Analysis: All Aboard The Last (Narrative) Express
In this analysis, writer Tom Cross takes a close look at Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express and its attitude to storytelling, discovering how it crafts a sense of time and why it works so well.
Tom Cross: "If we want to explore the possibilities for branching, reactive, fluid narratives, we obviously need to explore possible ways to realize this goal. We can talk all we want about the potential for deep, almost procedurally generated stories, or emergent narratives, but it’s also important to examine the material we already have before us, be they video games or other.
The problem with video games, as I’ve mentioned previously, is that they so clearly start and end unto themselves. They do not take place in a world, they do not provide views onto separate lives. Even the ones that aim to do so fail in their ways. Grand Theft Auto creates a city that moves and lives around you, but in your absence, in your presence, during your inactive moments, it refuses to change."
