Somewhere I Belong: The Elements of a Good Game Story

The elements of a good game story can be as varied and as deep as the elements of any good novel that you pick up at the local bookstore.  However, a game story benefits from a few freedoms that can limit most novels.  Game stories can branch in multiple directions based on the players choice, they can introduce a larger number of descriptions, events, and plots without worry about a page count, and the stories can be experienced by multiple people who work together in order to finish and experience them.

Just as with a good novel, a good game story must focus on setting, character development, conflict, and resolution.  If these elements are strongly written and combined with smooth, interesting game mechanics, a great game won't be far behind.

The setting of a good game story needs to fit with the characters and contain the conflict.  The description of locales should be constant and every place, item, and character should seem like it belongs there (unless the story involves something that shouldn't be there).  Even amongst different locales with different races of beings, there should be some story element that ties every part of the setting together.  Maybe all of the characters speak the same language or Imperial Guards are present in every village from the deserts of Anduin to the ice fields of Clickspire.  A great setting readies the stage for the player and the characters he or she will control during the entirety of the game.  If it is bland or seems broken it can seriously hurt the believability of the story.

Character development in a game story can refer to the development of a single player-controlled character to the development of an entire race of beings controlled by the player.  Depending on the type of game, character development can be extremely linear, presented to the player through narrative, or deeply varied, controlled by the player through in-game choices.  In either case, the character must develop in a way that seems believable.  If that character goes in a direction that is completely unexpected, there had better be some form of explanation as to why, otherwise the player may become confused with the story.  If the player has control over the character's development, the best way to make the story good is to allow for a lot of choices.  Character's should be able to branch in several directions that will engage the player and make them feel that they are actually an active part of the story.

Conflict in a good game story needs to be compelling.  Every hero needs a goal, and that goal is usually guarded by some giant creature, on the far side of pit full of moving platforms, or at the end of a long line of enemy combatants.  Why doesn't the hero just turn away from his enemies and go home?  Why does he keep fighting?  These kinds of questions need to be answered in order to justify the conflict that the player will overcome during the game.  If the hero is doing it "just because", the game loses a chance to immerse the player deeper in the game world.

Equally as important as conflict in a good game story is resolution.  Nothing is more anticlimactic than defeating the last man threatening the world and cutting right to the credits.  A good story tells the player how the hero is received after his victory, how the game world changes, or how the characters of the world grieve for the hero's sacrifice.  Cliffhanger endings serve a purpose that all too often leads to a feeling of being cheated.  Done well, an ending will provide the closure of a great novel and leave a player sitting in their chair marveling at the amazing game they just experienced.

The Grand City of Pervima: A Story Setting

Bisected by the great Thaydin River, the Grand City of Pervima is a major city on the continent of Tryemys.  Surrounded by flat land used for farming outside of the western and southern walls, the city is bordered on the north by the Naigalan forest, and the ruins of Fort Peligos at the foot of Mount Valerian can be seen from the eastern guard towers.  Because of its location on the Thaydin River, the city is a trade hub and home to members of every civilized race on the continent. Dominant among the myriad races are the Crailin, a human offshoot that are known for their exceedingly long, nimble fingers, the bluish hue of their skin, and pupil-less eyes that change color during each of the six stages of their lives.

During the initial planning of the Grand City of Pervima, following the destruction of the Feraxid by Sidis Pervima's forces at Fort Peligos, the Crailin were consulted extensively because of their knowledge concerning the Thaydin River.  Sidis Pervima, hero and founder of Pervima, rewarded the help of the Crailin by setting aside a large swath of land inside of the marble walls for them to call home.  Few citizens of the city know, or even guess, that Lord Sidis Pervima has ruled the Grand City for nearly three thousand years.  The graves behind the Pervima manor, marking the resting place of each Lord, are empty, and Sidis must fake his death and the rise of an heir every ninety years or so through the use of his powerful magic in order to maintain the facade of a perfectly normal ruler.

The Garden of Colored Melody and the Forest of Whispered Thought

The only wild growth within the high marble walls of the Grand City of Pervima, the garden and the forest constitute three square miles of space that is surrounded by ornate silver fencing.  There are two entrances, one from the north and one from the south.  The garden acts as a buffer between the forest and the city on all sides and the great number of flowers and interesting plants draw residents of Pervima for morning strolls, afternoon naps, and lover's meetings.  Those who walk the garden during the early hours of the morning, when all is still and quiet, have reported hearing a melody, the barest whisper of a hum, that seems to sway back and forth with the wind.  Most who have heard it say that they would gladly have listened to it all day, but the noise of the city as it wakes always drowns out the soft music.  Nobody tends the garden and yet it always seems maintained; the hardiest plants for the season will appear in place of those that have withered, and anything that is picked or destroyed is replaced in its full glory the next day.

The Forest is only rarely entered.  Those who stray close to the densely packed trees often hear voices with the rustle of each branch.  Those who have entered the forest to do it harm have either returned in a state of madness or have never been seen again.

On cloudy, moonless nights, the people of Pervima have seen lights of different colors glowing amongst the garden and the forest, but talk of the Fay has discouraged all but the bravest from investigating.

Lord Pervima’s Manor

Set atop a hill that overlooks the city, Pervima Manor is the home and resting place of the ruling family of the city.  It is an impressive three story structure with a tower in the rear that looms another thirty feet above the main complex.  The expertly crafted stonework of the building is untarnished and, at dusk, can just barely be seen to glow a soft magical blue.  The steepled roof is broken only by the addition of a few chimneys that rarely issue any form of smoke.  The windows are tall and broad but dominated by heavy black drapes.  The focus of the well maintained lawn and gardens is a large fountain topped with a statue of the original Lord Sidis Pervima, founder of the Grand City of Pervima.  A plaque at the foot of the statue reads “To our Generous and Gentle Lord – A Dedication from his People."

Citizens are welcome to visit the complex at all hours and meet with officials that speak for Lord Pervima during the day.  Lord Pervima himself only holds court immediately following nightfall, which most believe is due to his busy schedule during the day.

Behind the tower of the Manor lies a plot of land that is thought to hold the remains of each Lord to have presided over the Grand City of Pervima.  Thirty headstones, each crafted from the same stone that the manor itself is made of, are arranged in five lines.  The Lords of Pervima have been well known for the privacy they maintain regarding their personal lives.  No public weddings take place, yet there is always an heir, and no one from the city has ever been invited to the funeral of a past Lord.  Most citizens overlook the peculiarity of it because every Lord of Pervima has been a gentle ruler during peace and a ferocious defender of the city in times of strife.

The Retaw Inn

Built almost entirely on top of the Thaydin River, the Retaw Inn is believed by most to be magically anchored to the small plot of land that part of the building actually occupies.  As the largest, most well supplied, and easily accessible place of refuge for those who travel by way of the Thaydin, the Retaw Inn is a constant source of light and sound within the Grand City of Pervima.  Eight stories tall and built from almost every conceivable material except for leather, each floor is offset from the floor below it in a way that makes the entire building appear to be reaching across the Thaydin to the opposite shore.

The first three floors of the inn are dedicated to food, drink, and entertainment.  Griff's Grub and Grog on the main floor is especially well known because it is the first place that visitors see, and the last place that troublemaker's see before Griff, a nine foot tall iron golem and owner of the inn, tosses them into the river through a window behind the bar.  Most visitors count this among the many available forms of entertainment at the Retaw Inn.

The other five floors are made up of visitor rooms, staff rooms, and meeting spaces.  Unique to the buildings construction, the Retaw Inn also boasts a harbor below the main floor for all but the largest ships.  This eliminates the need for long voyage sailors to carouse the streets of Pervima looking for a fine drinking establishment.

As a hub of activity on the Thaydin, the Retaw Inn is also the most lucrative center of information in all of Pervima.  Those who want news from the farthest shores need only buy a drink for somebody from a given area and they'll be sure to learn whatever it is they want to know, plus a little extra.

Jonathan's Soul

Adjudicator Gram lowered his lantern as he watched the approach of Caliph Friar and a third Order soldier he didn't recognize. The soldier raised his fist and thumped it against his chest plate.

"Probate Michaels, sir, I'm honored..."

Gram cut him off, "We've got a real big problem coming and little time.  You look particularly green, is this your first time on a Soulfield?"

The Probate nodded, "Outside of the simulators, but I scored top marks in all..."

Gram waved his hand, "Your marks don't matter."

The flame of Gram's lantern burst into brilliant white light, illuminating the red walls of an enormous cavern veined with pulsing blue tubes.  Close below the surface of a pool of motionless liquid was an object that's shimmering, flickering motion defied description.

Gram addressed the Probate, "What is a Soulfield?"

"A container inside of each human heart that..."

"And that body of liquid you see there?"

"The human's personality; this one is quite shallow, which..."

"And at the bottom?"

"The human's soul, which we protect from the Bedlam."

Gram nodded to Friar, "He knows the basics, hope he fights better than the last Probate."

Friar offered a wry smile, "What's up Gram, you said there was 'big trouble'."

