That Other Kind Of Game - Story Generators

Story generators are a kind of game which aren't often brought up when discussing video games as art. They don't fit neatly into one genre - instead they are characterized by emergent game play stemming from procedural generation and detailed interactions. The iconic example of this is Dwarf Fortress, a game which is tough but with extreme detail in its mechanics. Despite being the grandfather of many indie games, Dwarf Fortress and games like it don't get talked about often enough.
In this video I discuss Dwarf Fortress and other story generators, such as Rimworld, Paradox grand strategy games, Barotrauma, and Space Station 13. As a specific example, I played the Paradox strategy game Stellaris and talk about the various decisions I needed to make when I unintentionally made the game more difficult than I intended.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:54 Dwarf Fortress
04:11 Story Generators
05:48 Stellaris Playthrough
13:24 The Point
#dwarffortress
#stellaris

[@buffatwo]

Wow! It’s great to see you guys liked the video! You might also like the video I did last week, it’s over how different games implement the “Rule of Cool” to keep players immersed. It did really well for about one day then traffic suddenly dropped. Not for sure for the exact reason, but those who did see it seemed to really like it too. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKmXmKaLZrGaapo Also, after seeing so many recommendations for it, looks like I’ll have to look into kenshi!

[@brennonwapple6208]

love that this genre of game is finally getting the lime light it deserves

[@HierisLars]

This is great, I just picked up Kenshi because of the steam Winter sale but haven't tried it too much. Would love to see a video about it!

[@Nezul]

Be aware, Kenshi is like classic Dwarf Fortress, it's arcane as fuck but once you figure out what you're doing it's an intense game.

[@Sihgilanu]

your video quality is stellar, man! i was shocked to see you didn't have even 1k subs... here's hoping you get the recognition you deserve, because the effort you put in *really* does show. keep it up homie!

[@Sir_Casimir]

Mate pretty much everything you listed in this video is a sandbox game, 'Sandbox' is the name of the gerne and what you described most of them as is literally it's definition. (If you don't believe me, look it up and put some time into researching it before trying to dispute.) Some people mistake stuff like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (TABS) as a "sandbox" but these types of games are actually more apart of the worldbox gerne instead, which I guess is a similar name and this term isn't used very often overall. My favourite sandbox games is the Mount & Blade series and Paradox games in particular, some people even consider games like GTA and Skyrim as somewhat sandbox but I don't really see it because they do have a fully fleshed out story.

[@labrat_09]

Fun fact: rimworld’s hardest default difficulty is literally called losing is fun

[@BirdieRumia]

Which is itself a Dwarf Fortress reference. It's all a circle.

[@nukechicken4862]

@@BirdieRumia and alot of space station 13s server rules like to say losing is fun

[@samueltheslime1125]

Back in my Rimworld, it was called Merciless. God I love Rimworld so much.

[@gex6692]

Rim world is just worse dwarf fortress imo

[@Bloodhound7]

@@gex6692 They're too different to be compared imo. I liked dwarf fortress aswell and had a few hundreds of hours fun but it never came close to me as Rimworld

[@CornRecords972]

I love the new waves of recognition the graphical release is bringing Dwarf Fortress. Been playing since 2008, myself. I never dreamed it would be so well recognized on its own apart from all of the 'it inspired minecraft' quotes. Being able to open twitch or youtube and see thousands or maybe even tens of thousands of people experience it at long last brings joy to my heart for Tarn and Zach Adams.

[@buffatwo]

I originally got into back in 2014-ish when Quill18 introduced me to the Lazy Newb Pack in one of his streams. I put the game down for a long time but when I saw it was getting a steam release I decided to wait and join in throwing money at the Tarn and Zach.

[@CornRecords972]

@@buffatwo I've bought two copies so far. I throw it at friends whenever I can.

[@LocalDiscordCatgirl]

@@CornRecords972the day of release I bought two copies for my little brothers

[@HellaDelta42069]

I’ve been listening to people playing dwarf fortress for a few years now, but I never actually started playing it myself... anyways, it is indeed nice to see players old and new experiencing Zach and Tarn Adam’s Magnum Opus, brings me new hope for Humanity.

[@DaemonicNecro]

Who is saying it inspired Minecraft!!?? who is the source?? IMO they are WRONG very wrong... Minecraft was born from its creators parent game the Granddaddy and still truest open world crafting game there is Wurm Online also released on Steam as Wurm Unlimited that Notch worked on with friend Rolf Johansson before parting ways and making Minecraft which is a pixelated voxel version of Wurm which needs the recognition it so highly deserves!!

[@mrbismarck]

Writing for the Washington Post, Gita Jackson said "You win [Dwarf Fortress] when something that’s so funny or interesting or just plain weird happens that you have to tell a real life person about it." The game has given me so many stories to tell people it'll always be my favourite.

[@KannabisMajoris]

The guy who made Rimworld (which he explicitly calls a story generator) wrote a book about story telling in games. He also worked on Bioshock Infinite

[@JerichoJulius0]

Guy made a game just to sell his book. Game ends up more popular than book.

