This is a commonplace of mature narrative, and none the worse for it: the white-haired heroes of late Shakespeare, like Leontes and Pericles, enact it obsessively, as if to heal the child-harming wounds that both they and their tragic predecessors, from Shylock to Lear, have allowed to fester.
IGN Australia listed Shadowrun among their favourite Australian video games in 2010, writing it was "without question, one of the best underexposed classics of the SNES era" because it presented players with "a mature narrative, strong characters and a dystopian backdrop" blended with traditional RPG elements in an "irresistible" way.
While both Rez Infinite and Crystal Vibes are rather blunt assaults, Outran believes with time, artists will find ways to be "subtle" with haptic feedback to create "more mature" narratives.
As his writing has matured, his narratives have retained their radical naïveté.
Two sequels - Alison Croggon's The Riddle (Walker Books) and SF Said's The Outlaw Varjak Paw (David Fickling) - reminded me of the delight and power of ongoing narratives and maturing characters.
Up to now, Take That's second coming was all about the narrative: a boyband maturing majestically, even briefly reuniting with errant fifth member, Robbie Williams.
The unassailable black martyr and the irredeemable white villain soon outgrew that narrative frame, however, maturing in ways inconvenient for a history lesson.
From the patchwork emerges a narrative of emotional maturing and sexual awakening that is in many ways familiar (no prizes for guessing the nature of the sexual awakening in question) but is freshened by the ethnicity of the characters and their background, and the blunt economy of Mr. Torres's writing, lit up by sudden flashes of pained insight.
"Mister Lonely," apparent evidence of a kinder, gentler Harmony Korine, comes with a ready-made back story — the rehabilitated addict, the maturing artist — which should not be mistaken for a master narrative.
And, hopefully, our gaming narratives and characters will keep on maturing in general.
The Publishers Weekly review commended the book for "the lyricism of the narrative, and Syvia's credible childlike voice, maturing with each chapter, as she gains further understanding of the events around her".