Gram flattened his hand and a square of light appeared that resolved itself into the image of a young man.

"This is Jonathan, the human who's Soulfield we defend," Gram said, "His soul is being targeted for corruption, likely due to its purity and the small number of Soul Guards defending it.  It seems they aren't taking any chances with this one, they're sending the Five to corrupt it."

"Are you sure?" Friar asked.

"The Bedlam Fetcher that I put down earlier seemed certain. They will likely be led by Fillion, a fallen Soul Guard."

"Filthy betrayer," Friar spat.

"We need backup," the Probate interjected

"You are the backup." Gram shrugged.

"Three Soul Guards against the Five Bedlam Chieftains!?  That's suicide. Why wouldn't the Order send backup?"

"To them, Jonathan isn't worth much," Gram replied.

"Then why die defending the soul of a human the Order doesn't value?"

"Because, he's a good person, and I will never yield a good person to the Bedlam.  If I die to save his soul from defilement, then I die honorably.  If you cannot die for the cause, Probate, you should not be a Soul Guard.  Run, while there is still time."

"Time's up," Friar interjected casually.   

Five shapes, each a mass of darkness without definition, emerged from the wall on the far side of the cavern.

"Ah, Adjudicator Gram," said the largest.

Gram stepped forward, "Be gone from this place, Fillion. You have not, and will never, defile a soul on my watch."

"You stopped me centuries ago, Adjudicator, but now I am not alone," replied the creature, as it stepped forward into the light of Gram's lantern.

Gram set his feet and raised his lantern.

"For Jonathan!" he cried as he leapt forward into battle.

Story Driven: The Relationship Between Gameplay and Story

The relationship between gameplay and story is one that changes depending on the type of game.  For some games, like Bejeweled and Tetris, no story is really necessary.  For other games, like Super Mario and Snake Rattle and Roll, the story gets the game started and gives the player the initial push into the gameplay.  Then there are the games where the story is what drives the gameplay.  In these games the story is discovered over the course of the game and the player continues playing in order to find out what happens next.  Story is not necessary for every game, but in games where even the smallest amount of story exists, it is important that it adds an interesting element to the gameplay and that it is presented in a way that flows with the game as whole.

Depending on the type of game there are different ways to connect a story to its gameplay.  For platforming and sidescrolling games, the story can act as a container, bookending the game with an initial quest and an ending.  These games can also contain story material inside of the action itself.  In Braid, a sidescrolling platformer, the player is confronted with a number of books on pedestals before each level that tell the story of Braid’s past and why he continues to go forward.  This kind of in-game story design has the potential to immerse the player deeper into the game itself.

Real Time Strategy games usually utilize the time in between missions to relay the ongoing story.  The Command & Conquer games under the Tiberium story arc are famous for presenting live action cutscenes between the missions in order to alert the player to what is happening in the story.  These cutscenes usually take place from a first person perspective with the actors looking directly into the camera.  This makes the player feel like they are actually part of the action, immersing them in the story and creating a link between the story and the gameplay that follows the mission briefing.

Role playing games usually focus on in-game character interaction that directly links the story to the gameplay.  Players are often tasked with finding a character or enemy that is pivotal to the story and either talking to them or killing them in order to advance the game, and the story, at the same time.  Role playing games like Mass Effect 2 also make use of collectible journal entries on objects in the game world that add depth to the setting and immerse the player more fully in the experience.

There are as many ways to connect a game’s story to its gameplay as there are games.  It is important to find something that fits seamlessly with the game, does not detract from either the story or the gameplay, and further enhances the experience of the player.  After all, that’s who the game is made for.

Hardcore vs. Casual: An RPG Battle

In an ongoing quest to capture the newer audience of casual gamers, role playing games have needed to make a few small tweaks in order to be more broadly accessible.  When you come right down to it, I believe that both casual and hardcore gamers are going to want the same thing out of their role playing experience, but they are going to want it at different speeds and in different doses.  Things like choice, compelling story, interesting characters, fun combat, and stronger abilities will all be important to both types of gamers, the difference can be found in the presentation and the pacing.

Most hardcore gamers already know that a role playing game is going to consist of combat that is balanced against their characters statistics, which are augmented by their equipment and abilities.  Most hardcore RPGs consist of character menus, inventory menus, skill menus, and lots of numbers.  This kind of presentation can be overwhelming to somebody who is just getting into the world of role playing games, so, simplified statistics and inventory are the status quo for a casual RPG.

Combat is almost a definite for any role playing game.  Hardcore RPGs will consist of combat that requires strategy and a well rounded party.  Casual RPGs will probably consist of simpler combat that is more straightforward with little or no strategy necessary.  Both types of combat will need to be gratifying with exciting animations and challenging opponents.

Hardcore RPGs consist of quests that can take hours of game time to complete, with intricate puzzles that require hard-to-find pieces in order to solve them.  Casual RPGs consist of smaller quests that will allow the player to drop in and out of the game at their leisure while still managing to accomplish something with each session.

Hardcore RPGs, on the whole, require a greater time investment and less hand holding than casual RPGs, but make no mistake; players from either side of the spectrum want a fun, engaging experience with a great story and memorable characters.

Ingredients of a Role Playing Game

Now that we’ve covered the design aspects of a role playing game, we should probably cover what an RPG needs to be called an RPG.  In no particular order you will need: a setting, a story, at least one character, an adversary, a goal, a leveling system, and provocation for one character to reach that goal by defeating that adversary.

The setting, made up of time and place, should probably include some form of history as well so that it doesn’t seem like it just popped up out of nowhere, unless that’s part of the story.  The story encompasses everything that will take place during the game and should include everything that the character, the setting, and the adversary will do.  The character will be controlled by the player for the majority of the game. Players should be able to like the character or at least identify with the character.  The adversary should provide a challenge that the character has to overcome and will most likely drive the story forward by forcing the character to act or by presenting an obstacle that the character has to overcome.  The goal should be what the character strives to reach during the course of the game, whether it be the defeat of the adversary, the love of the princess (not mentioned above), or the destruction of the setting.  The goal is usually attained after a final confrontation with the adversary. A leveling system can be anything from increasing stats after a set of requirements are met, to donning new equipment that is found, dropped, or rewarded to the character. This will make a player feel that they are being rewarded for their efforts in defeating enemies, solving puzzles, or exploring.

Doesn't Feel Right Without It: The Important Design Aspects of a Role Playing Game

Role playing games require a variety of different design aspects and mechanics to be properly created, tested, and rolled into a finished product that will be enjoyable to as wide an audience as possible.  The graphics must fit the game, the sound has to roll with the action, the story has to be engaging, the characters must be believable, the combat needs to be exciting, the loot has to be rewarding, the controls need to be tight, the locales need to be fresh, the menus should be non-intrusive, the inventory system should be manageable, and the ending had better be satisfying.  With everything that goes into an RPG, it is truly spectacular when one comes out that gets everything right and provides the player with a memorable experience that they will come back to time and time again.

As a general guideline for creating an RPG, a developer should focus on the character, setting, and story design, the combat, and the controls.  The character, setting, and story need to be interesting enough to engage the player so that they want to spend time with the game.  The story needs to move the game forward at an even pace, allowing the player to feel as if they are actually part of an ongoing tale.  The characters have to be designed in such a way to make the player like them, identify with them, or want to destroy them; this is an important aspect of keeping a player engaged with the game.  The setting needs to fit the story and the characters.  It needs to be interesting, well designed, and believable.  The smallest details, like flowers in a meadow or squirrels in the trees of a forest, can lend believability to a setting and make it more interesting to play inside of.

Combat is normally a central mechanic to any role playing game.  If the player is going to be engaging in any activity repeatedly, it needs to be entertaining.  This can be achieved through visually interesting combat animation, well designed set piece battles, challenging AI, new abilities and equipment, and different enemy types.  Combat should never feel like a chore that simply connects the dots between story points.

Finally, we come to controls.  If the controls for a game are cumbersome or unintuitive it does not matter if the story or the combat is good.  Control schemes should always have the option to be remapped by the player.  No button on the keyboard should be hardwired to any given command.  The number of regularly entered commands should never exceed what a normal player can press or hold at any one time.

These are more general design elements that are necessary to make an RPG enjoyable or accessible to the greatest number of people. However, some of the design aspects of an RPG really depend on the type of player.  If you’re a player who enjoys a story driven, dialogue heavy role playing experience then you’ll probably want a developer to focus on the plot, the locales, the character design, voice acting, and interaction.  Story driven players will want enemies that are smart and powerful, puzzles that require some thought, music that fits each scene superbly, and menus that don’t disturb the story immersion.

More action-oriented players will probably want a developer to focus on the graphic experience, loud and gratifying sounds (explosions, metal on metal, crunching bones, etc), the inventory system, and loot drops.  They won’t mind spending a long time examining their items in a menu as long as they get detailed descriptions and statistics.  Action-oriented players will want their character to vanquish hordes of monsters at a time with only mildly engaging puzzles, and music that is at least different with every area.