[@orangesoda4535]

Bio infinite aint much a credit. Game was pretty stinky

[@hiiambarney4489]

@@JerichoJulius0 Still I deem the DLC's overpriced.

[@AshAsmodeus]

@@orangesoda4535 I think this is why games like storygenerators exist because I thought Bioshock Infinite was pretty awesome... sure; it was awefully messy at times too but the underlying narrative of the game was a great experience for myself who's also heavily into stuff like Quantum Physics, Time travel and meta-realities. Having said that; my journey with elizabeth was absolutely as much fun as that time my heavy in rimworld threw a tantrum and decided to fire his doomsday rocket launcher... whose projectile, by stroke of luck or misfortune (your pick), ended up travelling straight down a 20 cell hallway and ended up deadcenter in my dininghall where everyone else was celebrating the marriage of my village elder with the local doctor....

[@ellieswagaye]

It’s honestly soooo much more of an accomplishment having rimworld in your résumé than having bioshock infinite

[@leobriccocola8141]

Cataclysm DDA has constantly blown my away by how beautifully in-depth and complex it is and the amazing stories that come from it.

[@he3004]

CDDA is great

[@cobalt968]

Both DDA and Bright Nights are some of my favorite sims/rpgs. Especially with mods! My first character was a massively in debt dance instructor who managed to barely survive the first month by throwing rocks at lone zombies and scrounging stale food from houses and drinking out of toilets. With great persistence and luck, he became a cyborg kung-fu master who could punch holes through tanks. He eventually managed to rescue some fellow cyborgs from some secret labs and start a quiet farm, occasionally venturing out to delve into other secret labs to try and save any other cyborgs that might be trapped there. My current character is a genetically engineered bodyguard whose master got zombified while touring a remote prison island. I managed to clear the island through scavenging firearms from the police zombies, and constructed a crude raft by chopping trees and doors to make it past all the zombified sea life to the mainland. Currently chilling in a cultist safe house and digesting various tomes about forbidden arcana and getting insane morale boosts from it. I’m eager to see how her story will play out.

[@isaiasmartinez7131]

Stellaris is my drug. I always come back to it.

[@buffatwo]

It’s great, but boy after this video I need a break.

[@jeffthedumb3177]

same

[@uriotv1613]

Rel

[@X3105i]

Getting back to DF but I recently played shadow empire and Stellaris is my morphine because those games hurt

[@danielwoods3896]

This was even without the best part. Crises. Nothing finishes a game of Stellaris better than saving the galaxy with its uncountable people from an unknowable extragalactic threat.

[@basilisk4848]

Stellaris and Rimworld are my go-to games. Both near infinitely replayable with all the tools to make a fun and interesting story throughout a playthrough. This is only boosted further by their amazing modding communities, with some astonishing work that makes these games some of the best experiences you can find from this kind of game. Whether it be stuff like gigastructures and acot for stellaris, or Rimworlds vanilla expanded. There’s always something that can make another run worthwhile, and that goes for unmodded too.

[@sharksam8583]

Stellaris is personally one of my favorite games. And I have modded it. Quite a bit. Rimworld has also been an occasional rabbit hole. Of mine that I go into every once in a while.

[@DopinSmoke]

I just bought Rimworld a month ago. I already have 200 hours. It’s amazingly addictive and I’ve only played Vanilla with Biotech so far

[@noobplaye1218]

As a digital masochist myself i play neo scavenger

[@EddieDubs]

I've played a lot of Rimworld, but it's just so soulless.

[@mvw9078]

Two of the best games of our modern era, I think! I love them too!

[@MrCMaccc]

4:16 when that rimworld music kicked in it just made me feel something. THAT is what story generators do. They are the TTRPGs of the video game industry

[@AnotherDuck]

I've noticed that videos about games like these tend to use Rimworld music. For good reason.

[@scoobydoo2587]

Same here. I love the music of Rimworld, it always makes me wanna play again

[@stalebread2997]

Duude, tell me about it. EVERY TIME I hear Rimworld music, a tiny part of me goes haywire.

[@LeeAmNiesen]

Moving On is just the best soundtrack ever. Can't explain the wild mix of feelings I get every time it plays in the perfect moment.

[@smolbean2263]

Warcrime simulator

[@keionjg9627]

Games like Kenshi, and Rimworld are games that I’ve had the most fun ever in. Both games are literally the analogy of taking off the training wheels and being told “go nuts”. Kenshi especially. The game tells you literally nothing besides the controls and you do whatever you want in quite the unique world. Surprised Kenshi is still as obscure as it is in this genre.

[@murkorus7147]

I got Kenshi about a week ago for the winter sale, and it's become a drug for me. Already have 100 hours in it, and several almost max level characters.

[@redshift912]

Dayz does this too with even less direction

[@Koooles]

you could try Project Zomboid.

