On-swa! On-swa!

I’ve just finished playing Ico.

It’s a game for the PS2 in which you have to escape from a castle – and take your companion with you. The game is beautifully drawn, and instead of music features a soundtrack of ambient sound: the wash of waves on cliffs, gulls crying on the wing.

The light in the castle is from a bright summer sun, washing out the picture, exposing the crumbling stone and cliffs on which the castle is built. If you’ve got a PS2 I highly recommend you pick a copy up.

But what I actually want to talk about is the storytelling in the game, and how it’s different to that in any other medium, and shows just what you can do with writing in a game.

Of necessity, this post is going to contain spoilers.

A little background: You play Ico, a twelve-year-old boy with horns growing from his head. The superstitious villagers where you grew up believe that your deformity brings bad luck to the village – so they take you to a castle and lock you alive in a coffin to die.

Escaping from the coffin, you find a woman in a cage – Yorda. Glowing luminously, Yorda doesn’t seem quite human.

To complete the game, you must escape the castle, taking Yorda with you. Slightly difficult, as she is not as hardy as you – she can’t jump, or climb chains. Most of the game is involved with trying to clear a route that Yorda can take through the castle.

You investigate areas, climb almost sheer cliffs and towers – it’s not a game for the vertiginous – exploring the castle to find a route for Yorda. To get her to follow, you hold her hand as you lead the way, or call to her in your own language: On-swa! On-swa! for her to come and join you.

She can leap small distances if you call her across – and you catch her arm and draw her to safety.

If you leave her alone for too long, creatures made of black smoke will appear, and drag Yorda into the darkness. If this happens – and you can’t get back to her quickly enough to fight them off – the game is over.

Now to the storytelling.

The first reason why Ico stands out is that this isn’t about you. In most games, you fight and win-or-lose. If your character dies, it’s back to a save point and start again.

In Ico, you lose if you can’t protect Yorda. The game is all about saving her – not about you at all.

As you guide Yorda through the castle, you feel protective of her in a way that you don’t in, say, a first-person shooter. If the Master Chief falls in Halo, it’s just: Oh well, better respawn.

What Ico does is introduce a new dynamic to this – you haven’t just lost your own life, you’ve failed to protect Yorda. She’s helpless without you to guide her, and defend her from the darkness.

The emotional connection you build with Yorda is defined by the gameplay itself in every moment that you play – and is thus more emotionally real to you as a player than Master Chief’s connection with the Arbiter, or Jak’s with Daxter.

This emotional thread runs throughout the game – every action you take is about helping a person other than yourself.

There are two major sequences, both towards the end of the game, which build on the emotional connection built between the two of you over the past dozen or so hours.

It seems that you’ve escaped the castle. The bridge to the mainland has been opened and you cross… But then the bridge starts to break apart again.

And Yorda’s on the wrong side, back at the castle.

And the two sides of the bridge are moving apart.

And before I knew what I was doing I’d turned Ico around and ran back to Yorda, because, dammit, she was my responsibility and I was going to look after her, but the bridge is moving apart and there’s no way to make it across but it’s too late to think and you run and you leap….

…and you miss…

…and Yorda reaches down and grabs your arm, saving your life in the same way that you’ve saved hers so many times before.

And the experience is visceral.

The second sequence is at the very end of the game. Yorda’s not well – paralysed and trapped – and the monsters are attacking.

Waves of them. More than you can count. And they keep attacking, three or four at a a time, trying to get to Yorda and you’re swinging your sword, destroying them, trying to protect her, but every time you hit one and it dissolves into insubstantial smoke another two take its place.

And all I could think was this: You’re not going to take my friend.

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Ye Canna Change The Laws O’ Physics

Due to some sort of alien sabotage, my server has exploded with a resulting loss of website and email.

Mr Scott is hard at work in the depths of the engine room trying to get it fixed even as we speak, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. Or how long the artificial gravity and air will hold.

I’ll be in my quarters comforting the beautiful alien princess. If you want to get in touch with me over the next couple of days, use this email address: piers.beckley@gmail.com.

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Bow before my science-fictional knowledge

First place.

Xbox 360 and more DVDs than you can shake a stick at.

Damn, we’re good.

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The Five Stages of Grief

I’ve moved through Denial and am now onto Anger.

I mean, seriously London, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?

Did you just suddenly wake up STUPID yesterday?

I am so angry about this, I’m in serious danger of Godwinning myself. Oh no, wait, LONDON’S ALREADY DONE THAT FOR ME.

Right, that’s it London. Just don’t talk to me until I’ve calmed down.

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Hooray For Us!

This just in from the Guardian:

Being Human, the flatshare-with-monsters show that I raved about along with Oli, Jason, Rob, and David has been commissioned to series.

