The problem was that the vast majority of control prompts in the game were just that—prompts. What we described in the above post offered a great deal more agency to players, which would admittedly be more difficult to develop for. Too much of Heavy Rain felt like a slideshow in which the only real interaction was clicking “next” … only “next” required a strange, arbitrary sequence of buttons.

I have a post I have been planning to write along these lines; thanks for reminding me to get back to it.

While I suppose the direct attachment to military-ish shooters in the game industry is based on the usually correct notion that people will without much hesitation buy them, I’d wager that these scenarios offer the sort of clear goals that can be mapped easily onto the sorts of polygon-filled spatial wonderlands that gaming platforms cheerfully support. There are other sorts of structures of engagement in gaming play beyond move-from-point-a-to-point-b-while-accomplishing-goal-x, like tidying up (think billiards) and parameter exploration (seeing if its possible to blow up that helicopter in GTA) but none map so easily onto a desire for non-gaming narrative and a need for interactivity.

Personally I’d like to see gaming move away from narrative, at least the sort that tells me a story instead of allowing me to compose my own. And choose-your-own-adventure cut scenes aren’t enough.

OTOH, I like the idea of a female NPC becoming annoyed if you look at her breasts.