How to Make it Better

I will now present thoughts on how to rectify some of the design problems in a game that I thought had a nearly perfect presentation: Dragon Age Origins.

“The visuals, while solid for the game type, are basically everything we’ve seen before in a number of fantasy games.”

Dragon Age Origins presented a well designed world with intricate detail that was, at first, exciting to look upon.  However, as the game progressed, I realized that it had all been done before.  The game borrows from work that has already been completed. The basis for way the characters look, and how most fantasy characters look, can be directly related to Tolkien’s different races from the Lord of the Rings.  The Dwarves are short but muscular, the humans are tall and proud, and the elves are slight and pointy eared.  There was a game that was released in 2001 called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura that also contained a number of fantasy races, but the designers of Arcanum changed the character designs ever so slightly by adding a steam punk flare and outfitting the dwarves and trolls in tailored coats.

The characters aren’t the only elements of the design that were lacking in originality though.  The equipment was, for the most part, standard RPG swords, shields, and armor.  The armor became more bulky as it grew in power, and the shields became broader, but there was never an instance where I put on a piece of armor and said to myself “Wow; now that’s awesome.”  There was a moment in Final Fantasy 7 where I equipped a sword called Organics, entered a battle, and never wanted to unequip the sword again.  Here was a design for a sword that I had never seen before and it made me enjoy the visuals of the game even more.

So how do we make the visual presentation of Dragon Age Origins a little bit more original?  When it comes to the characters and character races, there should be some detail that makes them belong to the Dragon Age universe.  Perhaps the elves pointy ears are longer than normally expected or they are unusually tall and wiry.  The dwarves can be short and stout, but maybe they have beards or hair that is made of crystal.  There are a number of small changes that can be made to the characters in order for the Dragon Age universe to own its characters. 

Equipment should be even easier to design for a gritty, down and bloody universe like Dragon Age.  Buckles, spikes, a missing pauldron, gloves made from the claws of some dangerous creature, helmets that demand authority through the use of crowns, armor that shifts magically around the wearer’s body, swords that don’t look practical but are fashioned from diamond hard minerals, tower shields made from the scale of a dragon, and the list can go on forever.  Taking your standard armor and removing or enlarging a piece of that armor can be the difference between ho hum steel armor and “Wow, that’s awesome.”

Some of the boss fights, particularly the final boss, are boring. There are regular enemy encounters that will tax a player harder than some of the set piece battles.

I fought a group of spiders in a cavern that killed me and my party an unknown number of times before I finally relented by lowering the difficulty and trying a brand new tactic.  While frustrating, it was also interesting to me to see if my new character load out would finally be enough to withstand the eight-legged onslaught and move on to the next deadly challenge.  Unfortunately, the final boss of the game, the gargantuan Archdemon, lord of the Darkspawn, killed me once, and only because I got stuck in a bit of the environment.  A few ballistae and a door that spewed really low level Darkspawn fodder do not make an adequate challenge when the final boss is the size of a mansion and only stands in the middle of the fighting arena.  The battle becomes even more relaxed when you realize that most of your men will survive the initial slaughter and kill off the Darkspawn that come out to help the Archdemon during the middle of the battle.

It is important to feel challenged during a boss battle after wading your way through everything else guarding the route you take to get there.  In order to do this, some of the set piece battles in Dragon Age should have introduced a bit of randomness that would keep players on their toes and force them to switch between sets of tactics.  Instead of an entire battle with the Archdemon in one arena, what if the hero was forced to follow the Archdemon to different places and figure out how best to use the environment against it?  What if the Archdemon had the ability to shape shift into different forms, like a ten foot tall, Sauron-esque melee engine of pain that would force the player to go on the defensive for a time?  Maybe the Archdemon should have been able to randomly possess the body of one of the important NPC characters that go into battle with you, forcing you to make a decision on whether to kill that character to get to the Archdemon faster, or fend them off until the character was able to shake its hold.  Unpredictable behavior in a boss fight can make that fight much more epic, especially for the final battle in a fantastic game.  Obviously, the battle has to be winnable, but, there should be surprises in store for the player as they approach the final climax.

The side stories for the non-romanceable characters, as in the cases of Oghren and Wynne, seem to be a bit shallow when compared to those characters that the hero can become romantically involved with.

Character development in BioWare games is one of the major selling points for story junkies like me and Dragon Age Origins definitely developed the playable and non-playable characters into individuals with goals and fears.  However, I did find that when talking to Oghren and completing his side quests, that they were a lot less involved or engaging as characters like Morrigan.  While Oghren comes off as a comic relief character for most of the game, there are instances where he seems to have a deeper, more thoughtful side.  His loyalty quest belies all that by turning the hero into a dwarven matchmaker for the recently widowed Oghren.

Why should Oghren, or any of the non-romanceable characters for that matter, get less attention in the story.  More exploration into each of the character’s back stories would have been preferable.  Exploring Oghren’s character further would be a start, but other characters deserve a larger amount of story as well.  Wynne’s loyalty quest involved finding an apprentice she had once estranged in the past who just happens to be hiding in the woods near the Dalish Elves.  Having lived such a long life, the player gets to know very little about Wynne, even though she seems to have lived through some interesting experiences.  To go even farther, I would dare to say that even the Mabari War Hound character should have some kind of back story, especially when you acquire him after Ostagar.  Because of the connections that most people form with Dogs, or pets of any kind really, the potential to create a strong, poignant moment is lost as the dog always remains 100% loyal to the hero character.

The silent protagonist.

This design element has been argued back and forth on multiple fronts.  The silent protagonist can be used to decentralize the focus of the player and draw attention to the supporting cast of characters. It is also espoused that this form of hero helps players pretend that they are the ones controlling the action.  However, it also has a tendency to disconnect a player from the character that he or she controls for the entirety of the game because the lack of voice can dehumanize the character and make them seem like less of a person (dwarf, elf, ogre, what have you).

There is a risk in voicing the main character in an RPG.  If the voice acting is bad, the player will become annoyed and likely stop playing the game.  If the voice acting is good, but doesn’t fit the players perception of the character, that can cause a disconnect between the player and the character as well.  In order to ensure that the voice acting goes along with the game, and that the player will identify the voice with the character, the player must be given options.  Simply having two male voices and two female voices to choose from will give players more choice and make them feel as if the character is theirs.  I realize that budgeting for four people to voice two lead roles may not always be financially sound, but if players are given a choice, they are more likely to enjoy the character they create in the end.  Also, during a particularly frantic scene where a group of characters is being chased by a flesh eating cloud of nano-bots, do you want to hear the main character yell “Get the hell out of here!” or do you want to read it in a text box?

Positive and Negative Game Elements

This written work will critique some positive and negative game elements of Just Cause 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War:

Just Cause 2: Positive Design Elements

An expansive, detailed game world. As a gamer, I find exploration and discovery to be a necessary part to most of the games that I enjoy.  There’s nothing quite like starting up a game, looking at the world map and realizing that you’ve only explored 8% of the map in a few hours of gameplay. Sacred, Morrowind, Oblivion, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, these are all games that offered me a huge amount of area to explore, and even better, there were little things to discover along the way that made exploring the game world more interesting.

In-game weapons, vehicles, and tools–like the grappling hook–allow the player to complete the missions in many different ways. There’s something to be said for riding on the nose of a fighter jet, jumping off of it before it explodes in the middle of a group of enemies, landing on top of a limousine and attaching a passing car to a tree with your grappling hook before ducking inside of the limo, removing the driver, and kidnapping a dignitary at eighty miles an hour.  Games that don’t lead me by the hand have some of the most memorable mission events.

A fun, lightheartedly sarcastic and cynical main character that is instantly likeable. Rico Rodriguez is an anti-hero of sorts.  Yes, he’s an operative, but he’s an operative who does the job the way he wants.  He knows that the likelihood of his survival is miniscule, but what the heck, he’s going to have fun until he dies.  A likeable main character is integral to enjoying a video game, because you’ll be seeing a lot of him or her.

A physics engine that is aimed more towards enjoyment than realism. The Half Life 2 physics engine was amazing.  It created a game world where air-filled pontoons are buoyant enough to lift wooden ramps, where bricks can be used to anchor things in place, and where falling from twenty feet would probably break your legs.  Just Cause 2 isn’t quite that literal.  Rico’s momentum-cancelling grappling hook allowed you to free fall from a helicopter at 30,000 feet, hook the ground as soon as possible, and pull yourself to safety without so much as a grass stain.  Sometimes the fun is in the ability to do things that we can’t in real life.

Just Cause 2: Negative Design Elements:

Mouse and keyboard controls are cumbersome enough to detract from the fun of the game. It’s pretty obvious that this game was designed with the console gamer in mind, which is fine, but it makes it quite difficult for a PC gamer who likes to use a keyboard and mouse for, well, just about everything.  I don’t own a gamepad, and I don’t want to spend the extra $30 to purchase an additional Xbox controller or wireless adapter just for my computer.  There are more controls to set in Just Cause 2 than either a left or right handed player can comfortably reach at any given time. Additionally, being a left-handed player, I’ve got an even greater handicap because of the right hand side of most keyboards being as sparse as they are.  Games that are ported to the computer need to have controls that are intuitive to that platform, otherwise it looks like the company who released the game just wanted to cash in on another group of players.