[@honaleri]

Rimworld and Kenshi both changed how I saw game design. I didn't get into Dwarf Fortress, still haven't, but I read lot about it, and admired it from a far for a long time. Rimworld is like Dwarf Fortress Lite. Its much more approachable, but does many of the things (to a less intense degree of simulation.) And Kenshi is so fascinating because its much more...intimate, than Rimworld. I loved my colony, sure, but that game makes you feel you need it to be colony to play. Kenshi makes it more like you could play with just one person, but you don't need to be alone. I can't say how deep simulation in Kenshi goes, but if makes you feel connected with the characters. My Kenshi story is, I started off in Sho-battai, alone, unaware how to play the game, running around mining some copper for cheap money, only to realize I needed help to get it done. I talked to few drifters, they demanded money for my help, eff that. I bought a slave instead, a guy with a goat head. He was skittish and didn't trust me, and just cried a lot. So...I basically babied him until he actually decided to join me for real and we mined a lot...to no avail. It picked up more drifters and headed off into the desert, not even very far, when...I happened upon a gold mine. I was like "jackpot" and made small town with a wall around the gold mine, not far from Sho-battai. Production was slave driven. (Sort of), I ended up adopting a crap tone of Starving Vagrants into my command under a group I called "slaves" and just made them work in the mine. (Through them in cages for a few days, starved them, then gave them food to make them join me.)( I would then take the gold ingots to the Sho-battai bar, and sell 50 gold bars at a time. Then, literally sneak up stairs in that bar, and steal back the gold I just sold, then sell ll 50 bars again to a fence. It was epic. I fed my people on stolen food until we made farms, but it wasn't until something happened I didn't expect. that my whole way of playing changed. I had a Starving Vagrant I'd put in a cage and nearly starved, he didn't want to join me, and I didn't need a legless man... So I kicked him out of town and he was just...laying there in front of my town like he'd given up. I...felt bad for him. So I gave him a leg and sent him on his way. For no reason, he starts following my character around on my mission to sell gold bars. Suddenly...he starts talking, saying "I've never felt this free before, is this what its like to be like you?" And...suddenly, he asks if he can join me. He's the only person that ever just...asked to join, no being put in a cage and bribed with food, no abusive dystopian behavior. He...freely joined me, cause I helped him and made him feel alive. I named that guy Free Will, and decided to "rename" my subgroup of characters from "Slaves" to "Workers". And I started treating those characters less like they were disposable and more like, these are my people. I fight for them, not with them. It was amazing. I want and need to make a game like these games. I've literally played for over 200 hours, and still haven't left that Great Desert. There is still so much to do. I'm just having to much fun running my little town.

[@MrRavmoor]

@@honaleri I loved this story! I tried getting into Kenshi about a year ago but it just didn't click for me. Now you've made me want to try again! :)

[@okeoi]

Been playing DF since 2009 and there are so many stories. In this current version I have had a dwarven baby drown in a river, traumatizing my main stone mason who just started carving statues of this dead baby. The Fortress of Tombkeeper is living up to it's name, now, idolizing a dead child from the early days of expedition. Edit: Update: The fortress has progressed about five years since I posted my original comment and even my metalsmith ( a migrant, untraumatized I might add) has taken up occasionally making statues of Zuglar Fencedpunches, the dead, drowned Dwarven Baby.

[@derpderpin1568]

Just wish I could actually really see that story being told with good visual representation and not just reading it. The first developer to actually make one of these games in 3D with the same amount of depth as the others will have a goldmine on their hands. The fact that nearly everything interesting is just in reading text in most of the games in this genre is the number one thing by far preventing it from growing. All of them that exist so far have clumsy and mediocre UI and presentation.

[@okeoi]

​@@derpderpin1568 I mean. I saw it. I can see it still. The bones of Zuglar Fencedpunches are still stuck in the river. The visual restriction allows for a much more personal interpretation. DF is a game of storytelling; like playing DnD. Theater of the mind and all that jazz. Same as reading books, I guess. You either like to read or you don't and there is nothing wrong with that, but some games just aren't everyone's cup of tea.

[@birdsie9791]

@@derpderpin1568 I think limited graphics actually lend it a lot of fun room for interpretation.

[@starofaetherius]

@@derpderpin1568 thats is sort of impossible though. They would have to makes a statue for every single emergent gameplay thing that could happen, and thats just the stoneworker example. The game would end up with a massive file size from all of the extraneous items it would have inserted into it when descriptions would have worked fine, take months or years longer to develop and still be more broken than its 2d counterparts. Story generator games belong in theatre of the mind.

[@talknight2]

Me with 40 Dwarven skeletons lying unburied in the chasm beneath my tavern because the waterwheels that were supposed to operate the pumps stopped spinning for no apparent reason and my artificial waterfall flooded half the fortress: 0_0

[@hrnekbezucha]

Stellaris seems like a good time but what I like about Dwarf Fortress so much is that all the stories are so personal. Every dwarf has a name, and history, and personality. You can order someone to pull a lever that swings the draw bridge shut with an elven caravan on it, and Mafol will always be the one who gets to do it as a retribution for declining the trade of his masterpiece shirt because it had a birch button on it. So now he lives to see the caravans of dozen elves splattered against the cavern wall, and the rest fall into a sea of magma bellow.

