Cliché

[DanielH]

My games' plot revolves around someone who escaped a hostage situation in a hotel, and the captors took some of the captives to  an unknown location. He obviously has to save them. Too clichéd?

Edit: One of the captives is his mother. Sorry I forgot to mention it, it is kind of important.

[space boy]

What's the main characters motivation to save them? It's not that obvious to me.

[Grundislav]

The basic idea could be a little cliché, yes.  However, you have plenty of room to add some unique elements to the story and make it original.

[MrColossal]

That's basically the plot of Die Hard and look what they did with that. It's also the final plot device in 28 Days Later and it's quite different from Die Hard.

It's all in what you do with it, just about every plot will seem cliché when written out in one or two sentences.

[miguel]

I agree, most (if not all) good ideas have been written, you can see that on movies (it's sequel after sequel), in music (the old genres keep coming back) and any sort of art.
However, it's the aproach on the subjects that makes a good plot.
And people, humans are fascinated by other humans, we just have to make them interesting.
All that said, I think that a Die Hard based adventure game should be really cool.

[Emerald]

That's basically the plot of Die Hard

Funny, that was immediately what I was reminded of too...


But take 'Metal Gear Solid 2' for example - the basic premise is that a creepily androgynous guy sneaks onto an oil clean-up facility to rescue the president. But the plot is so thick in that game that most people haven't a clue what's going on half of the time... (and nobody who's ever played it would dare call it unoriginal or cliched...)

[miguel]

Yeah, japanese writers tend to make those overproduced gigantic soap operas! It's a cultural thing, like manga cartoons, the characters are very emotional and relate to passed events often. Maybe because the prodution was so big on Metal Gear 2 people didn't complaint about the plot beeing cliche, mainly because normal action games barely have one.

[Vince Twelve]

I quite like starting story brainstorming with a cliché and seeing how unique and original I can make it by adding my own story elements.  It's a good creativity exercise.

And here's another cliché constantly used on these forums: Make the game that you want to play.  If it doesn't interest you, it won't interest anyone else either.  Basically, if you like the story, then go with it!

[Emerald]

I quite like starting story brainstorming with a cliché and seeing how unique and original I can make it by adding my own story elements.  It's a good creativity exercise.

There's so many clichés, really, that no matter what idea you come up with, it'd have been done before.
In fact, I defy you to come up with a simple concept that hasn't been a movie, or book before...

[vict0r]

There's so many clichés, really, that no matter what idea you come up with, it'd have been done before.
In fact, I defy you to come up with a simple concept that hasn't been a movie, or book before...

A civilization of intelligent squirrels who travels from earth to another solar system to live peacefully...

[space boy]

A civilization of intelligent squirrels who travels from earth to another solar system to live peacefully...

I think Emerald meant something more inventive than just changing humans to squirrels in Sid Meyers Alpha Centauri.

[Emerald]

I think Emerald meant something more inventive than just changing humans to squirrels in Sid Meyers Alpha Centauri.

Yeah, but squirrels are so cyoot!

Technically speaking, though, the concept there is space exploration/settling. The squirrels are just the characters. The squirrel part might make it slightly more original (like Vincy was talking about), but the basic concept is still a cliche...

[Vince Twelve]

If every story is a cliché, then we just have to change the meaning of cliché.

I think we should change it to chocolate pudding.  Because everyone likes chocolate pudding.  Then we could say, "Num num, Imunna eatchoo cliché!"

[veryweirdguy]

But if every story IS a cliché, then every adventure game will become a delicious pudding-based experience!

* veryweirdguy approves of this idea.

[2ma2]

What is this notion of making original and inventive stories all of a sudden? Back in '02 we where happy if you had a verb coin to play with.

No, really, one could say that everything has been made, or that there's still room for invention in this world - but in the end, do we really care? Telling a story and making a game is not necessarily two combinable options, and as a couple of games already mentioned, we are used to getting our story served in cutscenes, sadly. If you make an adventure game that gameplay that adresses storytelling in a different way, who cares if it's Die Hard. A good game is a good game. Invent where the medium is, not in it's spices. 

[Emerald]

If 2ma2 just said what I think he said, then I agree. The success of games aren't exactly contingent on a riveting story. Take Resident Evil 4, or Halo, for example. The dialog in RE4 makes my ears bleed, but it's supposed to be one of the most popular games ever...

That said, I think story is important, if not the most important part of an adventure game.

My definition of a cliche is something that is badly unoriginal. Lack of originality isn't bad in itself, but unless the writing is very good, being unoriginal can further detract from the suspension of disbelief...

[2ma2]

I was clearly drunk when writing that. To clarify:

Be inventive in the gameplay - not the story.

You are ofcourse free to be inventive in both.

[paolo]

I was clearly drunk when writing that. To clarify:

Be inventive in the gameplay - not the story.

You are ofcourse free to be inventive in both.

Agreed - how many films/books/plays must there be with this very plot, or something similar? Whether they are good or bad depends on how well this situation is used in the story.