The story takes a back seat to the rest of the game. As I stated in the Positive Design Elements section, the story for this game is much the same as for its predecessor.  You’re an agent.  You have to overthrow a ruthless government.  Here’s a grappling hook and a parachute.  Albeit, the action is definitely the focus of the game, but a good story makes completing the game a worthwhile endeavor.  Without a good story, players are likely to only play the game for its sandbox quality, quickly grow bored with it, and sell it back to a game store.

With the exception of the initial tutorial section, interactions between Rico and the supporting characters becomes boring and tiresome as these characters are often voiced badly. Rico is a likeable, fleshed out character.  His supporting cast is not so bright.  Bad accents, poorly scripted dialogue, and cliché riddle Rico’s interactions with these NPC’s to the point where you want to just skip the cut scene and read about it in the mission log.

The size of the game world makes it difficult to get anywhere in a hurry. Even after commandeering a fighter jet, it takes a lot of real world minutes to get from point A to point B in Just Cause 2.  There is a fast travel option, where a guy with an annoying accent can pick you up in a helicopter, talk your ear off, and then drop you from 10,000 feet above your destination, but the mandatory cutscenes of the helicopter picking you up, and the subsequent parachute drop, leave you tapping your foot and thinking about what else you could be doing.

Dragon Age Origins: Positive Design Elements

Fantastically immersive storyline with multiple twists and turns that pulls you in and makes you care about each and every character in some way, even the bad ones. Why should you care about Loghain Mac Tir after he caused you so much strife during the majority of Dragon Age Origins?  Because he is doing it for reasons that would almost seem noble in any other light.  Dragon Age Origins delivers a narrative that is both engaging and intriguing.  You want to move forward and experience the rest of the story and you know that, for the most part, character actions are going to be explained.  The thing that really makes the story great though is your influence on it.  Your choices as the hero affect the greater game world and you may find yourself, twenty hours in, thankful or regretful of a choice you made sixteen hours ago.

The musical score for the game is so good you’ll buy the soundtrack. A good soundtrack can make a game fun to play; a great soundtrack can manipulate your experience by pumping you up during battle, creeping you out in a dark cavern, or jerking tears from your eyes as you witness the wholesale slaughter of a favorite character.  I still listen to the Dragon Age Origins soundtrack because it makes me feel like a hero, even when I’m not playing the game.

The game is genuinely challenging, forcing you to think strategically during battles in order to win. This is important to a game that has so many different skills, pieces of equipment, and character classes.  If the enemies could be destroyed by simply equipping the strongest sword you have and right clicking a few times, the game would quickly become boring.

The voice acting, for the most part, is top notch and fun to listen to. With a few exceptions, nothing ruins immersion in a game like bad voice acting.  Great voice acting really accentuates the story by ensuring that players will listen to everything a character has to say.

Dragon Age Origins: Negative Design Elements

The visuals, while solid for the game type, are basically everything we’ve seen before in a number of fantasy games. How many dirty, medieval villages have we seen over the years of fantasy gaming?  A lot.  Dragon Age Origins presents strong, technically proficient graphics with some great detail, but the characters, equipment, and locales lack original flare.  The splattered blood is a nice touch, but I think I’ve seen those werewolves before.  Dwarves are short, swarthy drinkers, and elves are slender, pointy-eared lovers.  The role reversal of the elves (as indentured servants) and the dwarves (as a caste system society) challenged gaming norms, but the visuals were standard fare.

Some of the boss fights, particularly the final boss, are boring. There are regular enemy encounters that will tax a player harder than some of the set piece battles. The final boss battle in Dragon Age Origins wasn’t as exciting as I felt it should have been.  It was anticlimactic and easy.  The rest of the game, minus a few of the other larger boss battles, was fantastic, but when you build up to a battle with the ultimate incarnation of the Darkspawn, you want that battle to be epic.

The side stories for the non-romanceable characters, as in the cases of Oghren and Wynne, seem to be a bit shallow when compared to those characters that the hero can become involved with. In contrast to the back stories for Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, and even Zevran, the other characters seemed to get the short end of the story-stick.  For a game with such an engaging story, and characters that make you want to know them, pursuing a back story that comes up short of your expectations can be a real let down.

The silent protagonist. This is a difficult argument to make because part of playing through the eyes of a silent protagonist is imaging yourself as that character, and obviously if that character doesn’t have your voice, then he or she can’t really be you.  However, I’ve seen this done well.  Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 had fantastically voiced main characters that were still developed the way the player wanted them to be.  I believe that character interaction between the player and the NPCs is damaged when it seems like the conversations are one sided.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Positive Design Elements

An engaging storyline that is told during in-game cutscenes, during mission briefings, and during character interaction on the battlefield. It is harder to tell a good story during an RTS because your major form of interacting with other characters is hacking them to pieces and then doing the same to their comrades.  Warhammer delivers the story during multiple points during the game without it seeming like they had to shoehorn it all in.

Visuals that stand up well, despite the game’s age, and impart an original feel to the game universe. They aren’t groundbreaking anymore, but it is nice to come back to a game that is six years old and still be able to enjoy the game’s graphics.  It also helps that the character and environment designs really make the game universe feel lived in and battled upon.

An equal balance of offensive and defensive abilities gives the player the ability to choose from different play styles in order to complete each mission. I find that my strategy in RTS games usually consists of hardening my defenses until my guns are bigger than the other guy’s guns.  This doesn’t work in every game or in every situation, but Warhammer allowed me to do it for a few missions and there was nothing more enjoyable for me than to utterly devastate the computer when I finally did leave the confines of my walled in base.  However, the tech tree grows quickly enough to allow players to go on the offensive much earlier than I did, which would appeal to the zergling rush type of player.

The limit cap on units and the finite supply of resources means that players have to think strategically about what to build and train in order to complete each mission. Even when I’m employing my strategy of holing up behind a wall of bolter turrets it is still necessary to go out and capture more strategic points in order to gain the resources needed to build my conquering army.  Also, the limit cap on units means that I have to make sure I’ve got units to handle whatever the enemy has waiting for me outside of my protective ring.  This kind of strategic thinking can make a game more fun and engaging.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Negative Design Elements

Players who don’t know anything about the Warhammer 40,000 universe will not understand many of the references in the game, such as the Imperium’s blind adherence to the “Emperor’s Will” and why the Chaos Marines seem so similar to the Space Marines. I made it a point to go out and read about the different factions in the Warhammer 40,000 universe because I was intrigued about the mythos surrounding the Imperium.  Other players may not be so active in finding that kind of information.  Any lack in knowledge about the character or characters that a player is using can lead to confusion or detachment from the game world.

The special powers for the different units, unit commanders, and hero units are cumbersome to use during gameplay, especially when you have a large number of units. I completed most of the game without even using the ultimate special powers for Gabriel, Toth, or Isador because getting to those powers after you linked the hero units to an infantry unit and then added that unit to a group meant hitting the tab key a few times to select the unit and then remembering the hotkey or left clicking on the power button and then left clicking again on the area or unit that the power would effect.  I found that the game was a lot less aggravating when I pretended that the hero characters didn’t have any special powers.

During the single player campaign, the player controls the Imperium forces and the Eldar forces but does not have the opportunity to use the Orks or the Forces of Chaos. You do get to see some cutscenes that explain the link between the Forces of Chaos and the Orks, but you never get to truly experience those factions like you do with the Imperium and the Eldar.  I believe an approach in the vein of Warcraft III or Starcraft, where you had the opportunity to experience the story from all sides, would have been more enjoyable.

The enemy factions have no good defense against the Imperium tanks like the Predator and the Land Raider. The Land Raider, in particular, really makes the game too easy when it is available.  With a lack of defensive units, structures, or strategy, or the underutilization of them, the Land Raider and a healthy number of other units can literally steam roll all opposition in the single player game.  This makes the game too easy at points, and made me feel like I was just playing a point and click adventure.

Generational Memory

Miles of lives separate us.
Time measured in longing
Over an ocean of sand.
My infinite companion,
Lost in the ebb and flow
Of the natural cycle.
My curse is to remember our pasts.
My blessing to remember at all.
We met when the trees were young;
Mere saplings scattered upon dark earth.
And we lived a freedom unseen again.
Lives end.
Our spark,
Our energy,
The lessons etched upon us,
Inhabit a space outside of time
And we breathe again.
But I remember.
I live and wander
With a severed strand
That trails ahead of me;
Always searching.
There will come a moment
When we are tied together
Once again.
We will live life
Knotted by fate’s secret hand.
We will die,
We will live,
And I
Will remember.