[@matiassilva713]

I consider Crusader Kings 2 a good story generator game, because of the emphasis on characters and their personalities

[@starhalv2427]

For Stellaris, I give my highest recommendation to the "Civil Wars" mod. It adds a bunch of ways for civil wars to break out outside what the base game offers, making it so that conquering the entire galaxy is just the start of your problems. For example, if you change your government from Imperial, your heir can either go into exile and become an admiral for one of your rivals, or try to make an entire sector revolt against you as a new, feudal society empire. Or, when a faction within your empire dislikes you, you'll be given a couple years to fix the situation before that faction revolts. These are just a part of your problems.

[@Someone-vq6jk]

I’m pretty sure the mod is called civil wars

[@starhalv2427]

@@Someone-vq6jk yes, correct. I'll edit that.

[@raggebatman]

I never knew I wanted a game category called 'Story Generator' so much. Literally one of my favourite types of games

[@PepsiMagt]

As for story generator games, an influential game has to be the Sims. If you take a war game or a management game and add a bit of Sims to it, then you have Stellaris or Rimworld.

[@bananahat3350]

Especially since its code name in development was “Dollhouse”, and what is a dollhouse if not a story generator lol.

[@rodrikforrester6989]

Or Crusader Kings!

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Would you call The sims a tactical game?

[@Duncanois]

​​@@danieladamczyk4024epending how you play, yes, it can be a lot more tactical than what you see at face value Edit: typo

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@Duncanois Thank you for your answer. Doing the best with time we got counts as tactics for me.

[@dmitriwojcik210]

Was happy to see NEO Scavenger get noticed if only for a moment, can get alot of fun stories out of it depending on how you play

[@TheWisme]

A lovely story generator in my library is Wildermyth, where the developing of the story is the entire purpose of the game. I'd reccomend checking it out.

[@TooZooted]

I feel like 'Story Generators' will be the games that age best with time. Dwarf Fortress is a perfect example of this, even excluding the new Steam version for a game to have a dedicated community for over two decades is unheard of in other genre's. They are the only single-player games that have infinite replayability, no two playthroughs will ever be the same experience.

[@LilyKittyCatto]

this is my favourite kind of game. id recommend wildermyth to everyone, your characters develop as you play and form relationships together or become rivals etc and can have kids who can eventually join your party and the stories you can find in each playthrough are so fantastic its a game i will never get bored of

[@KatelynCollins225]

you've earned my subscription. I've been a massive fan of these games for a very long time, and none of my friends ever understood them or why I liked them. This video perfectly summarises these games. Also, great editing!

[@buffatwo]

Im glad you enjoyed it! I’ve only heard these kind of games discussed as individual examples, rather than a category altogether. I’ve also had friends be confused at this choice of games, and I always found it hard to explain succinctly. Hopefully this opens people up to the category more!

[@monchyd6519]

bro the amount of times i heard someone say "i dont like this game/this game looks trash/looks boring" just because the game "looked weird" made me cry out in pain

[@beaub152]

I'm lucky I have friends that play these games

[@zombierobot8769]

​@@buffatwoI've sort of connected these games in my head but never really had a good encompassing title for what they all were. Space station 13 is great, Kenshi also has to be one of my favorite games ever. I think someone needs to start a website dedicated to finding and hosting information about these sorts of games.

[@simex909]

One of my favorite story generators is the game Drox Operative 2. It is like diablo, but you play as a spaceship and collect parts and upgrades. While you're doing this, computer controlled races are playing a 4x in the background without your direct influence. You as a single ship in a 4x try to influence events in your favor by choosing who to attack, forming alliances, helping the factions with quests, etc...

[@chazdomingo475]

Sounds like Star Sector but without the fleet mechanics.

[@simex909]

@@chazdomingo475 thanks bro, i will check it out

[@Azure9577]

@@chazdomingo475 starsector with nexerelin installed but without the fleet and direct controlled combat

[@Azure9577]

@@simex909 starsector is amazing but install the nexerelin mod

[@jagothegamer5750]

My favourite Stellaris Megacorp I made was a xenophobic space McDonalds that would capture other species as livestock... I would then open up restaurants across the galaxy. It was called the Xeno Burger. There is a reason I have over 1,000 hours in Stellaris.

[@merezko4339]

Love Dwarf Fortress been playing it over a decade, obviously your video took a turn, but the premise and quality of the video still held up while you took me to the stars :D

[@zazmeister5889]

I remember playing Barotrauma in it's earlier days, I was part of the security team for the submarine. A moloch had absolutely destroyed the outer hull of the ship, and as the interior flooded, I managed to lock myself away in the ballast just before the water reached me. I was the only survivor onboard as the rest either drowned or were torn apart by the monster right outside. Then, it was a long and silent trip down to the deepest depth survivable, as the destroyed sub had no captain, it sank. And there I sat, talking on my dying radio only to yield no results on the other side. Any attempt to rescue me was futile, I was just too deep to safely get to. After a while I realised my only choice was to end my suffering, no one was coming for me, that fact was clear. So I opened the door to let the sea consume me. I didn't last 5 seconds underwater as the high water pressure almost instantaneously crushed my entire body. 10/10 would recommend.

