 Zack Snyder is a brilliant cinematographer I'm gonna bet you probably didn't expect this video to begin that way But what we're going to do today is talk about Moments and story and how they're different from each other. See in a very general sense Moments make up a story a story is comprised of several different striking moments So what is a moment? Well in film we're talking about things like this And this And that first clip is from Zack Snyder's 300 a movie which is essentially just a collection of moments thrown together Whereas the second clip is Batman v Superman dawn of justice, which is also just a collection of moments put together However, one of them is Good and one of them is bad What's the difference? Well in a way 300 comes with its story already baked in if you think about it it comes from an adaptation of a graphic novel Which is itself sourced from an actual historical event as long as in your story 300 Spartans die fighting innumerable Persians on The fields of Thermiboli You have told your story and by the way, I know that's not how it actually went down in history That's not what this video is about the other Movie it's sort of a different story It's a very loose collection of moments about two and a half hours long now some of those movie moments are Brilliant and striking Visually, which is why you'll never hear me say a bad thing about Zack Snyder's cinematography choices However, they don't come together to form a coherent or enjoyable Story now speaking of coherency you might at this point be asking yourself What does this have to do with SCP video games? I tend to use film as a reference point for most media even my writing which is not exactly a visual medium But it's especially valid for video games. It's right there in the title video Video games were a visual medium. So comparing them to film is perfectly valid. I have worked work now and will in the future work for various SCP video game related projects as either a consultant on writing or as a writer Some of my contributions have been very tiny almost insignificant and some of them have been very significant But there's been a continuous thread through every project I've worked on in the SCP community I should say the SCP video game community and that's that story is always secondary to game play and the Establishment of moments. I'm not entirely sure that people are thinking about it in that way They're not thinking about the idea that they're establishing moments But let's look at something like SCP containment breach SCP containment breach is not necessarily the earliest SCP video game, but it's the one that really brought SCP video games to Let's let's call it the prototypical version. It's the one that really drove future development of SCP video games Now I've had nothing to do with this game except as a consumer I should say I played the game before but I have nothing to do with it behind the scenes So I'm gonna examine it from that perspective Think about the introduction to SCP containment breach if you played through it You are in your cell you read a document about how you're a D class And then you get picked up by a couple of guards to be taken to SCP 173's containment chamber to help clean it That's what's going on or test it. It's not exactly particularly clear Come think of it Regardless you're brought to the cell now Whilst you're being transported there are audio and visual Notes that are pretty amazing in establishing the world that you're in right you can hear Various and randomized Announcements over the intercom you can hear various randomized conversations between the two guards that are transporting you But everything that's going on here is essentially the illusion of choice The point is to take you to the SCP 173 containment chamber you get there and then a breach happens Literally all hell breaks loose and you're stuck in the dark with a bunch of monsters Everything leading up to this point is there's no real choice involved You can stay in your cell but that leads to death you can break away from the guards But that leads to death too you go from point a to point b So the game can serve you up the moment that it has prepared for you and nothing about this is important to your Story in the game and that's the main failing I find in SCP video games currently now some of this is emergent gameplay by the way Like they have moments that create themselves or that you create individually like the SCP 173 is designed to be able to appear in most rooms randomly and When it appears close to you you get a scarecord and it can kill you right? So there's gonna be instance instances where you get killed by SCP 173 in new and unexpected ways Regardless of how many times you played the game This is emergent gameplay it allows you to create the story as you're going along or to create a story as you're going along But there's no real Direction to this video game. There's one point in SCP containment breach that really stuck out to me And that's you you find a control room. I can't remember off the top of my head What the point of going there was it's it's the most of the game is go from here to here You know go from here to here then go from here to here. It's Point a to point B. There is no story really other than for whatever reason your character wants to escape You could lock yourself into a closet like a lot of people in the game have done they most of those people are dead But your plan is to leave Along this plan you find a control room. There's things you need to do there Whatever to get from another point a to point B As you go up a narrow set of stairs to get into this control room Suddenly you hear behind you down the stairs or in the stairwell SEP 049 quietly Methodically making his way up the stairs clank clank clank clank clank clank clank And you panic and you look around the room. There's two rooms connected You look around the room and see if you can find a place to hide You can't and you realize that you may be very well screwed. He comes up. He looks at you He tells you that he's there to help that he's going to cure you and he reaches his hand out and walks in your direction And you juke him and you go down the stairs and you run away and it's an amazing Moment in the game, but it has absolutely No bearing on the story whatsoever. There's no follow-up to this. There's nothing about it that matters He doesn't recognize you later It just happens and it's a great moment But that's it in the end. It doesn't matter that it happened. It's not a story point. It's an obstacle and This isn't how it has to be one of the greatest pieces of video game storytelling in the last Ever is the last of us. I think most people can agree with that People have opinions on last of us, too I have no real strong opinions one way or the other on it, but the last of us one is a masterpiece of storytelling in the beginning of the game, there's a section just At the end of the introduction where you're playing as Joel and you're carrying your daughter up a hill and You have zombies on your tail. This is a zombie horror Stealth survival game and you were not stealth at this point. You're just running and You can hear them Directly behind you. You even see one of them there on the ground trying to crawl out from an ambulance They think gets up and chases you too And it's panic inducing you care about these characters already from previous story points that you've had not moments But story points. Yes, they were moments, but they weaved together in a coherent way to create a story You care about both of these characters deeply already in just this first 10 minutes Okay, maybe not to the level of that you care about some of the other characters by the end of the game But you care what happens to these characters and then as The tension rises as you hear them creeping closer and closer behind you You're carrying someone and they are running full tilt so they are faster than you The tension breaks and you're saved and that's a horror element Rising tension rising tension breaks attention But this moment isn't in isolation It does matter because what happens next is one of the most poignant storytelling moments in all of video game history in a Horror survival game So SCP video games don't have to make story secondary to be I should say they can be successful without story This is clear as if you containment breach or Unity or blackout or all these other things they can be successful with no story It's just not an ideal situation for them because you can't just have moments the moments Have to matter to the story you might be successful without it, but I don't think you're gonna be any good Anyway, that's it. Thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed the video Please hit the subscribe button and then hit the notification bell next to that so you're notified when I upload new videos Not asking. This is not a request Hit the subscribe button and subscribe Then I went over to patreon.com ford slash D Samarian and pledged any level like everybody here on the screen already has including VV Dr. J redacted Sinjiriki who have all pledged $100 and Morgan who has pledged at $40 and then after you're done with that Scroll down a little bit. You'll see a carousel of products Provide you know my stuff. It's all my stuff. You'll love it Probably it's nice to know that I'm not alone out here and I will see you all again on Tuesday