Developer's Journal 4:18

The climactic courtroom scene in the movie "A Few Good Men" is one of my absolute favorite movie scenes. Written by the one of the great screenwriters ever, Aaron Sorkin, it's clever, brilliantly acted, and just so frickin' epic. But it's not realistic. There's actually a video on YouTube with a couple of lawyers reviewing the scene. The shouting, the objections, the way questions are asked and evidence is introduced--everything is just Hollywood drama. A scene like that would not be possible in any real American courtroom. But who cares, right? Because if the goal was realism we'd never have that awesome scene. Even the YouTube lawyers agree it's just a great scene.

How important is realism in an AVN? In my opinion, while realism can be a fine goal, it should bend to larger goals such as good storytelling and entertaining the player. However, the danger of ignoring realism is a higher risk of taking the player out of their immersive experience.

Let's say that you're playing an AVN and the characters are in the middle of a soccer match (sorry, football). The ball is kicked to the MC who catches it, runs down the field still holding the ball in his arms, and throws it past the opposing goalie into the net to the screaming adoration of several dozen beautiful women. The referee rules it a legal goal and a point for MC's team.

What would your reaction be? "Huh? That's not how you play soccer/football." Right? And so now, instead of experiencing this thrilling moment of triumph with the MC, your immersion has been disrupted and you're just left rolling your eyes. I'm pretty sure that there is literally no one who wouldn't do a double-take if they encountered such an unrealistic event in a story.

So why does Sorkin get away with such blatant unrealism in A Few Good Men? Well, I suspect that there are some people (lawyers, mostly, the uptight kind that nobody likes) who watched that scene and did roll their eyes. But unlike the rules of soccer/football, which are understood by everyone, the rules of court are understood only by a few. And the scene is presented so well that even most lawyers can't help but be entertained.

I generally try to make Leaving DNA feel realistic, like it's something that could happen. I hope the love relationships, if and when they do come, feel realistic and earned, rather than simply feeling like Rockford gets the girl because he's the main character in an AVN. With respect to the legal content, I do take certain artistic liberties here and there, but I hope there's nothing so shockingly unrealistic that it destroys anyone's immersion.

There are a few topics the story covers that I have little real world experience with. For example, the military, or people with developmental disabilities. I have some experience with these things, but not so much that I could rely on just that experience in order to write realistic scenes in the game. So for that stuff I do research. Some reading, some YouTube watching. I don't have a lot of time or resources to spend researching, though, and at a certain point I have to just do my best to present the material in a way that doesn't destroy the player's immersion.

I mention all of this because this week I will be working on a scene that will be one of the two most technically difficult scenes to create in the entire game. It's going to take a long time to properly construct this scene and pose the characters, but no matter how much time I spend on it now, real mastery of the material presented in the scene would take far more time for study than I have available. I expect criticisms of this scene by players who understand the material better than I do. But, like the courtroom scene in A Few Good Men, hopefully this scene will otherwise be presented well enough that these experts will enjoy it regardless.

That's all for this week. Thank you for your support!

--Monk