Reading Games: Unlocking A New World of Entertainment

Daniel Dissect began his career as a screenwriter almost 15 years ago with a career centered a beginning on the cinematographic and television. At that time, it seemed that these fronts were the most reasonable within the world of the narrative focused on the audiovisual, but he ended up discovering that his profession could find another medium that also woke up the passions of him: the video games. After having worked in large titles at the national level as was the case of Super epic, his way in the industry ended up joining with patterns & hiding places for the development of an AFTER Reading delete that is already practically finished and that, finally, has set his Release date for March 14, 2023. DISSECT finds video games as a unique means with its own characteristics when telling stories of concrete ways, but at the same time owes much to others such as cinema, theater or literature, so their previous experiences in Le They have helped a lot in the face of joining the industry. I think they are transversal content and knowledge when designing interesting characters, original conflicts or attractive dramatic situations are very extrapolate, explains the screenwriter, who also found some unique advantages in this medium. «In comparison to the non-interactive narrative, the issue of decisions is an advantage when it comes to telling stories for turning the viewer into a player, a paradigm shift that I think is still difficult to assimilate. When you play you cannot eat popcorn or take a nap because you have to focus your attention on what you are doing, although even streaming services have already joined it with things like Bandersnatch or You vs. Netflix Wild. This is an open road with a future, but it is clear that the public is still costing us: o I am a spectator, or I am a player, the spectator-player to which the Quantico Dream or Telltale games are not at the moment is not majority especially in the audience Like us, we already have an age ». One of his first challenges, in fact, found him when he joined the Under coders team to prepare the Super epic script, although the writer comments that David Jaumandreu, project director, already had his universe and his characters well created and raised with a Very nice premise that worked very well: a Apache and a flame fighting a capitalist megacorporation of video games. The references to the 80s and the 90s came through mentions to classic arcades such as Streets of Rage or others such as Throne Trigger, games with which both David and I grew up, says Dissect, who has also rekindled multitude of experiences of the past In his next work.

«Dani Calaboose, director of the game, is more or less of my fifth, and we share many of the references we wanted to mention in Delete After Reading, such as Zip and Tape or Mortadella and Lemon. We have not been able to be as specific with words as recontrazapatetas, Coriolis or Mercury so as not to lose their personality in translation, but we did want to collect that tradition to try to develop a way of telling the story, a record that was suitable For all audiences with an informal point, hooligan and satirical, precisely with a book-game format that also refers to the idea of the Burger publishing house ». Delta After Reading defines himself as a narrative adventure starring characters that will have to save the only copy of one of the most influential games in history. The title of text-based puzzles is full of humor, adventures and mischief through its escape mechanics, a concept that Dissect summarizes with the concept of book-game. «It is very suitable because there is a lot of text and read much more than in any type of conversational adventure, and therefore we should also be careful not to saturate or overwhelm, to try not You have to go back to the text itself, then raise some format resource such as a spacing or bleeding; Playing with that is important to convey our ideas ». The patterns & hiding places, from its own demo, knows how to tell and narrate not only through its texts, but of its images, textures and sounds, to palpate and mess with everything interactive to go beyond intimacy and even transmit With the same action.

«We want the protagonist to be doing things constantly and that the player feels that he changes space, a child He is interested in a very childish product but neither does a teenager with a romantic plot. I think is very well measured to satisfy this segment of the public with the imaginary he proposes, as the image of the mother and authority figures that are always present, while at the same time at any time we can take the bike and escape home without consequences.

The protagonist and the reader are given a feeling of a little autonomy, but there are also parts such as complaining because there is cauliflower with Béchamel to eat. A good balance is created that is not easy to achieve, and I think we have achieved it with this product ». One of its hooks also in the adult audience is a nostalgic and referential factor that is present throughout history (for example, the curse of the island of penguins, the stolen game, directly refers to Monkey Island), which manage to connect to this sector with the experiences of their childhood. «I give classes of narrative design at the university and when speaking to my students of Monkey Island sounds and know that it is mythical game of graphic adventure, but it is possible that very few have tried it and for the more people of our fifth it is an essential », Says the screenwriter. «They are inevitable winks, and you know what they wake up or evoke those memories of this game; We wanted to honor them and reference them while we fit them with this universe of adventures, grasses and adolescents who still do not want to stop being children and who live a great adventure ». To raise this sensation of adventure, in Delete After Reading a gossip as special as the Ghost Detector, a kind of pocket tool that will serve as a ghost detector, messaging apparatus, document folder and infrared light to see spectra in the spectra in the Darkness: It is, in essence, the gadget dreamed by any adventurous child: «It is essential to continue advancing in the game and solve many puzzles, in addition to providing very interesting dynamics and mechanics. It is perfectly consistent with this universe, this imaginary detective to the Scooby dew of adventure in the style We are going to strain in a mansion to hunt ghosts. Again, we ride us to an eighties-noting childhood in which these products were the order of the day, but also with this Made in Spain perspective with the tone of Editorial Burger, Mortadella and Lemon and Carranza that gives it an added value ». Dissect is considered an off-road screenwriter, and his plans always go through participating at the same time in several projects in different fields, also within the video game industry itself. One of the first games in which he participated was Undead Citadel, an epic fantasy game in VR developed by Dark Curry who had to delay his departure because they had to rebuild their physical system, although it did not put all the eggs in the same Basket: «I am also developing my third project with Ivanovich Games called Echo Wars, a VR game with driving and shots, or with the Madrid Small studio for a title that is still looking for its playable identity but with a very ambitious plot. Meanwhile, I maintain contact with the Malaga BoogySoft study for a graphic adventure, although the issue of financing is complicated by the size of these studies and Scope themes. Meanwhile, I do not get out of any time in the field of cinema and series, because in these sectors there are many bets that end up not coming out, and it is important to be quite off-road and have many fronts open at the same time ». The fact that the screenwriter has collaborated in so many virtual reality games seems simple by chance, but the truth is that Dissect has found in the VR a special way of facing his narrative for the resolution of certain problems. «Some things increase in this type of game for dissonance that can generate the player some moments. Many times we have to justify this Scale Room format, in which you are still, and it is the environment that is changing as we touch buttons or activate mechanisms, all trying to avoid the typical false movement so as not to break the feeling of immersion. In virtual reality there are many particular approaches that only exist in this genre ».

However, it has been in Delete After Reading itself in which it has found greater differentiation with respect to the rest of its projects: of all its work, it is the game in which the texts have had the most weight. «In Delete After Reading there is no option to skip the paragraphs because the resolution of the puzzles can always be found there. That the text copper as much value has been a joy and as a screenwriter or narrative designer this is very much appreciated, especially knowing that in part it is also addressed to which you can promote the habit of reading. I am proud to participate in this work of stimulating them with sympathetic stories, fun and endearing characters or the occasional joke. You feel that your work has much more value and is worth it. These book-games that invite the reflection and resolution of puzzles and problems, beyond mere mechanical actions, are much more grateful and generate a feeling of satisfaction that are rewarded with more text and the progress of history itself. They are a fantastic way that new generations continue reading, forming and improving their understanding of the world. In video games many times the text is a kind of obstacle between the parts of action that are the majority of players expect with desire, but here we wanted to turn it around with stimulating content ».