Not only does this prove that we are all gentlemen of exquisite taste, but also that quality genre series have a home on British TV, and that willing something to happen really hard can make it occur.

For the next demonstration of my psychic powers, not only will I get scripts for a new TV series of Blake’s 7 commissioned, I will make it happen yesterday.

[concentrates REALLY HARD]

There.

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Rogers Moore

John Rogers is a rather fine screenwriter. His works include the vastly under-rated The Core, and a pilot for a Global Frequency TV show (which, sadly, wasn’t picked up).

He also wrote one of the drafts of Catwoman, and was unfortunate enough to have his name on the finished product. But he’s really sorry about that.

Anyhoo, he and Dean Devlin have received a 13-episode order for new series Leverage from TNT.

Nice.

But the best bit is this: not only is he blogging right now about the nitty-gritty of running a writers room, he’ll also answer questions left in the comments section.

And for another perspective on what goes on in a writers room, check out showrunner Ron Moore’s podcasts for Battlestar Galactica. Not only does he do commentaries on all the episodes, occasionally he’ll take the recorder into the writers room and you can hear the writers break the episode.

I tell you, the Internet is full of goodness.

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Letters from America: Introduction

Gah. Haven’t posted a thing on the blog for a couple of weeks. This must stop.

Lest Stuart Perry decide that it’s Karma Payback Time and swing by for a drive-by commenting, I have a new plan.

Reprints.

As popularised by Danny Stack, the plan is a simple one. Should I not have anything interesting to write about, or be stuck behind a rapidly approaching deadline, or just be having too much fun elsewhere to write a full blog post, I’ll reprint stuff I’ve written before.

Odds are that it’ll be new to you though.

I spent most of a year living the dream in Los Angeles. I had some redundancy money, enough to support me comfortably for six months, and had decided that it was time to shit or get off the pot and spend some time trying to make it as a writer.

Having done the sums, I calculated the cost-of-living for LA versus London.

They were the same.

So I got a visa, and off I went.

I took with me the following:

  • A backpack half-filled with clothes and half-filled with screenwriting books
  • A toothbrush
  • My wallet
  • Nothing else

And I had a hostel on Hollywood Boulevard booked for the first week after I arrived.

I was in Los Angeles for most of a year. And every few weeks, I’d email how it was going to whoever had asked to be kept updated.

So, that’s the background. Next time I’m feeling lazy or overworked, expect to see a reprint of the emails I sent instead of an introduction.

Because as a way of not having to write a blog entry, this one would have to be counted as a bit of a failure.

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Suddenly, I feel strangely professional

The first time I’ve ever been interviewed, and it’s out now.

You can read my witterings about how the state of modern SF is affected by the times in which we live in this month’s issue of SciFiNow, available from all good newsagents.

Every time I think about it, I still get slightly surprised.

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Slacktivism

So, apparently Internet Petitions aren’t worth the photons they’re written with.

Which might be considered a shame if, like me, you’d signed one recently in an attempt to get a second series of Being Human commissioned.

Oops.

This phenomenon is known as Slacktivism.

It’s like activism, only it doesn’t require you to get your hands dirty, and it doesn’t work. It’s the warm fuzzy feeling you get from forwarding an email to help collect first names for a school project or not buying petrol on May 15th, despite the fact that these things absolutely will not work.

Isn’t it great? You can make a difference, without actually having to do anything! Give yourself a big hug! You deserve it!

Well, if you really want a place to go and ask for a new series of Being Human, here’s how to do it:

  1. Visit the BBC TV Feedback page.
  2. Leave them feedback on Being Human.

Unfortunately, it takes a few more clicks than signing an Internet Petition.

On the plus side, it’s guaranteed to be read by someone at the BBC, and a summary will be forwarded to the channel executive.

That would be Danny Cohen, the man who actually has the power to make a decision whether or not it gets recommissioned.

I’ve made up for my earlier slackassery.

So if there’s some feedback you want to give the BBC – about anything – door’s open.

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Tell your grandchildren you were there…

Jonathan Coulton is playing his first ever UK gig at Dingwalls in Camden this coming Thursday.

If you don’t know JoCo, he’s behind some classic tunes including Re: Your Brains, a rather fine cover of Sir Mix-a-lot’s Baby Got Back and the, frankly, heartbreaking love song Code Monkey.

Not to mention the fact that he did the magnificent closing song for Portal.

A lot of people on the Internet right now are talking about the 1,000 true fans that, when you have them, enable you to give up the day job and make a living from your art. Well, JoCo is living proof.

More info about him.

If you hurry, there are still a few tickets left.

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