Are fun games doomed to always have "dumb" stories?

[Menegrothx]

I don't even think they need rupees, they could just streamline the best parts of the experience more instead of having you mow the lawn for rupees

But if they leave out all the grindy parts, then people will complain how short the game is. I really love games like Portal, Out of this world/Another world, Heart of Darkness, Abe's Odyssee etc. Even if people complain about the length of the game and lack of sequels when the game is initially released, they will live the test of time well as they are quick to get into when you feel like playing and the experience is better from artistic and storyline point of view when the game's story is packaged into a tight package with out any unnecessary BS. Most action-adventure (Jak 2/3 and GTA fx) and RPG games tend to have a lot of meaningless little side quests that water down the overall experience.

Heart of Darkness is like 1,5 hours long if you dont die at all, and that's when you count in the lengthy cutscenes. It's still a brilliant and very cinematic game and it doesnt have any meaningless or unnecessary filler content.

[Ivo]

But if they leave out all the grindy parts, then people will complain how short the game is. I really love games like Portal, Out of this world/Another world, Heart of Darkness, Abe's Odyssee etc. Even if people complain about the length of the game and lack of sequels when the game is initially released, they will live the test of time well as they are quick to get into when you feel like playing and the experience is better from artistic and storyline point of view when the game's story is packaged into a tight package with out any unnecessary BS. Most action-adventure (Jak 2/3 and GTA fx) and RPG games tend to have a lot of meaningless little side quests that water down the overall experience.

Heart of Darkness is like 1,5 hours long if you dont die at all, and that's when you count in the lengthy cutscenes. It's still a brilliant and very cinematic game and it doesnt have any meaningless or unnecessary filler content.

Yes, I agree. I believe developers should really strive to make better games, with better design etc. and if that design forces the game to be shorter then so be it - they should just charge less for the game perhaps to balance the value for money, although I also think better experiences that are carefully designed typically earn their "value for money" even if they are shorter.

I played and finished Braid recently and I really enjoyed the experience (I bumped one of the old threads discussing my thoughts at great length). I haven't paid full price for it myself, but if I were to compare the 15 bucks of Braid's full price to the 40 or 60 bucks of the full price of most games (with a longer experience) I really have to side with Braid having more value for money in most cases.

Ivo.