The Charnel House is a fascinating narrative experiment in video game storytelling, attempting to tell a story not by moving from point A to point B, but by starting at the center of a story and moving outwards.
In storytelling, the past dictates the future. Plots are laid out like traps that our heroes inevitably fall into. And we, watching Bruce Willis in Looper, or reading of Dream in The Sandman, are thus fated, as well.
Once the calling card for young filmmakers, short films offer a chance to explore concepts of form and structure that Hollywood would not touch—at least not until it proved profitable.
If game mechanics are meant to provide players with experiences such as fun and anxiety, then narrative actually is a game mechanic, as much as game mechanics can also be narrative elements.
The narrative rests in the relationship between the environment and the items found in it, specifically placed for the player to find and create an explanation.
While there are prose books that use pictures for illustrative purposes, only in comics are stories actively told through both written words and drawn pictures.
Marvel producers are attempting to create a film analog to the Marvel Universe that knits together the publisher's mainline titles. Will moviegoing audiences keep coming back for the next story, and the next?
