1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Deus Ex: MD - Interview @ Rocket Chainsaw

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by RPGWatch, Nov 27, 2015.

  1. RPGWatch

    RPGWatch Watching... ★ SPS Account Holder

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2010
    Messages:
    30,196
    Likes Received:
    30
    [​IMG]Rocket Chainsaw interviewed lead writer Mary Demarle about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

    Jarrod: With something like Deus Ex you have so much narrative written, constructed, like Adam Jensen as a character who has relationships and is taken through scenarios. But Deus Ex, as a video game, is a series built where there's a lot agency in how you act and behave. As a writer is it difficult to reconcile constructing narrative that is deeply focused, with the reality that players can do whatever they want?

    Mary: There's definitely challenges inherent in it. When we created the character of Adam Jensen...within the game industry there's always the debate "Should the main hero be an avatar, blank slate that the player decides? Or should they be a fully fledged character who is your friend, that you're guiding on a journey?" And for us, when we started, we looked at that and we said we'd like to see if we could do a little bit of both. We'd like to have a character who has a strong background, strong character traits, strong history, strong personality. Somewhat rooted in the world. And yet has something happen to them in the beginning, and when that happens they become a blank slate and it's the player who gets to guide them. So we can use the personality traits that we decided for him to keep him on a focus, but allow him to do whatever the hell the player wants. And you can take that character and you can make him a serial killer.

    Jarrod: Yeah, the serial killer...as you're playing Adam Jensen, you're embodying this character, and through a mission you could be somebody who is very patient, chooses not to kill, careful and methodical. Or you could be a total nutbag, punching and killing your way through. I imagine that's quite difficult to balance from a narrative perspective?

    Mary: It is, but it isn't. Because we're really looking at it as...you have to look at it less as the authorial vision, like you get in film and television. And it's really more about, let's look at storytelling in terms of; we know our plot, we know our beats you have to get through, we know the character has to get there. And we let the player do it. Then we use the rest of the world to reflect on what the player is doing in a non-judgemental way. We don't want to judge you, we want to show the consequences of what you've done. So we can have things like, for instance, you go through and you kill everybody. And then you have a newspaper pop-up, or you'll have people who know you respond. It's recognising your behaviour, calling it back to you. And some of the people might judge you for it. Like a character in the game might sit there and say "I can't believe you killed everyone, that's terrible", then maybe there's another character who'll say "You killed them all? They deserved it."​
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 27, 2015
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.