Eternity's Coastline of Forever

At six o’clock I did awake,
Popped in my mouth the pills I take,
But switched they were with poison tabs,
Meant for rats in sterile labs.
Who switched them I may never know,
But their cruel joke has cut me low,
For now I float above the world,
My soul from body has been hurled.
I guess I should enjoy my time,
No shackles mean no life to mime.
Perhaps I’ll take that trip to France,
No need to pack, I wear no pants,
No shirt, no shoes, no jacket too,
Walk freely naked through the zoo.
Though naked you can never be;
I lack a body you can see.
I do not eat, or move, or ache,
I have no lungs, no breath to take.
No bones to lack the calcium,
No teeth to chew a stick of gum.
Its food that I will miss the most,
No friends to see, no parties host.
I leave the city with this toast:
I’ll spend my time upon the coast
Where I will watch the waves you see,
And contemplate eternity.

Angela

To hear Angela tell it, we were born at the exact same time, in the same hospital, and in rooms that were adjacent to one another. I’m not sure that I ever believed that story when either of our parents told it, but it was interesting to imagine that as one more thing tying me to Angela. We grew up together, our families living as neighbors for as far back as I can remember. Our fathers had been best friends in high school and our mothers had roomed together in college.

I’m not sure if it was our parent’s friendliness that brought us close together or simply the amount of time we spent together as kids. We were inseparable. Playing, eating, and even taking naps together.

Now I stand in the white washed halls of the very same hospital that everything started in. I can almost imagine the smell of antiseptic and dirty bed sheets. The light, unnatural and caustic to the eye and the heart, reflects off the pure white walls and the scuffed checkered tile floor. An alternating patter of black and white that stretches on around a corner I cannot turn. I’m tethered on the spot despite how much I want to run, to fly from this spot and see real daylight, smell the freshly cut grass and taste the first real winds of spring.

This is where it all began, the Meghan Werkheiser Memorial hospital. This is where Angela and I were born. This is where we came when we were sick, when we broke a bone, or when we needed a volunteer job. This room, 424, is only three doors down from the one in which Angela was born. The maternity ward had been relocated only ten years after we came into the world. It seems a cosmic joke that Angela, 87 years old, should lie dying only a few paces from where she was born. But not everything goes the way you expect it to.

I never expected to die at the age of 18. I never expected that I would never make it to my graduation party. I never expected to lose my life saving the person who, in the whole world, meant the most to me.

She never saw the bus coming.

It was too hot to be wearing a cap and gown. Sweat plastered my curly hair to my forehead and there it stayed; a constant annoyance to match the heat. It didn’t help that our graduation attire was a dark purple and absorbed the sunlight like a photovoltaic panel. Wired up, the students of Reibold High would have produced enough energy to light Las Vegas for a holiday weekend.

By some supernatural coincidence, Angela and I ended up sitting next to each other at the end of the 4th row of chairs. She looked just as hot as I felt and her long hair, the color of a clear starlit night, could not have helped as it spilled from the back of her cap and cascaded in a solid sheet over her shoulders and down her back. She was vigorously fanning herself with the Graduation program while we waited for our names to be called, our fake diplomas to be given to us, and for the rest of our lives to start.

It wasn’t a fantastic ceremony and I sometimes find myself irritated when I think about how dull the last two hours of my life had been. The Valedictorian’s speech was shoddily rehearsed and full of dry, over-used pop culture references. The principal seemed to have studied graduation speeches from movies, extracted every cliché, and strung them together until they stopped at the ten minute mark.

Our special speaker was a little more interesting. As a retired truck driver who had graduated from our school and who now made his living writing kids books, Bob Williams didn’t lie to us.

“It’s never going to be easy,” he started. A ripple of mild attention worked its way through the sun-blasted graduates. “Some of you have ideas of what the perfect life would be, some of you have an idea of how you’re going to go about achieving that perfect life, and some of you don’t have the vaguest idea of what you are going to do five minutes after you receive that piece of paper that you came here for today.” Here he paused and stared out over the crowd, catching the eyes of a few of the students. He caught my gaze and held it for a second and I realized that this was a man who lived, who faced down opposition, hard times, despair, and yet he had, at the same time, experienced intense moments of happiness, elation, passion, and excitement. Without taking his eyes from the students, Bob Williams continued.

“Is it important to get a good education? Sure, if that’s what you want to do. I didn’t go farther than Reibold High and I like to think I turned out okay,” an appreciative chuckle swept across the crowd, “but not everybody can do what I do. It takes a lot of nerve and grit to drive a big rig, so some of you might be better off going to college.” At this there was a full roar of laughter and Bob smiled the kind of smile that can only come from being deeply satisfied on the inside. “Yes, a good education is important, and you’ve been giving a great one here at Reibold no doubt.” A general smattering of applause and some cheers of ‘Reibold Rangers Rule’. “But I didn’t come here to talk about how important your education is, Mr. Varney,” and here he spoke into the microphone in a conspiratorial whisper, “that’s your principal,” the crowd roared with laughter and Bob returned to his speaking voice “already covered that.”

“I’m here to talk about your connections. Look around you.” I looked to my left and found Angela staring at my face in a way that made my heart skip town. Her eyes were the dazzling green of a grassy field in full sunlight and I had to fight the giddy smile that threatened to erupt onto my face. I played it cool, slapped on a lopsided grin and hoped that my eyes, which had quickly shifted downward for a fraction of a second, hadn’t given me away. Angela looked at me for an eternity of a second before turning back to Bob who continued speaking.

“No doubt you see your friends, people you’ve known for four years day in and day out. I’m sure you all know a lot of people, you have to when you attend class with twenty other students, but I’m talking about the people you stand around with before homeroom, the group you eat lunch with everyday, the ones who stand at the entrance to the school in the pouring rain waiting for you to go back and get the umbrella you left in Mrs. Stevenson’s math class. You will remember and cherish these people for the rest of your lives. Some of you may drift apart, some of you may forget to call or write, and some of you…well some of you may leave us forever.” The audience listened intently, drinking in Bob’s words, nodding, agreeing, looking at the ground solemnly and remembering David Katsh who was lost during a snowstorm just this past winter.

“But that doesn’t matter. The next time you see or talk to these people, it will be like the old days, it will be like the years between your last parting had melted away and nothing stood between you but the memories of a shared high school life. Don’t forget the friends you’ve made here. These connections will sustain you, they will help you through hard times, and they can even save your life.
“Don’t forget that these people, outside of your family, know you best. They will help you without asking questions, they will give you the shirt off their back and the last crumb of food in their cupboard. Do the same for them because you can get the best damn education you want at any time in your life, but these are the best friends, the best people you will ever know.”

With his final words Bob Williams gave a small bow and walked slowly off the stage. It was a moment before the crowd awoke from it state of intense attention and the stadium exploded as all four hundred students and over a thousand parents and family stood, cheered, stomped their feet, applauded, and some even quietly stood with tears streaming down their faces. I looked at Angela who had cast a sidelong glance at me and I felt a small, warm pressure on my hand. I looked down with surprise to find that she had taken my hand in hers and we stood like that while Mr. Williams’ standing ovation slowly wound down.

It was an indication of how dreadfully boring and oppressively hot the ceremony was when the crowd, so fired up from Bob Williams’ speech, settled back into quiet, heat induced aggravation while they waited for the names of 400 people to be read in different states of correctness. I was vaguely aware that these were my last few moments as a high school student as Lucas McMurdy was called out over the loud speaker and I stood up to receive my diploma.

Caps were thrown, congratulations were exchanged; embraces, kisses, and tears were to be found in abundance. Families looked with new eyes upon their sons and daughters, now officially adults, and tried to imagine them as the children they had been moments ago.

The lingering warmth of Angela’s hand, different from that of the scorching sun, remained with me as I greeted my own parents, smiled, laughed, and joked about the present and the future. Angela’s parents, like a second family to me, embraced me as if they had not one but two high school graduates; my parents did the same for Angela. It was time to go home; it was time for our party.

We had approached our closest friends and arranged a joint party, a grand end of school bash to celebrate everyone’s graduation so that nobody had to be left behind. Begging off our parents’ insistence that we ride with them back to the house, Angela and I began the thirty minute trek. It was a walk we had both shared these past four years and one that mirrored the four years before that in middle school, and the four years before that in elementary school. Like the two previous paths, the “high school march”, as we called it, was special to us because of the uninterrupted time we spent together five days a week, for an hour every day. We had both agreed that we would walk that path together for the last time as high school graduates.

“I’m really glad that my Mom took the cap and gown with her. Talk about hot!” Angela started as we crossed one of the outlying soccer fields of Reiban High, “No clouds, no wind, and we were in the middle of the stadium without any shad whatsoever. I know we’re supposed to cherish this moment,” Angela looked at me with a disdainful smile that said all too well how she would remember her last moments in that stadium, “but the only thing I really liked was that Truck Driver’s speech.”
“Bob Williams.” I stated with a glance in her direction.

“What?”

“Bob Williams. That was the truck driver’s name. I’m glad we got him and not Mrs. Peabody. Last year’s graduates had to sit through forty five minutes of her experiences working with quantum mechanics theories. Science isn’t boring per se, but forty five minutes of wave form algorithms in this heat may have caused a few casualties.”

