Please go play Inside by Playdead. If you can, you should also try to play Limbo. That might be hard because Limbo is an old game, and I'm not sure how easy it will be to find. This is technically a spoiler warning, but I'm also telling you to play them because they're excellent and well worth your time.
The beginning of a story requires context and exposition. Stories possess the potential to encompass new worlds which adhere to entirely new rules. One of the many difficulties in writing lies in the delivery of such information. Narrative exposition - narration that lists the necessary information - serves as the easiest way to establish context. However, narrative exposition lacks excitement and creativity. Immersion breaks once potentially fascinating or thrilling information degrades into something like a grocery list. Narrative exposition loses the potential to integrate information into the story itself which allows for subtle implications to set the foundation for the story. Inside demonstrates a precise and coherent way to imply information subtly by using evidence from the plot.
Inside thrusts the protagonist right into the setting. With an unsettling absence of narration, dialog, or instruction - a young boy journeys through a dark and eerie world wrought with the subtle implications of a creepy mind control project. Inside expertly demonstrates a strenuous, yet enticing narrative design.
Along his journey, the protagonist slowly discovers the intentions of an evil and powerful organization. The plot reveals itself like pieces of a puzzle slowly forming to illustrate a clear picture.
I don't know if a word exists for it, but for now, I'm going to call this style of evidence-based narration... uh... EBN? Yeah, I couldn't think of anything - I'm sticking to acronyms for now I guess. I suppose I should also come up with a term for an inconsistent event within a consistent gimmick. You'll see why I bring this up later.
Anyway, I applaud Inside for its skillful use of EBN. While narrative exposition vomits information like an instruction manual, EBN incorporates the necessary information organically within the story. This defines the difference between a Star Wars's intro on screen yellow text scroll thing and a character - with no dialog or context - desperately drinking water from a sink. The character's actions dictate that, although he/she finds him/herself in an urban environment, something prevents the expected accommodations (like drinking water) from being readily available.
coincidentally enough, Star Wars serves as an excellent example of both EBN and narrative exposition (as I mentioned a moment ago). In Plinkett's review of The Thing We Don't Talk About, he references the opening scene of Star Wars: A New Hope. A New Hope opens with Narrative Exposition (as all of them do) and jump starts the events of the plot with an exciting space battle (more of a chase scene but whatever.) Without a word of dialog, the events and details of the space battle, as well as the good directing and clever use of a low camera angle, reveals the hopelessness (get i- ehh it's not that funny) of the rebel's attempt at escape, and the overpowering force (get it?) of the empire. Goodness, that's a long sentence.
This is Plinkett's video:
This is the second part of a seven-part review, so you may want to adjust to the chronology. It's a very good review, I've watched it several times.
EBN does have drawbacks. The plot must incorporate scenarios where characters reveal information with a subtle action or phrase that gives way to a much larger implication. Doing this requires careful planning and very precise writing. If successful, EBN creates a sensation of learning through experience as appose to lecture. However, the drawbacks go on: a lack of dialog proves cumbersome - especially when trying to deliver ideas with vital, yet specific details. Playdead does struggle to maintain Inside's story towards the very end. However, Playdead works with these drawbacks. Much like Limbo, Inside is very much open to interpretation. Personally, I do not enjoy that style of storytelling (authorial intent and what not). However, even I still found enough information via self-concluding interpretation to find some amount of satisfaction. Despite the brilliant atmosphere, tone, and narrative style, I still feel a strange un-satisfaction with the writing of Inside's ending.
Context establishes an essential foundation to prevent confusion in the universe in which the plot takes place. However, an established framework limits the acceptable occurrences in the story's universe. For example, imagine if a dragon crashes down before Holden Caulfield in the middle of New York City, or if The Lord of The Rings suddenly introduced space aliens with flying saucers and laser beams. Context is important - not breaking such context, is even more important.
Despite Inside carrying its fair share of strangeness, the creature featured (get it? [okay I'll stop]) at the climax and conclusion of the story does leave some cracks in the contextual foundation. While the reveal of the creature itself remains within the contextual foundation due to the amount of other strange monsters encountered all throughout Inside - fusing with the hivemind and escaping (sort of but not really) came with a bit of a shock. The shock value serves well with the game, especially a game that constantly introduces new gimmicks that add to gameplay and story in creative ways. Still, I feel that if Playdead had resorted to an additional style of narration, the eyebrow-raising events of Inside might not have come off as such a negative shock. However, I'm not saying Playdead should do that. Much of Inside's charm comes from its lack of guidance and the exclusive use of EBN. As such, I think they went with the right choice of narration style - even with the small drawback. I only point out this flaw in the writing to illustrate the nature of EBN, and its advantages and disadvantages.
EBN is arguably one of the best tools for storytelling, but, in the face of complex details, may prove to be insufficient.
My name is Syto.
I talk about Writing.
P.S.
I'm doing a no death run of Inside on the Dark Light Productions Youtube Channel. Please check it out. :)
