Sunday, January 25, 2009

Gamasutra--What Every Game Developer [and Writer] Needs to Know about Story

What Every Game Developer [and Writer] Needs to Know about Story

Increasingly, story is a hot item in games. Partly, this is because the quality bar is rising in this relatively young art form. As games evolve, people want more depth, not just higher polygon counts.

More to the point, game developers want to sell their wares to more people. Selling them to the same ones every time doesn't lead to a lot of growth. It's clear we need to tap into something more universally human.

And story is a universal human experience.

So how do we approach story in games? Well, to answer that, we need to look at what has worked in other story forms, and what is unique to the new story form of games.

Let's start with a statement everybody can agree on: Games aren't movies.

But that by itself doesn't get us very far. To figure out what games are, it's helpful to back up to an earlier problem: Movies aren't plays.

In the early part of the 20th century, moving pictures were a curiosity, an amusement. They had their addicts right from the beginning, to be sure. But they didn't become a substantial lasting art form until they discovered two related things:

1. They are a form of story, not just a new toy.
2. Their particular form of story differs from all previous forms of story, and has other things in common with all forms of story.

The same is true for games.

The first attempts to make movies into real stories failed. They failed because they were conceived as filmed plays. A camera would be set up about where an audience member would sit in the middle of a theater, and the play would ensue.

It didn't work. Early film makers didn't take into account that the human eye wanders all over the fixed box of the stage during a play, and a camera that does any less will bore the film audience to tears. They also hand discovered the rich tool set of camera angles, close-ups, far shots, and all the language of film we now take for granted. Generally speaking, they hadn't discovered what this particular story form was good at.

And frankly, neither have we in games.
Common misperceptions

There are a number of places where we've gone wrong in game stories so far. Most of the problems spring from two basic misunderstandings:

* Story is dialog.
* Story doesn't matter.

Sure, story is partly dialog. And a cake is part frosting. But here's a large fact that I'll elaborate on in just a moment: Story is....more article and Part 2

At Gamasutra--Game Story: Plot vs Character

07.28.2005

Game Story: Plot vs Character
In reading Sutherland's article on game story I didn't see anything new--at least not to a seasoned writer--but I did notice a gap.

Although Sutherland discusses character and internal conflict, he misses an important point of story development: character change is essential to plot movement. And for game developers, it's essential to player engagement in the story.

All good stories demonstrate change in the character of the protagonist as well as his/her condition in life and the world they intimately inhabit. If no character change occurs, the plot is dissatisfying. It is only when character changes that new plot options open up, which is how a character may choose an action at the end of a story which would be anathema or inconceivable to them at the beginning. That's the exciting point of story.

If a game story is merely a repetitive or pre-determined path through a series of tasks (such as endless "Fed-Ex" back-and-forthing), the game quickly becomes boring--no matter how lovely and twisted the cutscenes are. By setting story points which force character change and revelation, the game development team offers the player a more engaging experience, because they mutually create a sense of personal stake in the outcome.

Driving story by character versus plot.

Since games put the player into the character's "skin" for a time, the personality of the player becomes a tool for story exploration and raises the perception of personal stake in the story outcome. When developers offer the player branching points (reversals, revelations and branching options), they place increased control (or a perception of control) of character evolution in the player's hands and the player becomes a fully-vested partner in the progress of the story.

That interacton and engagement is an essential strength of games that other media do not offer. It's that strength, created by good story-telling and intelligent branching options, which creates great game experience and increased satisfaction as well as replayability.

Character is not just clever dialog--it's the key to engaging players at a personal level.

-Kat Richardson

Neale Sourna says Thank you to and for Alanis Morissette's "Thank U"

Thank you to and for Alanis Morissette's

"Thank U"

how bout getting off these antibiotics
how bout stopping eating when I'm full up
how bout them transparent dangling carrots
how bout that ever elusive kudo

thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence

how bout me not blaming you for everything
how bout me enjoying the moment for once
how bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
how bout grieving it all one at a time

thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence

the moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
the moment I jumped off of it
was the moment I touched down

how bout no longer being masochistic
how bout remembering your divinity
how bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
how bout not equating death with stopping

thank you india
thank you providence
thank you disillusionment
thank you nothingness
thank you clarity
thank you thank you silence

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanismorissette/thanku.html