Jennifer Hepler’s Not-At-All-Controversial Idea

If you like games and you get on the Internet, you’ve probably witnessed the recent shit storm surrounding BioWare employee Jennifer Hepler. Quick recap: in an interview from 2006 (talk about digging up the past), Ms. Hepler suggests that since many games allow you to skip story cut scenes, they should also allow people who really dig the story (and only the story) to skip combat and exploration sequences. Something like a fast forward button. Six years later, Ms. Hepler opens a Twitter account, which somehow leads to angry “fans” lashing out at her directly for her statements, calling her all sorts of terrible names and basically everything that’s wrong with the industry. Note that Jennifer has not worked on the MASS EFFECT series, but was a key part of the DRAGON AGE games and also worked on STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC (which part, I don’t know, but I’d like to find out!).

For all the discussion going on about the back-and-forth name-calling that took place in the past few days, precious little discussion is happening about whether or not Jennifer Hepler’s idea has any merit. The best I could find was one site (then parroted by many other sites) referencing L.A. NOIRE, which did indeed allow you to skip the fast-paced chase/combat sequences after three failed attempts. What nobody is talking about, however, is that there’s an entire genre of “game” that is actually 100% about story. It’s called “visual novel,” a subset of graphic adventure that basically boils down to choose-your-own-adventure plus voice acting plus pretty images.

Some famous examples include EVER17, 999, PHANTOM OF INFERNO, PHOENIX WRIGHT: ACE ATTORNEY, HOTEL DUSK: ROOM 215, and Aksys’ recent PSP title HAKUOKI (expect a review from me soon!). Oh, and there’s also KATAWA SHOUJO, a strangely endearing cripple-fetish eroge made by fans of the genre, and probably played by (some of) the same people who attacked Ms. Hepler.

Since I couldn’t find any blog post addressing this point after multiple google searches and browsing twitter feeds, I’ve decided to make the case myself. Jennifer Hepler seems like a prime candidate for launching the Japanese-cherished genre in North America. Thus…

BioWare: make the first big-Western-studio visual novel.

Feel free to add bits of meaty gameplay: puzzle-solving, maybe some other mini-games or combat. But make it all about the story. Lots of reading (or listening) with lots of choices. Tell a story, make it memorable, and make the “gameplay” little more than user interface for an interactive story book. Do it with a current franchise, or hell, start a new IP. But give it a try! I for one will pay top dollar for it.

And Ms. Hepler, if you manage to stumble upon my little blog: I’ve always loved stories in games. And people tell me “if you value the story over anything else, just read a book or watch a movie!” Yeah, I get that. But even the tiny bit of interaction that comes from controlling the text and making decisions at key points in the story make said story that much better. I’m totally with you. I mean, I love action games and can do combat all day long, but some days I just want a game that’s nothing but cut scenes and decision-making. So let’s give it a try, and let’s see it happen from one of the best studios this side of the globe.