Pacing

So I've really been knuckling down on my research these past couple days, as I've realized I'm quite far behind where I need to be, and if I don't start working a bit harder I'm gonna have some crazy days waiting for me at the end of the summer---which is NOT where I want to be.

In consequence, today I've spent about 7 hours playing through Final Fantasy VII. Right now I'm taking a brief break, and then it's back to the grind.

What has surprised me through the experience is that the only thing forcing me to take breaks is quite literally my body (sitting for too long makes my legs stiff and my eyes get tired from staring at the screen for so long...oh for the days of my youth when I could spend 12 hours at once playing videogames and not even realize they'd passed!). I haven't gotten sick of the game, at all---even when one particular part (Anybody remember the Wutai side-quest, when Yuffie steals all your materia?...yeah.) frustrated the hell out of me. As I sit and ruminate over why this is, I think it's a consequence of two things.

The first is unique to videogames, and that is simply that the game is pretty much perfectly balanced. Your characters progress at a very gratifying rate, and enemies get harder at the same rate you get stronger so that you never feel frustrated or annoyed, but are constantly impressed with what your characters can do and the new, badder enemies they're killing. So kudos to the designers on that one---I'll post more about what I think you can learn as an author from videogame balancing in the future, because despite the obvious differences in medium, I think there's definitely a helpful lesson there.

But the second is what I want to focus on today, and that's that the story is expertly paced. Despite the many, disparate plot threads (Cloud's romantic interests, his past, his status as a Sephiroth clone, his identity, Tifa's past, her memories, Aeris's past and connection with Zach, Zach's identity, Aeris as an Ancient, the Ancients in general, Shinra, the Turks and their role both past and present, Rufus and his machinations...I could literally go on just about forever here), the game deals with each in its turn, never letting any one drop for long enough that you forget about it, never staying on one so long that you tire of it, and weaving them together in just enough ways you do and don't expect to always keep you guessing.

Once my research is done I may be able to post something about exactly how it does that---that's one of the things I'm hoping to glean from the work, but in the meantime I'll just suggest the game to anyone looking to learn a thing or two about pacing, as it's really a masterwork in the subject.