Research – Storyline and Narrative

Video games often include fictional stories that go beyond the events of the games themselves. Game designers add stories to enhance a game’s entertainment value, to keep the player interested in the long game, and to help sell the game to prospective customers. A story provides a greater emotional satisfaction by providing a sense of progress toward a dramatically meaningful, rather than an abstract, goal.

Quick and simple games often do not need a storyline and would probably feel a bit odd if one were tacked on; like adding a story to a game of tic-tac-toe. However in a long game, simply racking up points isn’t enough reason for most players to carry on. Furthermore, stories off novelty. A long game needs variety, or it begins to feel repetitive and boring; a compelling story provides that variety. There isn’t one right way to include a story in a game; how you do it depends on what kind of entertainment experience you want to deliver and what kind of player you want to serve.

A few games allow the storytelling to overshadow the gameplay and give the player little to do. This was a common mistake when the industry first began to make video games based on a movie or book franchises. Critics and players uniformly considered them poor games because they violated the design rule that Gameplay Comes First. 

The following factors affect how much of a story a game should include:

– LENGTH –

• The longer the game the more it benefits from a story.
• A story can tie the disparate events of a longer game into a single continuous experience and keep the player’s interest.

– CHARACTERS –

• If the game focuses on individual people then it can benefit from a story. If the game revolves around large numbers of fairly anonymous people then adding a story won’t be easy.

– DEGREE OF REALISM –

• Abstract games don’t lend themselves to storytelling; representational ones often do.
• You may find it difficult to write a compelling story about a purely artificial set of relationships and problems, while a realistic game can often benefit from a story.
• This rule does not hold in all cases: Highly realistic vehicle simulators and sports games usually don’t include stories because the premise of the game doesn’t require one; on the other hand, Ms. Pac-Man, an abstract game, did tell a cute little story because the game included characters.

– EMOTIONAL RICHNESS –

• Ordinary single-player gameplay seldom inspires any but a few emotions: pleasure in success; frustration in failure; determination, perhaps; and occasionally an aha! moment when the player figures out a puzzle.
• Deeper emotions can come only when the player identifies with the characters and their problems, which happens within a well-written story.
• If you want to inspire a greater variety of emotions, you need to write a story to do it.

Interactive Stories

An interactive story takes place in the present, with the player in the middle of the series of events, moving forward through those events. Furthermore, the player’s actions form part of the story itself, which makes an interactive story very different from a story presented to a passive audience.

An interactive story includes three kinds of events:

– PLAYER EVENTS –

• Player events are actions performed directly by the player.
• In addition to giving the player actions to perform as part of gameplay – actions intended to overcome challenges – you can give the player additional actions to perform as part of the story. Role-playing by talking to other characters, for example, might serve the needs of the story even if overcoming the game’s challenges does not require talking.
• If the player actions can affect the plot of the story and change its future, they’re called dramatic actions.
• Some player actions are not dramatic, however: Some player events aimed at overcoming challenges may not affect the plot.

– IN-GAME EVENTS –

• In-game events are events initiated by the core mechanics of the game.
• These events may be responses to the player’s actions (such as a trap that snaps when the player steps on a particular stone) or independent of the player’s actions (such as a simulated guard character checking to see that the castle doors are locked).
• The player might be able to intentionally cause these events to occur, to change the way they occur, or to prevent them entirely – which is part of what makes the story interactive.

– NARRATIVE EVENTS –

• Narrative events are events whose content the player cannot change, although he may be able to change whether they occur or not.
• A narrative event narrates some action to the player; he does not interact with it.
• Narrative events are described in the “Narrative” section following this one.

AN INTERACTIVE STORY – An interactive story is a story that the player interacts with by contributing actions to it. A story may be interactive even if the player’s actions cannot change the direction of the plot.

The power to change the direction of the plot – the story’s future events – is called agency. Some designers feel that if a game with a story does not offer the player agency, it can’t be said to be a truly interactive story. This is a misconception because it ignores the role of the player’s own actions in forming his experience of the game. A player still feels as if he is interacting with a story even if his actions do not change future events. The player contributes to the sequence of events, and that is what matters. A story can be linear but still be interactive.

In most games with an interactive story, the player’s actions move the plot along. When the player overcomes a challenge, either the story comes to a premature end (as it would when, say, the avatar dies in the attempt) or the story simply fails to advance – the player doesn’t see the future story events until he manages to get past the specific obstacle. A linear story in a video game looks similar to a linear story in any other medium, in that the player cannot change the plot of the ending of the story. In a game, however, the player still faces challenges as she goes through the story, and in fact, the challenges form part of the story itself. Thus, a linear story in a game is still an interactive story, but the player’s interactions are limited to contributing actions. Still, many games use this format. Why?

– Linear stories require less content that nonlinear ones. If a player can only ever experience one fixed sequence of events, you only need to create material for those events. Developing the game using a linear story requires less time and money.

– The storytelling engine is simpler. The storytelling engine managing a linear story has to keep track of only a single sequence of plot events. Because the player cannot change the course of events, the storytelling engine doesn’t need to record critical decisions that the player makes: There aren’t any. The storytelling engine will be easier to implement in software if you use a linear story.