“Okay, smart as you or I may be, and you’ll notice that neither of us were asked to quote our favorite musicians on stage, if you mention algorithms of any kind for the next two months, I’m going to have to pound you.” Angela’s smile was wide, taunting, and mischievous as she ground her fist into her palm.
“Yeah, sorry I brought it up. But Williamson’s speech, it really effected people didn’t it?” I looked down at the ground, we had both known David Katsh and we both had friends we didn’t want to lose, friends we wanted to hold onto for the rest of our lives.

“It was moving. I think sometimes we’re afraid to think about our friends, about losing them, about making sure that we nurture those bonds we’ve formed. But he was right, we can never forget the connections that we forged here, forgetting would be worse than losing our friends. You can remember somebody who’s gone.” Angela looked up into the sky and shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. Her hair sparkled and I was reminded, in this moment, of just how deep my connection to her ran.
“You, uh, squeezed my hand earlier.” I rubbed the side of my nose and looked up into the sky as well. When I looked earthward once again I found Angela staring at me in that same way that had made my heart beat noticeably faster. “Wha..?”

“I love you Lucas. You are important to me in a way that I don’t think most people will ever understand. Our whole lives we’ve known each other I don’t intend for that to ever change.” She said this with a straight face, her green eyes looking straight into mine without hesitation or embarrassment.
I dropped my hand from my face to my side and fully returned her glance.

“I love you as well Angela. I…” She was hugging me and it was a moment before I could recover from the sudden shock and return her embrace. “Angela?”

“I’m just glad that we’re here, together, walking the high school march and moving forward in our lives.” She said as she broke away from me, “Anyway, now the mushy parts are over,” we both smiled, “we have a party to get to, graduation gifts to open, lives to get on with. We better not keep our parents waiting either.”

With that we began walking in earnest.

“No more old Mrs. Frazzard in the Cafeteria.” Angela stated matter of factly.
“Oh come on, she was a laugh riot, remember when she forgot to change out the milk from the day before and everybody was wondering what the smell was? Grade A hilarious.” I chuckled.
“Well yeah, you’re right. And the time she…”

But I never heard the last part. Time had slowed to a crawl and the world around me had drained of color. Angela was a few feet ahead of me stepping out onto road at the corner of Willow and Yew streets. I was acutely aware of everything around me. I could hear the sound of the rubber on the soles of my shoes as they rebounded off of the pavement. I felt the rush of air over me as I pushed my way through an atmosphere that was suddenly thick and oppressive. I could smell the slightly harsh smell of hot blacktop tar. I saw the glint of silver reflecting the sunlight off of the bumper of an intercity bus. All of this I sensed in a fraction of a second as my mind and my body screamed one single command in unison.

My feet left the ground, my mouth moving soundlessly as I tried to warn her, to pull her back from an almost certain fate that I feared I would be too late to divert. Each instant was an agony of thought. Would I make it? Would she be safe? My shoulder collided with the small of her back and I saw her fly away from me. Her body twisted in mid air and she must have caught sight of the bus and then her eyes locked onto mine and in that moment I knew a lifetime of love and memories. I knew years of sitting together on the swings, trading music back and forth, debating politics, playing recreational sports, and attending parties together. Her green eyes, glazed with the beginning of tears told me what she had planned for the future, the intimacy, dating, marriage, children, growing old together, and welcoming a long rest together after a full life.

She hit the ground and broke eye contact. I felt a brief explosion of pain and my whole life went dark.

* * *

I was a shapeless idea, only moderately aware. I could feel time and space as it penetrated what little conscious thought had collected to form my identity. It was like sitting in the ocean with the waves rolling over you; you can feel how powerful, how endless it all is as it surges backward and forward without the slightest acknowledgement that you are there.

As it passed through me I was privy to its secrets. Past, present, and future were open to me as if the very words were written in the air before me , waiting to be snatched won and read. However, as I passed from being a mere thought into a collection of thoughts with inherited memories, the rudimentary conscience that had begun to coalesce also began rejecting the information from this sudden clairvoyance like a transplanted organ.

It would seem, from my perspective that the more human the mind, the consciousness, the soul; the more unwilling it is to accept this infinite form of information willingly. It is almost as if we reject the easy answers, find that an existence with ultimate knowledge is akin to cheating your way through life, or whatever comes before or after it.

The memories that my loosely combined thoughts had inherited began the process of solidification. I did not feel or think about these things, I observed it like a documentary; a documentary about a boy, barely a man, who made a sacrifice which time told him that no matter which way it flowed or what stream it eddied in, the same sacrifice would always have been made.

I was not anger; I was not fear, depression, happiness, or curiosity. I was a recording device, an ethereal DVD burner. Knowledge of the memories was used to group the loose thoughts into a tighter bundle which attracted their scattered siblings, pulling them in tightly as the memories glued everything together.

The concept of “I” began to form among the thoughts and memories. Suddenly it was a cold dark hallway, icy, slippery, oppressive, and my thoughts and memories fought their way through the cold and the ice down a tunnel as long as time itself, all the while fixed upon the flickering blaze and warmth of “I” that burned brightly somewhere up ahead.

Memories overlapped, attached, strengthened, combined the thoughts, arranged them in order, and bound them in place. With cohesion came thought and suddenly the memories were fluid, a lubricant between the thoughts that could be sifted through at will.

The concept of “I” became the acknowledgement of “I” as the flame of conscience engulfed my mind and memories, fusing them permanently as one and burning my existence into being. At first I perceived through sight alone. I did not feel, I did not hear, I did not taste, I could not smell.
I was not afraid.

It was dark and I was alone but memories of a warm hand, a moment’s glance, these kept me from being scared; they told me that everything would be okay. I began to feel something, a tingling sensation like unrealized potential that slowly crept over what I imagined to be my body, I had not looked down at myself yet.

I thought that I must make sure that I am complete, so I looked down and saw my body, the same one I had lived in for 18 years, but I couldn’t feel it. It didn’t move. I felt the tingles and they stayed with me for some time. I was wearing a black t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of black sneakers.
These were not the clothes that I had died in.

The dark world around me erupted with color so blindingly bright that I wished to close my eyes against it only to realize that I couldn’t. I stood blinded by my suddenly vibrant surroundings and my vision slowly sorted out the scene before me.

There was a road, an intersection, and a bus was pulled off to one side. I stared at the back of the bus because I knew the intercity buses did not stop on streets like this, they went right on through to the center of town. There was a new 2008 Honda Civic parked on the other side of the street, facing the wrong direction into traffic. There were a few more cars backed up in a place where there was no stop light.

I became aware of a buzzing in my ears, like the static on a television when the volume is turned down really low. I waited patiently, my vision had returned, maybe my hearing would return as well. I wanted to pass the time by taking in more of the scenery but I still could not command my body, which still tingled, to turn in place. There was a sudden clarity akin to when your ears pop at high altitudes and I could hear. It was mostly quiet.

Some sound, something I could not quite distinguish from the quiet, was pulling at my heart, it made the tingling of my body intensify, especially around my chest. Without meaning too, without willing it at all, I began turning on the spot, drawn around by the sound that I was suddenly afraid to find the source to.
What I saw was what I least expected. That soft, whispery sound like a secret breeze was the quiet moan escaping from my mother as she kneeled near something that lay in the road. My father sat next to her with his arm around her shoulders, they were both shaking.

I could see Angela’s hair through the gap between my parent’s heads and again, without willing it to happen, I was moving, this time towards Angela. The gravel that lay loosely on the road did not crunch under my footsteps, there was no sound as the legs of my jeans rubbed together while I walked. I didn’t feel the air that I moved through and it was only with the most miniscule amount of surprise that I realized somewhere in the back of my mind that I was not drawing breath.

I stood in front of Angela, only she wasn’t the same person I had known for eighteen years. She was also on her knees in the road and I thought this was foolish until I saw her face. It was blank. The usual light, the intelligence, the smile that all occupied her expressive eyes was gone. What were normally bright green and full of life, were now dull, almost grey and staring into some far off void.

There were bits of gravel from the road mixed in with her hair and I realized that she had a trickle of crimson running from her hairline, down the side of her angular face, and disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt. She had not even made an attempt to wipe it away, her hands lay at her sides, palms up, her wrists resting on the asphalt of the road.

She made no sound but I could see that she was almost imperceptibly quaking where she kneeled. It was like a shiver that started in the ground and worked its way to the tips of her hair. A small drop of water hung shivering from the end of her short pointy chin and as I watched I saw it fall and land with the tiniest of splashes on her lap. There were two tiny, yet constant streams of water that flowed down her face, delicate like her features and they would have almost gone unnoticed if they hadn’t been so unnatural. Angela was a very happy person, she didn’t normally cry. This sight, more than anything else, caused a feeling of tightness within me that had I been able to break down in tears myself, I would have done so without hesitation. What had hurt her so bad that I hadn’t been able to protect her from it?
I looked down, following the line of Angela’s body, across the twelve inches of asphalt and came to rest on what was, seemingly, the cause of everyone’s strange behavior. The tingling I felt grew so faint that I feared for a moment the complete loss of it. The loss of that small sensation would, I thought, cut me off from everything around me; I might lose focus and become a scattered grouping of thoughts and memories again.

