Life is if you pay attention to the story, you get to engage with the lore. Your character can save people and be rewarded, or be homicidal and also be rewarded, and the surrounding people run away from your character screaming. The world took note of your character's action and reacted to the character accordingly. By building a "reputation" for your character, the game world assigned them "an identity". (Half Life Example: Raycevick's The Orange Box...10 Years Later)

DS2 does this. There are Youtubers doing lore content, reading every piece of item description to try and extract information about the world. There are challenge runners who "bear, seek, seek, lest" and watching their runs, one never understand what the game is about. If one goes on to r/darksouls2 looking for tips, then one comes into the game probably knowing more about the stats and weapons and killing than why some enemies ragdoll and most other vanished (including your own character). Simply put, no matter what you the player choose, the game world has a way to reward and engage with your play style, or rather your way of engaging with the game and its world, by reward and engage with your character's action.

This is ludonarrative harmony (or consonance, as opposed to dissonance). The quick and dirty is when gameplay and story aim to do the same thing, as opposed to when gameplay does one thing and story does another, often in direct contradiction to each other. For contrast, examples of ludonarrative disonnance is well this ProZD's video, or when the game has you be overpowered gods then got tickled to death in a cutscene, or preaching to be a pacifist during cutscene and dialogue only to make sure the number of living thing around you is 0. So compared this to DS2, however you want to play the game, your character's story and and action is aligned or in harmony. That's intentional and is good design.

So what does this have to do with areas placement? Why Aldia's Keep opens to a cliff on top of mountains?

One of the many themes or possible interpretations of DS2 is the focus on the player character being undead, destined to lose memory and become hollow. Simply put, the world designs reinforce this aspect, creating the sense that the character through whose eyes you see the world hollowing. Specifically, it is done through things that are in-the-face, such as having a long connection between the previous area's boss to the next area's first bonfire, the seemingly impossible physics of "up and down", and the frozen time (always sunny in Majula, always twilight-moonrise in Huntsman's Copse, etc.), but also other mechanics that are more subtle and can be easily accepted as "game mechanic". The repeated dying and respawning of enemies, the New Game plus, both through ascetic or restarting at Majula, etc. few things are permanently changed, even the result of the supposed ending (linking the fire or walking away) can be undone by NG+. They all added to the sense of what it's like being hollow. We hear this from other NPC who arrived and pursued their own journeys but slowly and gradually forgetting why they were here, only that they're here (which, isn't that's why we the players are here?).

I'd argue at the surface level, this is simply good design to communicate the overarching feeling of being in this world, a sense of melancholy exploring an already dead world, almost dystopian because the character and everyone in it is trapped in a loop, but at the same time finding some personal objective to help push one forward. But take it to the next level, this design makes sure that no matter how you want to play the game, your character stays consistent narratively. Your character is a conduit to tell the story of the world of Dark Soul 2. The story is there, even if you choose not to engage with it.

Accepting this argument, then the intentional design of the world and the lore of DS2 provides the added benefit of arguably having all of the lore explanation for every game mechanics. I wouldn't say that all game mechanics will have an accurate lore explanation, but I would say this design allow all game mechanics to have a lore "consistent" explanation. Everything should point to "this is what being hollow is like, this is what the world is like to the hollow".

I haven't played through any other entry in the series (Elden Ring is temping a hunger I have fought for years lol) but at least for DS2, I appreciate the design that turns Mario-esque "grassland, desert, forest, jungle, ice world, fire world, boss" into a gateway into a fantastical land.

And yeah, I understand that this design, in real life, is due to industry trademarked deadline/need to ship product/budget, timeline, very real thing issues, etc. But this will be my headcannon that in the real life error and creative constraints , Miyazaki and his team found us a great example of game meets design meets story.

p/s: originally posted this take on reddit, reposted here with some edits

[beast-style]

fighting majima in yakuza kiwami is a prime example of ludonarrative dissonance because even though the game mechanics are combat based, they are actually having passionanate & thorough gay sex