Doug TenNapel Quotes

When we go to see comedians or funny movies, they don't address the wall behind them; they face us. This is why a game's first job is to entertain through gameplay and secondarily through humor, drama, or other traditional entertainment devices. The humor has to be a gentleman. I mean, it needs to be squeezed in around the game.

There's a misunderstanding that I've always tried to address straight on when this question comes up, which is that a 'Half-Life' story can somehow exist outside of a game. It can't. The story is created through the process of trying to figure out how to best use the features of the engine within the interesting set of constraints it poses.

All video games are games, obviously. They're designed. They're digital. They have rules; they give an audience some type of vicarious experience.

The way games are designed is you create a story, and then you create an obstacle course inside that story, and the player has to endure it to see more. So it's artificial. Game designers are so intensely worried about people getting bored that they pile on busy work for players to do.

Before 'Final Fantasy VII,' I would have told you that I had zero interest in RPGs with turn-based combat. But that game was so well done, I didn't care what genre it was. Any genre can be done poorly or done well.

The obvious objective of video games is to entertain people by surprising them with new experiences.

When I'm making video games today, I want people to be entertained. I am always thinking, How are people going to enjoy playing the games we are making today? And as long as I can enjoy something other people can enjoy it, too.

The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters.

Our approach to making games is to find the fun first and then use the technology to enhance the fun.

The video game market is huge, and the ability to tell stories, and tell different kinds of stories in the gaming space is quickly evolving and changing for the better.

I'm not the expert on the great gameplay. I come in for the character design, monsters, atmosphere. I'm not the technician.

You don't really want to talk about 'Duke' in terms of, how many levels are there, how many guns does it have, how many monsters… It's got everything it needs in terms of that, but it's always been about the experience.

You can have an absolute laugh-out-loud-till-you're-crying game, but if it's not fun to play, if the mechanics aren't there, it doesn't matter.

I think you have to serve a lot of masters when you're doing a video game: you're not just telling a linear story or doing something that's all action.

We're growing into an entertainment medium as opposed to 'We make games. We make Mario jump.' We no longer have to focus so hard on the technical hurdles and can ask, as a player, why am I doing this? Why am I making these choices? Games that don't have that strong foundation stumble.

I don't differentiate game design and script; it is one and only document. I think that one of the biggest problem with storytelling in games is that people tend to separate story and interactivity. Both should be conceived as one entity, each using the other.

The Uncharted' series really pushed me as a developer. They managed to raise the bar with every single release and produce an action- packed thrill ride starring characters I wanted to hang out with, and mechanics I can easily pick up and play.

I always try and come up with a clear theme when I'm making a videogame.

Now, I admire The Sims as a game, but from a story viewpoint, there are two glaring problems. First, your relationship with those characters is like they're bugs in a jar. There's no empathy. And secondly, you've got this clunky, chemistry-set interface between you and them, with bars to show how tired or angry they are. It's all tell not show.

I still like to play games that have a beginning, an end and a story.

There's a theory in gameplay, particularly in first person shooters, that sometimes you don't want to have that much of a character because then it destroys the experience of the player being that character.

I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.

I'm a huge gamer.

Writing for videogames is really unique. You learn all the rules of writing, but there's a whole other set of rules for game writing, and we're changing them as we move along as well, which makes it more challenging.

Stories in which the player doesn't inhabit the main character are difficult for games to handle.