Except for the blood which had already began to thicken where it lay on the road in the cracks in the black top, the oddly bent limbs, and the torn clothing, the body that lay before me might have been asleep. The face was serene, the eyes closed, the hair disheveled, the mouth touched with an amused smile that the world around it did not share.

There was something eerily familiar about the shadow under the jaw line, the pointed chin, and the nose with more bridge than most people desired. The clothes were familiar; the shoes, the hair, that hand, though it was cut, scraped, and full of grit, was familiar down to the unevenly chewed fingernails.
It was me! Oh god, it was me on the ground! I’m bleeding! I’m broken! I’m not breathing! Oh god, somebody!

But that didn’t make sense, how could I be in two places at once? My vision darkened as my mind panicked and ran in circles chasing an explanation that would not come. Bloody, broken, and with a serene, almost amused face. The blood! It was dark, darker than I had ever seen, almost black like the road and I nearly followed it. I nearly followed that blood down into the cracks in the black top, into the earth, into non-existence, as my mind closed on the only explanation it could find.

That was my body and I am dead.

I looked around wildly, silently begging for help that would not come, hoping to awaken from a nightmare that could not be real, even if that meant sitting through the awful heat of the graduation ceremony again.

This last thought coincided with my gaze one again falling upon Angela. I was immediately inundated with images and words; memories that, while they were the most important part of the puzzle, had been suppressed, reserved, waiting for just the right moment to spring forward and shine their baleful light on the darkness that surrounded me. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that this was no dream. I remembered the bus, the running leap, Angela’s face, and my sacrifice.

Once more I was the calm observer, the initial shock bleeding away quickly as I silently accepted what lay before me on the road. I could move on my own now and I kneeled in front of Angela, taking in the sight of her face. I was certain that whatever awaited me in the afterlife was sure to happen soon because of my acceptance of the truth. I kept expecting to see a bright light or hear a chorus of some kind. Without warning there was a flash of light and a blast of sound. Before I realized their source I locked my eyes on Angela. Before I left for wherever it was I thought I might be going, I wanted to give her some form of encouragement, some last word. I wanted to tell her everything would be alright. Most of all I wanted to tell her, once more, how much she meant to me, how much our time together had meant, how cruel it was that in the very beginning of our lives we would be separated, and how happy I was that she was still alive and would go on living.

With each passing moment this desire burned stronger. It turned into a need and then a necessity that could not be ignored as if the whole world would burn away if I didn’t say it.

“Angela! I love you!” The words burst forward as blinding molten pain crushed me and tore across my being. The tingling that, by this time, had become a barely noticed constant, was now a surge of sharp serrated agony. If I could have spoke or screamed I would have filled the void with a sound that would tear apart existence itself.

The pain subsided as quickly as it came and yet I felt damaged, injured, and weak. The world around me had darkened and the edges of my vision were black walls streaked with thin strips of light. I did not understand what had happened. I looked once again on Angela and, to my great surprise, her face was not blank anymore. Her face was screwed up in an anguish that I had never experienced, her arms were wrapped around her stomach and clenched tightly, and the small streams that had once flowed over her cheeks were now replaced with fast flowing rivers.

She was visibly shaking now; quaking on the spot and I wondered why nobody was helping her, comforting her. My father was stony faced with tears streaking down into his well-maintained beard. He was staring at the ground beneath his knees with his arm around my mother’s shoulders. My mother’s face was in her hands, the moaning from earlier was replaced by quieter sobs.
I turned as the light and sound from earlier grew closer. I had resolved to face whatever was coming head-on, but it was not a bright white light or a chorus of voices raised in welcome that greeted me. It was an ambulance, sirens blaring, followed closely by a police car.

I wondered, for the first time, why they hadn’t been there sooner. The light tingling became an angry buzz as I thought about how late they must be, too late to save me at least. They were here to collect my body, to ask questions. They were here to clean up what remained of my life.
My father stood up, his face still set and unmoving. He walked slowly toward the pair of paramedics that were pulling a stretcher down off of the ambulance. The metal of the stretcher clanking against the back of the ambulance was harsh in this atmosphere, like an invasion of privacy, and my father stopped, blinking as he looked down at the stretcher before him.

The officer that had come along walked around the side of the ambulance and surveyed the scene. My father looked up again as the paramedics began to pass him with the stretcher.
“We’re sorry, sir, there was a…” but what he was sorry about was quickly cut off as my father’s fist smashed into the side of the closest man’s head. The man, caught completely unaware, fell sideways into the stretcher, toppling it and pinning the other paramedic beneath it.
“What the fuck are you doing? Jesus Christ, I’m bleeding!”

My father took another step forward before he was wrestled to the ground by the police officer.
“Get off me! Get off! Where the hell were they?! You sons of bitches! Where were you?! Why didn’t you save my son?” And as suddenly as the blinding rage that had overtaken him had come, it left, and my father lay on the hot asphalt sobbing like my mother.

“Like I was saying,” the man pushed a roll of gauze against the side of his head, matting his blonde hair with blood, “there was an accident involving four vehicles down the road the way we came. It required both of the local ambulances.” The man’s voice softened as he realized that his justification wasn’t reaching anybody, “that’s what took us so long,” he trailed off into silence.

The officer sat my father up and turned to the man he had struck, “Well Barry, gonna press charges?” The question hung in the air like a strangling mist. The ultimate insult to a loving father would have been his arrest at the scene of his son’s death.

“No Rick, forget it,” Barry replied quietly as he helped the other paramedic lift the upended stretcher, “It’s not Claude’s fault,” Barry continued, “I can’t say I understand how he feels, I’ve never had any children, but I’ve seen enough in this job…I’ve seen enough.”

Barry’s jaw was clenched tightly and a drop of red shivered at the end of a strand of hair.

“You know him?” Rick asked, looking puzzled.

“He’s a good friend of mine,” Barry turned his face away from my father, “took him and Lauren over there to the hospital eighteen years ago, back before we had the new ambulances.”

Barry nodded toward Angela, “Took her parents as well on the same exact night,” Barry looked at the gauze pad in his hand and tossed it to the ground, “This is the worst thing that could have happened today Rick.”

“What about the accident down the road?” Rick asked.

“Nobody died, Rick. Two broken bones and some lacerations. The cars are totaled which leads me to believe that you might want to talk to the driver of that bus over there.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, first off, the cars down the road were all hit from behind at a red light.”

I looked at the bus parked along the side of the road. It was an older model, dirty and scuffed from years of use. I hadn’t noticed until now, the long silver scratches on the side facing me. As I traced their journey from the front of the bus rearward, I could almost hear the shriek of metal on metal.

“That bus looks a little beat up. Guess I should go talk to the driver,” Rick slouched off in the direction of the bus, disappearing around the right side before Barry and the other paramedic made their way to my body.

I moved toward the bus, a morbid curiosity about the circumstances surrounding my ejection from life, driving me forward.

“You can’t take him.” The voice was a shock, like diving into icy water and I whipped around to see Angela looking up at Barry while the other paramedic, looking embarrassed and out place, stood a few feet away.

“Listen, sweetheart,” Barry began as he slowly kneeled down.

“No! You can’t take him!” She was getting louder with each word and I saw my mother look up from where she was kneeling.

I moved beside my body, standing just outside the space that stood between Angela and Barry.
“Angela, right? I know your parents. Listen, we can’t leave his body here,” Angela hiccoughed loudly at this but Barry kept speaking, “I’m sorry sweety but he’s gone.”

Angela looked Barry straight in the face and behind the tears I thought I could see a flicker of the life that normally burned so brightly there.

‘You’re wrong. He’s still here.” She stated without hesitation. I became excited, wondering how she knew.

Barry looked nonplused; he had, in the long course of being an EMT, probably dealt with hundreds of people that were angry or distressed over the injury of death of a loved one. He started into what seemed like a tired and well rehearsed explanation.

“You’re right of course. He is still here, as long as you remember him the way he was, he’ll always be…” Barry trailed off as Angela began shaking her head.

“No! Don’t you feed me any of that. Lucas is still here, he’s still alive! You can’t put him in that bag!”
At her words I saw the black bag that was now sitting atop the stretcher. It reaffirmed the reality of the situation for me. There was no going back. Angela, while I loved her for her unwavering position, was chasing a dream. There was no way she could know I was here. Nobody else had so much as glanced in my direction. There was also no way that I could still be alive, my body had not drawn breathe for awhile now, and the paramedics, being forced to deal with my father and Angela, still hadn’t check for so much as a pulse.

“But,” Barry plowed forward, “we have to Angela, we can’t leave his body there!”

“No!” Angela was on her feet as she screamed the word, “You don’t understand. You’re not listening to me! He’s not dead! He’s still here! I saw him,” surprised, Barry and I stood stunned in place, “He said something, I didn’t hear it but he was there in that stupid black t-shirt and those ratty jeans. So you can’t put him in that bag! You can’t! I won’t be able to hear him…he won’t be able to breathe!”