[@Sondi]

this is why neo scavenger is a game i can always make a run like weekly for. the stories i told my friends made them all buy it only to be turned off by the graphics. ive been playing that game for almost 10 years now and i still find new interactions and events that i didn't know existed

[@CoqueiroLendario]

Aw yeah those are my favorite type of games and i'm glad that Rimworld got not one but TWO DLCs really focused on creating stories, right now i have a small tribe of nudist pigmen that lives in a desolate wasteland, slowly cleaning it back into the beautiful place it once was while defending themselves with tamed animals!

[@peenyyt4921]

Lame ass tribe tbh

[@CoqueiroLendario]

@@peenyyt4921 They indeed have some round asses. :]

[@AramatiPaz]

Wich DLC you consider not history focused?

[@CoqueiroLendario]

@@AramatiPaz Royalty, it has some storymaking elements but it is mostly fun with psycasts and mech clusters.

[@potatoboy6094]

Story generator type games are my favorite, I’ll admit I’m not quite at the stage where I can completely embrace failure as part of the fun, but even if I savescum later on to save my virtual babies, those alternate timelines of terrible decisions will always have a special place In my heart

[@sendmechecks]

My favorite kind of game. These games you mention, along with the Sims, Terraria and others have the potential for thousands of hours of fun. Since they are essentially just Lego blocks for you to rearrange and make your OWN fun with. You could sum up this genre simply as: "Player autonomy in a sandbox world." The toughest part about this game is making the gameplay and experimentation fun, rather than feeling like you're wrestling with an obtuse input box (or how I feel playing DF).

[@Kuhmuhnistische_Partei]

It's also very funny to see that people who know and like one of those story generators are very likely to also know and like a lot of the others. I mean, Rimworld is probably one of the more known ones. Like when I talk to people who play videogames and I mention Rimworld, they usually had heard of it. So not every Rimworld player is truley into the whole story generator-thing. But when I meet people who like to play Kenshi, Project Zomboid and to a lesser extant Stellaris, those usually automatically also play other story generators.

[@NoneNullAnd0]

Had to make sure that somebody at least mentioned Kenshi here.

[@themadone2942]

Space Station 13 is worth playing and learning even with some difficulties. It will took a lot of hours but trust me you will not regreat it(and even when you would not be good that's okay too you can always improve and become better).

[@NedInYaHead]

Honestly, after attempting (and failing) to get into Dwarf Fortress, Cataclysm: DDA and Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, Space Station 13 was really easy to get into in comparison. I hopped onto Beestation and spent my first round being taught the basics by a friendly assistant, and from there anything more specific I needed to find out could be solved with a quick look at the wiki. And because the rounds are ~2 hours instead of the 7+ that the rest require, it is realistic to have at least a few stories by the time you'd finish one of the other games - this is only helped by the fact that all 15-25 players in the server are also working towards that goal.

[@pagodeiromaster3347]

@@NedInYaHead is beestation goonstation?

[@IAmGameAddicted]

@@pagodeiromaster3347 no its TG code

[@napalmman8202]

When the Rimworld music hit at 4:25... I smiled wide with intrigue. Rimworld rep always gives me joy

[@TheControlStick1]

Project Zomboid is my favorite example of this. Neo Scavenger and Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead are also amazing

[@valitsemllaluokanavahyvaks3556]

UnReal World also.

[@eatpant3270]

I did play neo scav before and cdda too

[@awesomegj]

Personally have almost 2000 hours in stellaris and in all that time NOTHING comes close to my favorite story of the first time a crisis hit my galaxy to give a tldr it was the launch version of the game most of the the time I played the game I died since I was still learning well in this story it was me and a friend playing and we got lucky we were right next to each other and almost all the aliens spawned away from us in no time flat we were about a quarter of the galaxy combined it was the farthest we ever got and we felt amazing and strong!....now anyone whose ever played stellaris can see what's coming we uh detached strange signals about to hit the edge of the galaxy all of them were in me and my friend....and on that day we learned what an end game crisis was!

[@scopaf1662]

I initially heard you say "most beautiful" in conjunction with story generators and scoffed. Then I heard the first note of the rimworld song play about 4 minutes in, and realized how legit that was as the emotions welled over.

[@DesignFrameCaseStudies]

The term you're looking for is Emergent Gameplay :) I love seeing new folks get into those types of games. They're quite fascinating.

[@notasovietspy8008]

Stellaris and dwarf fortress are my bread and butter. The rich history that each game creates hooks you into the vast, expansive world. In dwarf fortress no matter what happens, it'll be fun. As your colony of dwarves grows from 7 up to 250 (my most until my PC crashed) you will become attached to each of them, of course as long as you take the time to pause the game and read into the depth of the world you have been placed upon. In Stellaris it's less about the individuals and more about the grand galaxy that you explore as a nation (that usually you make). As the time ticks by you become attached to your nation, you make careful decisions on how to handle situations the game throws your way. I cannot express how much both games are so good.

