Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-23784670-20141026024426/@comment-25021327-20141026143553

I also enjoy when a story has screenshots, and I try to employ them in many of the gaming related pastas I write. We all know that the stories are almost entirely fictitious, but it can be fun to have that little added bit of "proof" ;)

I think that screenshots can add a lot to a gaming pasta, but I usually don't feel gypped or let down when they aren't included. I realize that most people don't have the time, or even the interest in adding visuals to their stories, and I don't hold that against the authors, and anyone who does is being a bit shallow.

As I said, I enjoy doing doctored sceenshots, and occasionally, if I am so inclined, will work up visuals for stories that ohers have written (I recently did a mock up image for the story CHEAT AN PLAY,). It is my intention to amuse myself, and add a bit to the story, not to detract from those without visuals.

Honestly most writers do not do any visuals for their work. The majority of books with illustrations have them done by a professional illustrator. In addition, if a gaming pasta has really crummy doctored images it can make it seem not as good as it would have been with no visuals at all.

The same principal goes the other way as well. For example, Godzilla:NES is a pretty famous story, probably moreso for the fact that it has a billion "screenshots." The story itself isn't anything really special in my opinion, and without the visuals, it would probably not be nearly as well known. I think I have even seen the author of that admit that he feels he is more of a visual artist than a writer. I think this fact is also apparent given the amount of visuals in that pasta that don't have much to do with the overall story.

So the tl;dr version: I like screenshots with pastas, but stories without them are just as valid.