She looked ready to continue when my mother, quiet and graceful, stood in front of her. I stepped to the side in order to see them both clearly.

“Mrs. McMurdy?” Angela looked up at my mother’s face, which, while tear streaked, was caring; gently arranged with a soothing, almost serene look.

“He’s still here, don’t let them take him,” Angela begged in a barely audible whisper. My mother shook her head and I knew what she would say before she spoke.
“He’s gone Angie, he’s gone.”

Angela stood unmoving, unblinking as if she had been caught in a spotlight. As her face began to melt from indignation to overwhelming shock and then back to grief, my Mother stepped forward, wrapped her arms around Angela, and slowly lowered her to the ground. The y remained that way, my mother quiet and Angela, grief stricken and sobbing, until the paramedics and the coroner, who had arrived ten minutes later, pronounced me dead and began the process of clearing my last few moments of life from the road.

***

My parents drove Angela home. My father took the driver seat and my mother sat in the back with Angela curled up next to her. My mother absently stroked her hair. Angela stared straight ahead. My father was one with the car. His movements and gestures were mechanical, no energy was wasted. He didn’t even complain about the other drivers, a favorite past time of his. I occupied the passenger’s seat. I paid no attention to the seatbelt; I didn’t feel the pull of the car turning or the gentle push of my father’s well executed acceleration.

The scenery passed by quickly and I only barely registered the groups of people scattered in front yards, back yards, and parking lots. They were celebrating the beginning of a new chapter of their lives. My book was already finished.

We slowly rolled by my house on the way to Angela’s. The mood here was decidedly different. People were sitting on chairs, on the ground, and on the steps. It looked like somebody had commanded them to sit and they had all obeyed on the spot. This was no party. They weren’t celebrating from where they sat with the shock and distress that stretched from face to face. This was a vigil, a few hours of devastated mourning. This was a support group without a leader.

Somebody had obviously called ahead, probably hoping to delay the arrival of too many people; hoping to lessen the impact on a day set aside for joyous, long-overdue celebration. I thought about how this might have gone if I hadn’t died. Angela and I would have entered the yard from the back and slipped in among the partiers, pretending as if we’d been there the whole time. The music and the laughter would rise in equal measure to the revolutions of the clock. Cell phones would be lost, broken, and dropped in the toilet, only to be replaced by proud parents temporarily blinded by the achievements of their children. Gifts would be exchanged among friends and squirreled away to be opened tomorrow. Calls of thanks, from brand new phones, would crisscross the town. Then people would wake up the next day and go about the process of getting on with their lives; wherever it might take them.

I felt as close to a burning shame as the tingling could recreate. These people, my friends, would not remember this as the day that they had graduated. My heroics would shadow this day on the calendar of their memories. Their lives were not destroyed; their time wasn’t cut overwhelmingly short. But this might alter their path. They might fail a college entrance exam or lose a summer job because of the loss that, for all appearances, had gripped every person who had the misfortune to show up.

Others would learn the truth later in the evening, still others would not find out until the funeral announcement went around. These people would be affected, but never to the extent of the people at this party. It was a matter of comparing a bruise with a deep laceration.

***

They sat around the living room in silence as the daylight slowly passed on into dusk. The radio, forgotten in the background, was playing something from the early 90s, but nobody listened. I heard the music but felt disconnected from it, as if the energy used to recall the artist’s name would be a waste. The cherry coffee table still had bits of Angela’s scrapbooking material on it, and this is what I focused on. She had been working on a graduation page. Words like “congrats!” and “off to college” littered the table on neatly cut out squares of paper. The borders were carefully arranged and ready to accept pictures that would never be taken.

My father sat in an old wooden rocking chair; the chair rocked slowly and silently back and forth with an almost imperceptible motion. Angela’s father, on the other side of the room, occupied a faded leather recliner with canvas threads showing through on the arms where Angela and I, much younger back then, had climbed and wrestled with him.

The ‘tink’ of ice melting was the only indication that someone had brought drinks into the room. My mother held hers but otherwise paid no attention to it. The front on every other glass was undisturbed; rings of condensation on the table were a testimony to how long everyone sat in silence.

My mother and Angela’s mother shared the love seat. Angela sat on the floor, picking at the fibers of the sea green carpet. I’ve heard it said that silence in a situation such as this is oppressive, weighing down on the lungs and the heart, making it hard to breathe until, panic stricken, you find some excuse to leave. This silence was not the same. There were no unasked questions, no awkward pronouncements; there was only flat, dry, tired quiet. Words had not stopped on the tip of the tongue; they had died, dried up, and blown away. There no tears, there was only an intense weariness that denied the energy necessary to squeeze them out.

I was not alive, but I was there, sentient and observant; restless with all the quiet and unmoving air. I paced the room, careful to step around objects and everybody there, without really thinking about why I was doing it. My steps made no noise and I didn’t cause the scrapbooking paper to rustle as I walked by.

***

The night wore on, the phone rang and there were knocks at the door. Both went unanswered. I don’t know whether everyone present sat in deep thought or if they simply existed for a few hours like caricatures of life cut from stone. Around vie in the morning my mother nodded off and slumped against Megan, Angela’s mother. My father’s eyes focused for the first time in hours, and he blinked in the pre-light.

“I better take her home.” My father’s voice was barely a whisper but it had the effect of a bullhorn. Save for my mother, everyone looked at my father as if they hadn’t even known he was there. Frank, Angela’s father, nodded toward my father, his prominent bear touching his chest for a moment and casting the lines of his face in deeper shadow.

My father helped his wife to her feet and turned toward the door. I didn’t want to stay in that room with the unbearable silence. I followed my father out onto the front porch and into the cool morning air. Flowers had already bloomed in the garden under the front windows and on this morning they were an explosion of color. Angela never paid much attention to what she and her mother were planting. She usually took a handful of seed and scattered it with the end result being a mix and colors and flower types.

My mother and father began walking across the sloping lawn toward our house. I followed slowly behind, taking in the sights and sounds of an early spring day. As we approached the boundary line between our property and our neighbor’s property I began to hear something that seemed out of place. It was barely audible, a whisper lost in the wind. I paid it barely a moment’s notice as I kept pace, unseen, behind my father. The farther from Angela’s house we got, the more noticeable, and the less ignorable, the sound became until was a voice, clearly speaking as if the person was talking directly into my ear.

“Don’t go…”

I whipped around, barley noticing that I didn’t feel the normal force of turning so quickly. The voice had been clear and familiar and for a split second I thought that everything had been a dream. However, as I turned on the spot I realized that nobody was there. Slightly confused, I turned to find that my parents were no half again closer to the door of our house. I made to follow them again.

“Lucas, don’t go, don’t leave me behind.”

I froze. The tingling sensation had become weaker and the voice had sounded strained, almost weak with pleading. I knew the voice, but found it hard to believe.

It was Angela, calling to me. I couldn’t see her outside but she had been un-muffled, crystal clear. Had she followed u out? Did she know I was here? Sure she claimed to have seen me, but she was emotionally distressed at the time.

I waited a few minutes to see if she would appear, smiling and open-armed, out of the crisp morning air. When she failed to appear, laughing and telling me it was all a joke, I decided that I was hearing things. Besides, what did I know about my current situation, maybe people who died heard voices all of the time.

I made it half way to the door of the house before my vision darkened at the edges and I began to lose even more of the tingling sensation.

“Please! Don’t go!”

This time the words struck me like a physical blow to my consciousness and I instinctively took a step back. The moment I did the world snapped back into focus and sensation flooded the parts of me that I will loosely refer to as limbs. I’ll point out that I imagine myself as whole and complete; two arms and two legs. But I’ve never figured out if this is only a projection my mind uses in order to capture and encapsulate my consciousness and memories. Perhaps like a glass holding water, my perceived body keeps my mind from spreading and evaporation.

I cautiously tested the boundary I perceived by stepping over it. The further forward I moved, the darker my vision became and the less I felt and heard until her voice came back. I stepped back, utterly perplexed. My parents were in the house already; the door was closed and probably locked.

I had graduated, I had saved the person I loved from death, I had died, and now I was along outside in the slowly brightening morning. I was hearing voices, but not just any voice, the voice of a young woman who was more important to me than my own life. And she was inside of her house. I closed my eyes, thinking of Angela as we had been. I wanted to open my eyes and be seated at graduation again. When I did open them, I was surprised. I was not at graduation, but I was in Angela’s house again, standing next to her bed.

She was curled into a tight ball underneath the same maroon comforter I had seen for the last five years. She had been crying again, the streaks down her face and the dampness on her pillow were evidence of that. But now she seemed a little more relaxed and she slept peacefully. I didn’t feel tired, I didn’t feel awake. I existed in a perpetual state of awareness and I wondered, for the first time, how long it would be that I was like this.

I stood next to her bed until she woke with a start at two in the afternoon.