[@jakobbredell103]

Kenshi is a hidden gem in this genre. Cannot wait for the sequel

[@webbycroissant5692]

Space Station 13 has been my favorite story generator for awhile. Each round is completely unique and randomized, while possibilities are huge. My personal favorite parts of the game are the customization system and the paperwork system. IRL it would be boring as heck, but in this game, knowing that most documents and files were written by actual players and such makes it feel more...professional? And surrealist at the same time? I don't know it's just really fun, so I spend most of my time either as the QM or the HoP. Really an adventure.

[@ThiVasss]

There is also beauty to death generators like Spelunky and Noita. Get pushed into bomb that launches you in the air and drop on spikes. Yes that can happen... A lot.

[@chebikitty5566]

RimWorld has been my favorite game for years. I have played dwarf fortress many times in the past and it is on the top of my wishlist on steam. Story generators are amazing especially for people who want to create.

[@knight_lautrec_of_carim]

Kenshi fits right in there. You can do just whatever when you start and don't get any directions. You can become a lone wandering swordsman or build a drug empire or decide to overthrow the slavers.

[@One_Point_Safety]

I remember being very disappointed when stellaris first came out- I’ll have to pick it up and give it another chance. Paradox games usually have to age a bit to be great haha

[@Biouke]

That's what happens when you just design a bunch of interconnected systems and let the players do their thing within these systems. It's glorious.

[@Biouke]

​@Scott's Precious Little Account Depends how it's designed. I'd even say it cares for a particular individual who's not even within the game : The player. Meanwhile IRL nature and the universe really don't give a shit about you or me, and the only rules we can impact are social ones. We can't change how physics work.

[@wfr1108]

4:12 I recognized the song almost instantly. Unforgettable.

[@Abbetmaan]

Didn’t even realise this video would be about literally all my go-to games! Great video

[@gabrote42]

1:46 YESSSSSS!!!!!!! Glad you made the video. While I don't like stellaris much I can understand why you did not pick the other two games to tell a story about. Man I miss mitadake high

[@mazen2460]

What an excellent video. I enjoyed every minute of it! Condensing your gameplay of 30 hours into a cohesive story sprinkled with explanations of the strategies used was especially entertaining.

[@mtchllBarrett]

These are my favourite games, and I didn't even realize it until you listed them all back to back like that. Especially CK2 and Rimworld. I have no idea how I first learned to play CK2, and I have no idea how paradox expects people to learn a game like that, but I'm so glad it exists and I'm glad I learned it. Despite being so extremely difficult to learn, story generators are such an excellent type of game

[@EphemeraEssays]

Story generators! I've always loved this kind of game and I could never put into words why, and you absolutely nailed it. I'd love to add that this is not only a genre, but also a way of playing. There are plenty of games not designed to be story generators, but I've seen a lot of people who will play them like one. I know someone who played who Far Cry 4 completely ignoring the main missions and wanted to see if he could "escape" the country (which making a goal to hit the far north end of the map behind all of the main story content). He snuck out of the main rebel village at night, hit the road, avoiding passing patrols of both friendlies and enemies, and learning about the country's culture as he stumbled upon shrines and temples. He learned a lot of the lore by himself and, in his roleplay, thought that his character may change his mind about leaving his new home, and so he came back to help. The game never "allowed" him to do any of this, if anything it fought against it, but in the end it was so much more rewarding for him.

[@gumdrop_galaxy]

This video unexpectedly became an essay about Stellaris...and I love it haha this is coincidentally the best video I've ever seen to show to non Stellaris players to understand what the fuss is about, very cool!

[@trgs30]

Your videos are great, I'm shocked you have less than 1k subs. I'm glad you popped up in my feed

[@greyinfo]

I find it interesting to hear these games called story generators, because when I used to play Dwarf Fortress back in highschool I used to go back to school every day and talk to my friends about the crazy things that happened in the game. To me that was the most fun part of it, telling the stories that emerged.

[@hippiedippity9732]

Hearing someone mention SS13 in a KZbin vid instantly earns my sub.

[@ThomasstevenSlater]

Wildermyth is a example of this as the story is affected by the random dudes and lasses you get and all the weird mutations you have happen to them.

[@nickcol1616]

A wonderful playthrough anticipated by the exact description of why I think it's so good and underrated. Kudos for sharing Stellaris love, Sir!

[@zanewarp3970]

Just gotta say, this is by far one of the best video essay's I've ever watched. Instant subscription

[@thomasroberts2663]

My god that PF1e to DND5e comparison is so nail on the head, I love it.

[@theodoregabranth1800]

I'd say GURPS instead of e5 but that's fine too

[@Poliswag7]

I was trying to figure out what this genre was called because it’s my favorite genre.

[@randallorndorff]

One of the big ones, that spawned a lot of "AARs" and creative writing, was the original X-COM series (the new one to a lesser degree). Love to see you cover that.

