I'm always searching for game writing inspiration. When I heard about "Planetfall," an unconventional novella inspired by science fiction literature and modern interactive narrative, I was intrigued. Author John Burnett, a user interface (UI) artist for video games by day and a renaissance man by night, has written a linear story with a sleek flash interface that affected me in a powerful way.

"Planetfall" differs from other novellas in its format. The story is presented in a seamless UI inspired by early images of the Animus from Assassin's Creed. The narrative is written entirely through a futuristic messaging system that is a hybrid of modern-day emailing and instant messaging. While no dates or timestamps are present, the chronology of the story is quite clear, and the pacing is strong. At first I thought the lack of dates was a fault, but, upon further reflection, I began to see how it aided the overall flow of the story.

The plot is an interesting experiment of a crew put in a drastic situation. The reactions are profoundly human, representing some of the best and worst aspects of humanity. In a relatively short amount of time, Burnett manages to convey the struggles of a large group of people and the variety of emotions they experience. It is very reminiscent of games, as the electronic messages are all we have of the incident. The gaps must be filled in by the reader. Fortunately, Burnett manages to take advantage of the opportunity to leave out information and throw in some surprises. The ending left me somewhat shaken, but I enjoyed it and the finale was fitting.

Burnett has a great attention to detail despite the deceptively simple interface. In his notes, he mentions key decisions, such as having photos for each character to emphasize their humanity. He then explains how he lights up each character when they are the person who wrote the message, but when their picture fades out, the light remains slightly longer on their eyes. Burnett also made several revisions to the novella that added a surprising level of polish, such as the maintenance reports that help break up the messages with a more visual piece of narrative.

While Burnett's novella could clearly provide some positive inspiration for game writers considering telling stories through logs or files, there are still a few weaknesses. For a story told in 2030, his characters have an unusual grasp of some terms that would surely be antiquated by that time. Certain phrases, such as "grab a pen," may be outdated. More futuristic phrases, such as "grab a stylus," could provide more suitable replacements. Also, the story sets a very clear tone through the dialogue. I enjoyed the dry wit and the coolness, but this did create characters with less depth. I wanted to see a character or two with more quirkiness, or characters with different senses of humor. Also, several of Burnett's central characters have a high degree of academic literary knowledge. It seems unlikely that characters in 2030 stuck on a spaceship would've spent hours in a classroom studying Shakespeare and Yeats which they can then quote to express their frustrations.

Despite its faults, I feel that "Planetfall" provides a strong narrative. Outside of sci-fi literature, Burnett cites his inspirations as System Shock 2 and BioShock. This style of on-demand narrative through logs in increasingly popular, as it will also be utilized in the upcoming Dead Space. It has certainly inspired me to write my own interactive narrative through messages. It certainly seems a challenge to write an interactive narrative that could affect me as strongly as "Planetfall."  

When a game about the past is mixed with science fiction, it runs the risk ruining the realism of the game. Even if we have not lived during that past, previous eras are often carefully represented in games with characters we can understand. Fortunately, Assassin’s Creed has Altair, a very solid lead character who feels more real than his descendent in the near future.

The best part about Altair is how believable he feels. When he moves around, he feels heavy. There are clinks when he walks from his weapons and gear. He can push through a crowd or weave through less dense groups. He can also collide with people if he runs into them, and they respond accordingly. Despite his weight, Altair is still graceful enough to carry out acrobatic feats reminiscent of Prince of Persia.

Supporting the realistic Altair is a fantastic population of NPCs in towns. There are so many people in the towns, each traveling to and fro as if they have their own agenda. They make surprised comments if Altair leaps up onto a rooftop and notice disturbances he causes. The towns feel believable to a degree that has rarely been achieved in games to date.

Some of the visuals are fantastic, but other visual elements detract from the realism. The scenery is beautiful. The backgrounds in particular are incredibly real. However, the eyes on people are a little too bright and look slightly odd, slipping into the uncanny valley. Also, the motion capture technology is inconsistent. The doctor in the future looks great, but the assassin leader in the past has movements that seem a bit stilted.

The dialogue and visual presentation are two of the game’s main weaknesses. There are many lengthy cutscenes that could be a lot shorter if the dialogue were tighter. The lines are often repetitive and give too many details. Unfortunately, the camera angles during cutscenes can be controlled by the player. I frequently found myself flipping through the angles out of boredom and it severely detracted from my immersion in the game. Sometimes none of the angles would look right, and it felt like this mechanic was a cheap substitution for a cinematographer.

I had a few more frustrations with this game. First, the tutorial was way too long. It went on and on, going over abilities I didn’t need to know until much later. It is impossible to remember everything when too much is presented at the beginning. I was so excited to play the game that I could not retain as much as normal. Also, the game soon takes away all these abilities that it spent so much time teaching me. It seems pointless to learn how to use several abilities only to lose them. Why not learn them gradually? Finally, the combat system is essentially a few non-strategic button presses. It felt unremarkable and dull.

Assassin’s Creed is not a horrible game. It does a lot of things well, most notably many visuals and the realism in towns. However, its weaknesses detract from this game’s merits and can become frustrating. While I did enjoy playing Assassin’s Creed for a while, I hope that games in the future can model themselves after its strengths and learn from its weaknesses.