— 15 November 2006

The Split Personality of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

The game Fahrenheit is old news, I know. I played through the demo when the game was released and never got to playing through the full game. However, the last few days I have been home with the flu, lying in my couch unable to work. “What an excellent opportunity to get through one of those unplayed games,” I thought and dropped the Fahrenheit disc into my Playstation, took a sip of hot tea and grabbed the controller.

First of all I want to recommend the game to those of you who haven’t played it. It’s a well made, well told adventure story game (the developers prefer to call is “interactive film”). I really enjoyed it and was truly impressed with many parts and aspects. However, most good things have flaws – especially games. First of all, I was a bit put off with how the story unfolded. From the beginning, the storyline is tight and interesting. It moves on a personal level bringing me as a player close to the characters. Later on, however, it explodes into grandeur and “way too many elements and twists”. I think the turning point is somewhere around the awkward “Silence of the Lambs” reference. I still wonder why game stories seems to be destined to become overloaded with elements and themes. I mean, serial killers, the Mayan culture, secret orders, strange artifacts, secret military research, Armageddon and AI. Come on! Furthermore, I was not very keen on the “self awareness” game references. One of the characters repeatedly states that “it feels like I’m in a videogame” and it just kills the mood for me. This is a shame because Fahrenheit has shitloads of great mood and excellent story moments.

Story from Multiple Views

The game is told in a non-linear fashion with story branches here and there. Most of them seem to lead back onto the main track, but there is enough back-references to the choices you make to keep the illusion alive. However, one aspect of the non-linearity puzzled me.

Through the game, you alter between the various main characters of the game. The method of character switching is nothing new (see “Eternal Darkness”, for instance) but Fahrenheit does a thing that seemed very strange at first.

I first noticed it during a scene where Tyler Miles (one of the main characters) is questioning the waitress from the first murder scene. I moved through the dialog choices and was suddenly presented with an option to give her answer as well. Through the game, this happens a few times: the player is playing both sides of a conversation at the same time.

I thought about this and wondered what the design intention could have been.

Either the game is just moving its point of view rapidly, or something far more elaborate is going on. If the former is the intention, the designer might not have thought it was a difference between shifting character between chapters (as is the normal case in the game) and shifting characters arbitrarily. There are a few other sequences where the player is able to shift character in the middle of an action sequence, but in those cases it is by player choice. It is also clear in those sequences that you are playing two characters “at the same time”, so to speak.

The Tyler-Waitress scene it is different though. The player is given no hint that the game is shifting focus and is just presented with a “Yes” and “No” dialog option. It is up to the player to realize that the option does not belong with Tyler but with the waitress. This, as I though about it, was a quite serious design flaw.

However, as I continued to think about it, a more interesting conclusion appeared. I figured that perhaps the game is doing something much more intricate than just shifting focus?

Propelling the Storyline

“What if the one driving the story of the game is me?”

It might not seem that this question is getting us anywhere. Isn’t it so that the player in any game is driving the story? Well, in a way that is true. However, most games seem to give the player a somewhat different role. The fuction of the player is partially to drive the story forwards, but the role is different. In Fahrenheit, I initially felt that my role was that of Lucas Kane. Then perspective shifted and my role was that of Lucas Kane, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles – alternating. Then more views were added and suddenly I lost my sense of having any role in the game – other than driving the story forwards. And there’s the key! Being the story-propellor can in itself be a player role. Quite an interesting realization. Suddenly I was sitting in the lap of the narrator, turning the pages. I was not part of the story – I was playing it like a toy.

Now, I don’t really believe that the designers of Fahrenheit intended that the player should have this role. If it indeed was a deliberate design choice I’d have to say it was a clever one, although the implementation and realization of the idea haltered. It could have been much clearer and stronger. If the player is given a story to toy with, I reckon there should be more options and buttons to push – but that’s just me. I’d also love to try out a scenario and then be able to backtrack and investigate a different route without disrupting the flow of the game (I can do this by selecting to replay chapters from the main menu, but it’s too clumsy).

All in all I think that Quantic Dream did a fantastic job with Fahrenheit. It is a great game that provides a fresh and bold take on narrative in games. It is not without flaws but contains enough interesting gameplay and storytelling to be a source of inspiration and learning for game designers and writers alike.

— sicher

tags: game analysis, games