[@raptor4916]

I think one reason why story generators aren't really talked about is that they are in a sense the fundamental genre of video games Will Wright sorta talks around this in one of his Spore(lol) GDC talks, like yeah the story in the game is cool and all but the sick backflips I did on my motorcycle, after robbing a convivence store, to get away from the cops is so much more memorable, I believe that was his example he used.

[@oscario7644]

This is so good, how do you only have 500 subscribers, just subbed.

[@joshhendrix8407]

I rarely comment on videos, especially their quality, but this video was amazing. Superb job.

[@trashmammal454]

these types of emergent story games are my jam i got into CDDA after many attempts to do so and found myself with many odd stories my most memorable of late was crashing my car in a city getting thrown through like 3 walls of a building by a hulking zombie landing kennel which was unfortunately filled with zombie rottweilers needless to say my friends back at base would live on wondering what ever happened to me

[@LordofSorrow7]

Leaving a comment for reference here. Because this is a great video. And also because I think you've said all that matters for the deep understanding of what these games are and why they are the greatest type of games.

[@arckmage5218]

I think my favorite memory from stellaris was in my early days of playing it. I started as the humans, and at some point I allowed migration between me and my neighbors. About 100 years in I see a new faction arise and they are humans. I'm like wtf where did humans come from, I thought I was the only humans. Turns out my migrated humans had rebelled and made their own faction from within my "allies".

[@soul_of_crystolix8642]

When you finished explaining the concept of a story generator game, it hit me, that something i need to finally dip my hands down into, is playing more of STALKER Anomaly, now i know its a mod on the original games, and on top of that i play the GAMMA modpack on top of that, but this fanmade rerelease of STALKER doesnt tell you what to do (and im pretty sure the original games dont either but im not sure, never played) it just throws you in, and tells you to survive in the Zone. you can walk around doing tasks for other stalkers, hunt mutants, or other stalkers, and you can hear gunfire in the distance as another group just happens to run into a rival faction, or a pack of mutants, or you can roll into a small group of stalkers sitting around a fire and playing music to pass the time. These story generator games sometimes can feel Alive outside of player intervention, stuff happens in the background that doesnt need the player to be active for it, so each time the player plays, the player can experience a whole new game, providing more stories to the experience as a whole

[@fran7947]

The age of beautiful graphics awe is past, the era of good and original gameplay is upon us

[@shocknsonic9013]

Would Kenshi count as one of these, actually never mind. Kenshi is definitely a story generator (I have spent to long rp'ing a grate journey and over arking story that inevitably leads to me wiping evrybody out or die tying)

[@bupkis72]

initially when I saw the title I thought of DayZ and similar games. While different in genre than the ones you mentioned, I believe it's also a story generator, in that you're dropped into a world with no direction or purpose, forced to imagine and set your own goals, but often the "stories" from those games are made by how you reach those goals and how your actions intersect with the journeys of other players around you.

[@clarter]

Continue making these types of videos this was really good

[@NuclearDystopia]

i love all these games and i was sort of aware of this genre but thank you for fleshing it all out

[@Emka877]

Stunning video, it's cool that you made this for everyone to see, because I'm pretty sure many people don't know DF (for example). Yet it is an experience to try at least once in a lifetime.

[@TrogdorBurnin8or]

I would point out that this video is about a subset of story generators: The Single Player Variety. Multiplayer PvP story generators can take the form of an MMO, like Eve Online or the pre-WoW generation of fantasy MMOs. They can also take the form of base-building survival PvP games like Rust or Ark or Minecraft. You can poison immersion in a multiplayer PvP story generator by giving PvE content that is too involved, by fast travel, by instancing, by anything that alleviates the pressure that a group of people's presence exerts on a space. If one clan controls a central corridor on the map, and you have to fight, flee, or otherwise interact with that clan to get from one side to the other, they became a part of the game's environment and their reputation becomes a part of the game's story. Whole bookshelves could be filled (have been filled) trying to tell the story of the current player political atmosphere in a game like Eve, the epic campaigns and the espionage masterstrokes; Hundreds of people in the game are putting in full-time-job hours just performing the function of diplomat for their alliance/clan, because there's no other way to organize a thousand people in a 'fun economy' towards a collective objective.

[@_Lictor]

This is my favorite type of game, but its always been such an ethereal hard to pin down thing. the closest term I've come up with is just "The types of games sseth would make a video about". This is easily my favorite "genre" and I'm glad its getting recognition as a thing

[@augustday9483]

This was a great introduction to this genre of games. I've been a huge fan of story generators for many years.

[@pepe-fy5kw]

please make more videos like this, was a great watch, subscribed

[@honorbound5439]

Awesome video! Thank you for putting into words one of my favorite game categories!

[@UncleHectorHegemonytaxdodger]

Bro I watched this and thought it was made by some channel with like a few thousand subs but dang you are making very professional content with so few subs, Keep up the good work!

