Fragile Dreams: Farewell to all your previous conceptions of standard narrative conventions in games

• The greatest game I ever Watched

The importance of good narrative in games is a topic of great debate; one that I have seen between many game development circles, ranging from developers talking at important Game industry conferences,  to students discussing in small game design classrooms.  I believe narrative is very important; however I am very fond of literature in general so my opinion is slightly predisposed to bias. Furthermore the game I would like to talk about is very immersed in narrative and is not afraid to take long or frequent breaks from game-play for story telling purposes. I am sure we are all familiar with the sentiment emulated by this meme  The game is called "Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon", and if you haven't heard from it I highly suggest checking out a short clip on YouTube to give a sense of how this game uses its atmosphere and aesthetics as story telling devices. The game is filled with scenes of plant life filling into cracks of old decaying interiors. The player is left alone as the only remaining human to wander this world populated only by spirits and strange Artificial intelligences that despite their inhumanity, you become strongly attached to them, really showing off how this game creates a sense of despair.If you chose to opt out of the checking, here are some pictures to give a sense of how powerful and revealing the atmosphere can be in this game.But the reason I love the narrative so much in this game isn't because of how well it is presented to you through the game play and aesthetics. It wasn't even the beautifully animated cut scenes with full voice acting that captured my imagination and inspired me as a writer and a story teller.

• Narrative as a collectible

Throughout the game the player will collect random fragments that represent a memory of someone who lived before the apparent apocalypse. These memories come to life only when you arrive at a save point (which are scattered quite frequently throughout the game) during which time you are given the option to save, rest (restore hp and mp) or read memory fragments. The memories are very simple, and according some schools of thought actually commits one of the biggest don'ts in story telling for video games by using the dreaded "wall of text" method of delivering the narrative. But I digress; the writing in these portions were so fantastic, I found myself frequently visiting save points just so I could review the multiple memory fragments I would  pick up on my journey. Taking in all the brief stories filled with hopes, dreams, and imaginations of all the people who may have lived in this world was extremely interesting and refreshing game play experience. A lot of times these clips would not shy away from being extremely poetic or lyrical and at times, it sort of made it seem like you were an investigator picking up the pieces of the shattered world and slowly putting them in order.  But don't just take it from me. Here is a video showing part one of a four part story about a ballerina and a botanisthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTvU1RWZw6UAnd part 1 isn't enough seriously go watch all four of them, unless you plan on going out and trying to find the game and don't want to spoil the great feeling of anticipation wondering what happens next in a story completely tangential to the one in which you are currently submersed. And the story of the ballerina and the botanist is just one example of the many different memories you can collect, though it is apparent more effort was put into some of the stories that last more than just one fragment

• The tale of the Botanist and the Ballerina

This narrative within a narrative (narrative-ception!!) I found to be a really inspiring and bold move for a video game, especially considering the controversy revolving the importance of narrative vs. game play, Fragile Dreams was not afraid to stare critics of long fluffy narrative in the face and show them just how damn moving the experience can be, if handled correctly. There is actually a part 5 to the story of the ballerina and the botanist, but part 5 comes as a bit of a surprise much later in the game and is actually told from a different point of view than the first 4. I found this to be an extremely satisfying conclusion to the story that actually made me reflect on my own experiences and think about my own life decisions. This is something that has never happened to me in a game before, but the way Mao expresses himself in this final epilogue related to me on a deep level and opened up a whole new perspective to interpret this story within a story.Another awesome thing about the memory fragments is that they don't seem like a tacked on feature at all. In fact they actually served to expand the world you were playing in and bring it to life in a way that made you really care about what had happened to the people who once lived these memories and about the lonely struggle of the main character to find other survivors. The narrative pursuits in this game are an inspiration to any who advocates the importance of good narrative in a game. I feel like the narrative experience in this game could be built upon further and that what it is trying to do was really quite amazing. I hope to see more games in the future take from the example of fragile dreams, and create more immersive narrative experience that act to contribute to the game play experience instead of feeling more like the story was a waste of time that took away from the immersion.