I recently purchased The Novelist on steam(just released today). The game is similar to Gone home and The Stanley Parable in that you follow a story. I'd like to have a discussion on what people think of this genre.

When I go to the forums for all these games, The Stanley parable, Gone home, doesn't matter. It's always the same. "This isn't really a game, its just a book you play". I really don't understand that opinion. Its almost always interactive, and in the case of most, there are branching paths. But every time I try to talk to someone about it, all I hear is "This isn't a game, its an art piece by a pseudo-intellectual". Usually I'll check out their steam page, and they haven't even played the game. It absolutely drives me crazy that people won't even give games like this a chance. Most gamers would agree we want games to be more accepted in our culture, but when something like this comes along that could increase the acceptance of games, gamers blow it off because you can't mindlessly kill people.

Now obviously there are exceptions, not everyone acts like this. But a lot of people do. What are your opinions on the subject? If a game is merely an interactive story with little gameplay, is it still considered a game to you?

I don't like the poll. I feel like its a little of both. A story with no gameplay mechanics svcks all the life from the story making it work to complete the story. I sorta prefer shiny things to keep me awake so my brain can be active in understanding things that are going on.

I gave the poll an edit. Any better?

Yes .. Games need some gameplay I think, if it doesn't have any.. Just call it a book.

i have a lot of words to say on this subject but every time i try i can never really get started. it's an incredibly complicated thing that i feel really deserves more intelligent discussion than B-BUH THIS ISNT A GAAAME, but at the same time claims like that are completely understandable because for the most part the writing in these projects, and the developers' ability to handle that writing, is not nearly at the level it needs to be in order for these sorts of things to be considered legitimate.

Gone Home was an incredible thing. the environment it built, the atmosphere of the house, the subtle callbacks to everyday life in the 90s were all really, really neat, and the methods of narrative delivery - discarded notes, letters, incidental things like concert tickets or pamphlets - were a much more intelligent way of handling what lots of games today typically do through audiologs (because reading is for dorks and nobody wants to do that).

if Fullbright had opted to handle Gone Home's primary story in the same way it handled the various subplots - through personal interpretation of clues left around the environment - the game would have been much, much better off for it, but the decision to have random bits of narration, Sam's voice in your ear telling you how lame it was to be a teenager, did nothing in service of that. it focused on an amateurish, fairy tale love story full of inconsistencies and illogical cop-outs when all the material was there for it to have been so, so much more.

i think that, especially given all the focus the Oculus Rift has gotten in recent months, there is a lot of future for games like Gone Home. they're a natural fit - sensory immersion in a virtual environment that, for the most part, is not very good for fast-paced games but absolutely fantastic for slower, more thoughtful experiences - and i think that given a few years to evolve and mature, this chapter in the long, embittered history of adventure games sitting on the fringe of definition might finally hit a satisfying note.

but it's not there right now. what's out isn't absolute garbage (except Dear Esther [censored] that [censored]) but it's also not nearly worthy of the unending praise that gets heaped upon it. the birth of a new genre is when criticism is the most important, and right now nobody's doing that nearly as well as they should be.