Haha, the good ol' conflict between people who prefer gameplay-driven and story-driven games; in many cases, it'll be impossible to satisfy both.
(I guess one of the "problems" of video games is that they can work really well both as entertainment on their own and as a storytelling medium; and there will always be people seeking one but not caring about another)
Personally, I'd like to get at least a little bit of background rather than jump into gameplay with no context whatsoever, and generally have at least some reason provided to go through the game other than "you need to complete all levels" or "you need to get best score possible" (in fact, I don't really play the games with a clear completion goal, as I'd like a game to end sometime, eventually). That's not to say I want to have a massive info dump at the beginning (especially if it's presented as text-only), just that I won't mind some (potentially lenghty) introduction before getting to the gameplay proper.
Granted, there are some tricks one might use to bring the gameplay earlier (e.g. starting with dialogue-light tutorial presented as a "training program", or pushing some background information for later point of the game); when done well, they can not only not harm the story, but enhance it. However, not in every game they can be pulled off, and not in every game it's necessary. In the end, sometimes one needs to accept they cannot satisfy both "gameplay" and "story" crowds, and decide what's the thing they want from their game.
Also, @ghandpivot, dunno how about others, but you don't need to feel guilty when skipping the story in my games, as long as it's not clearly story-driven genre (such as text-based adventure, visual novel or something like that). Generally, if I include a SKIP button, that's because I'm well aware not everyone will want to read the introduction (especially in Jam conditions) and I'm okay with that.
(in fact, I'd rather have someone skip the story than read it out loud; it slows things down for the gameplayer and for the watchers, dev included, and if someone really wants to know more about the story, they might always freeze gameplay video on the story panels, or, I dunno, play the game itself)
I wonder, maybe I could make a bunch of "warning" panels describing varying degrees of how story-heavy the game is? (as in, green for story-light games and no wall of text or introductions whatsoever; yellow for games that have some story/dialogue that can be safely skipped; orange for games that have skippable, not directly relevant story segments and pieces of gameplay-relevant ingame dialogue; red for games whose gameplay basically revolves around the story and if you skip too much, the gameplay makes no sense at all)
(I guess one of the "problems" of video games is that they can work really well both as entertainment on their own and as a storytelling medium; and there will always be people seeking one but not caring about another)
Personally, I'd like to get at least a little bit of background rather than jump into gameplay with no context whatsoever, and generally have at least some reason provided to go through the game other than "you need to complete all levels" or "you need to get best score possible" (in fact, I don't really play the games with a clear completion goal, as I'd like a game to end sometime, eventually). That's not to say I want to have a massive info dump at the beginning (especially if it's presented as text-only), just that I won't mind some (potentially lenghty) introduction before getting to the gameplay proper.
Granted, there are some tricks one might use to bring the gameplay earlier (e.g. starting with dialogue-light tutorial presented as a "training program", or pushing some background information for later point of the game); when done well, they can not only not harm the story, but enhance it. However, not in every game they can be pulled off, and not in every game it's necessary. In the end, sometimes one needs to accept they cannot satisfy both "gameplay" and "story" crowds, and decide what's the thing they want from their game.
Also, @ghandpivot, dunno how about others, but you don't need to feel guilty when skipping the story in my games, as long as it's not clearly story-driven genre (such as text-based adventure, visual novel or something like that). Generally, if I include a SKIP button, that's because I'm well aware not everyone will want to read the introduction (especially in Jam conditions) and I'm okay with that.
(in fact, I'd rather have someone skip the story than read it out loud; it slows things down for the gameplayer and for the watchers, dev included, and if someone really wants to know more about the story, they might always freeze gameplay video on the story panels, or, I dunno, play the game itself)
I wonder, maybe I could make a bunch of "warning" panels describing varying degrees of how story-heavy the game is? (as in, green for story-light games and no wall of text or introductions whatsoever; yellow for games that have some story/dialogue that can be safely skipped; orange for games that have skippable, not directly relevant story segments and pieces of gameplay-relevant ingame dialogue; red for games whose gameplay basically revolves around the story and if you skip too much, the gameplay makes no sense at all)