[@BubblefishOfTrem]

Heh. I just recently had a fort die to a were hyena apokalypse. It looked under control, until the last 2 infected turned in the main stair case, resulting in a brief, but massively brutal and gory brawl. Next full moon, 40 dwarfes turned, 20 other dwarfes died immediately and another 80 died over the next 3 minutes. The rest was pretty much a zombie movie, or resident evil - my militia commander and 2 other dwarfes slowly moving through a dark, dim fortress claimed by the fog of war, covered in blood and gore, slashing a swarm of hyenas running at them, desperately trying to get to the exit of the red keep. They never made it, as a bunch of hyenas eventually piled on them in the staircase. But yeah, this is a very good point and description why I like Stellaris, Dwarf Fortress, and also adventure games so much.

[@BubblefishOfTrem]

Oh my god, in my next fortress, that very militia commander, with all his decorations and dozens of kills came back as a were hyena. That bridge is going up my friends, and whomever is out there ... good luck.

[@callsignflip]

Dude, this video was excellently written. Who cares your total subs. This was great content. Keep it up!

[@CatFish107]

These types of games are waaaay too involved to learn for me, but I love watching videos of them, and the stories people share.

[@ryanstewart2289]

Fun fact about Stellaris: because of the way that the game handles galaxy generation, if you use Experimental Subspace Navigation from a system that's not connected to the galaxy via hyperlanes(such as the L-Cluster) your science ship will only be MIA for a single day.

[@sass_]

Great video! Hope to see more essays like this in the future from you and good luck with your channel!

[@Iamheggemo]

Made sure to sub, love this type of content so i look forwars to seeing more. Great pacing, good script and the visuals to go with it. All the best!

[@Delcat42]

Literally this week playing Don't Starve (again) and thinking about how it just doesn't get old, and this is why! Thank you for laying it out, and for saying video games are art. Get so tired of people going "video games aren't art".

[@elvencowboy6851]

Kenshi is probably one of the best examples of this too, its probably one of the best sandboxes i've ever played

[@en5420]

Very good, I didn't notice your subscription count untill the end of the video, your speech and editing got me thinking I was watching a hundred thousand big youtuber. Liked and Subscribed.

[@buffatwo]

One day! Thanks for the sub!

[@EldenRingOfficial]

criminally underrated channel, you get john elden ring's seal of approval

[@ghoulsome9483]

a very high praise

[@ToonedMinecraft]

Last summer I discovered a game called Wildermyth which I would argue is most definitely a story generator. It is very impressive how unique the randomly generated stories, worlds, and characters can feel.

[@george-stefanleoca1319]

Glad to see DF getting the love and respect it deserves.

[@Nathanfx2006]

Couldn't agree more! They do a similar thing with horror movies. The best ones leave it up to your imagination, hearing a horrible sound but not showing it, leaves a greater impression letting your mind go wild. Love the term Story Generator!

[@PearOnPearOff]

Great narration, great video! Love Rimworld, only game I`ve ever been this in to in a long time, even drove me in to creating my own content. Keep up your work, can`t wait to see what else you create!

[@RangerLab]

Excellent video. While I don't normally play these sorts of games, it was satisfying to have you put words to a feeling I get when I played Spore as a kid. I might have to start playing these more often now, lol

[@eurosat7]

4:25 what a fitting background music - well played :D Although DF is one of my most favorite games (if you haven't played it - try it, now!) I would have used rimworld for explaining the concept because it pictures the story teller engine as a personality ("Randy Random", "Phoebe Chillax", "Cassandra Classic").

[@williambarnes5023]

2:12 I was genuinely upset when Ricardo didn't appear. Damn you, Seth!

[@KarlKristofferJohnsson]

When I wrote my bachelor's thesis in game design last year, I decided very early that I wanted to write about emergent narratives.

[@tobcotab]

My first fortress was, started pretty simple. It wasnt fancy or anything, since im just learning the mechanics. I was 4 years into the game when.... suddenly a message pops up, The Dead are walking! Hide while you still can! I locked up every door, walled up every possible entrance. But... i overlooked one of them, and it was too late when i noticed it. The dead made their way inside. No problems i thought, since even some mercenaries were there and they went to kill the undead right away. Desperate fight broke out, and the last mercenary was on the ground gasping for air with pierced lungs, while holding his shield before him and rolling away from the constant stabbing. But... he was fighting a lost battle. He failed to awoid one stab, and after that... he was stabbed in the chest 6 times, before the necromancer raised him back up, to slay those he protected. With that, the last line of defense failed and the undead horde claimed everyone. The women and the children too.

[@cameronmac4134]

It was right at 4:12 when the Rimworld music kicked in I couldn't help but smile and reflect for a while. Realising quite how much of an impact these games have had on me suddenly I'm sure isn't something only I feel. A bit of imagination and well crafted generators seems to come closer to immersing us in worlds than even most VR titles seem to be able to currently and that is beautiful :)

[@mvw9078]

My two most played games on steam are Stellaris and Rimworld. And even after 1.5k hours in Stellaris and almost 2k in Rimworld, I still find myself having new and unique experiences. As someone who loves stories, writing, rpgs, and DMing tabletop games - it's hard to explain how perfect those two games are for me. It's almost never about "winning", rather it's almost always about moving forward, surviving, and making a story worth talking about. Love the video!