– Linear stories are less prone to bugs and absurdities. If the sequence of events remains the same regardless of player’s actions, you can guarantee that the story makes sense. On the other hand, if you allow the sequence of events to vary – that is, you present a nonlinear story – you introduce a risk of error.

– Linear stories deny the player agency. The player may have freedom to do a lot of things in the game, but none of it influences the story apart from causing it to progress. As the previous consideration said, if the story requires a functional car throughout, then the gameplay cannot allow the player to wreck the car.

– Linear stories are capable of greater emotional power. From a creative standpoint, this is one of their greatest advantages.

A game example of a linear storyline:

PLOT – The primary character in Limbo is a nameless boy, who awakens in the middle of a forest on the “edge of hell” (the game’s title is taken from the Latin “limbus”, meaning “edge”). While seeking his missing younger sister, he encounters only a few human characters who either attack him, run away, or are dead. At one point during his journey, he encounters a female character but is prevented from reaching her. The forest eventually gives way to a crumbling city environment. On completion of the final puzzle, the boy is thrown through a pane of glass and back into the forest. He walks a short distance until he again encounters a girl, who, upon his approach, stands up, startled. At this point, the game abruptly ends.

LIMBO is a typical two-dimensional platform game released by the independent studio Playdead in July 2010. The character can run left and right, can jump, climb up and down various things and push or pull objects. Limbo has a very minimalist storyline. The main information that you have is the boy waking up in “limbo”, a dark and eerie environment, and that he is looking for his sister. The player does not know why the character is there or anything about his or his sisters back story. All they know is that they are making their way through limbo encountering numerous environmental and physical hazards as they go. Like many platformer games, the character has to solve mechanical puzzles and traps using machinery, electromagnets, and gravity. If killed the player is able to restart at the last checkpoint, with no limits on how many times they can restart. The game is designed to be dark and creepy throughout with often images of beheading or dismemberment.

LIMBO is an example of a linear story, the plot/storyline cannot be changed by any actions of the player.

INSIDE is another puzzle-platformer adventure game developed and published by Playdead released in June 2016. However Inside unlike Limbo is different as the environment takes on a 2.5D form. Still a sidescrolling game, however, the character and some of the environment is in 3D. Once again the game has very little context to it throughout the gameplay. The character is a nameless and faceless red-shirted boy who appears to be running away/hiding from guards and trying to escape zombie-like people by using a mind-control helmet. Like LIMBO the boy must solve puzzles to progress through the game and the game is primarily monochromatic using color only to highlight important parts of the environment. The game is very dark in nature and mostly silent, with only occasional musical cues. The player controls are the standard platformer actions of walking, running, swimming, climbing and interacting with objects. The players death is often graphic like Limbo with the boy being shot with a tranquilizer dart, mutilated by dogs, ensnared by security machines, blown apart by shockwaves, or drowning. If the character dies, the game continues from the most recent checkpoint.

INSIDE is predominantly a linear narrative however there is an alternative ending that the player can unlock. The main ending ends on more of a cliff hanger whereas the alternate ending has more of a resolution to it.

In both Limbo and Inside the player feels a level of empathy towards the character. Despite knowing very little about them, the graphic deaths and the child-like design of the characters themselves make watching their gruesome deaths quite uncomfortable to watch and add to the eerieness of the games.

Oxenfree is a supernatural mystery graphic adventure game developed and published by Night School Studio in 2016. Oxenfree is not really a platformer game however it does share some traits with one as the majority of the characters movements follow the style of a sidescroller. The game is mostly played through the eyes of Alex, the main protagonist, a teenager who is visiting an abandoned island for an overnight party with her friends. The player has almost complete control over the character Alex from where she goes to what she says via speech bubbles that appear above Alex’s head allowing the player to choose what she says in conversation. The character can move left and right, climb up and down things and interact with objects such as opening doors and turning things on. The main way of progressing the game is to tune Alex’s radio to certain frequencies that cause supernatural events which progress the game’s narrative. The game follows the similar 2.5D style as Inside however there is a lot more freedom to go wherever you like on the map in Oxenfree.

Unlike Limbo or Inside, Oxenfree is incredibly narrative driven. In fact as far as gameplay goes the majority of it is only to help the player progress through the narrative, and there are not really any traditional ‘game elements’ such as obstacles to avoid or things to jump over. There is no health bar or loot drops only the incredibly detailed and complex narrative. Every move that the player makes can affect the ending of the game with there being several different outcomes to the game for each character. Because of the level of control that the player has over the characters and the narrative of the game, there is a greater level of investment in what happens to them. The player almost feels responsible for the well-being of the characters and tries to make the best decisions in the game to get the best narrative outcome. When you know the entire back story of the characters and their storyline you feel greater empathy for them and you sympathize when things in the game go wrong.

When researching into indie platformer games to inspire the style and narrative of the game I discovered that there were various different types of platformer games. The standard platformer game has very little context and story line, the character is mainly art-driven with very little back story, examples are LIMBO and INSIDE. The focus of these games is on the gameplay itself with the player’s interest and focus being driven by the complexity of the puzzles and the willingness to beat and complete the game. The games have puzzles that are frustrating and difficult to complete causing the player to consistently fail in the beginning so that the feeling of gratification is greater when they finally succeed. These games have what is called a Linear Storyline.

However, some side-scrolling platformers are not really “games” at all and are more of an interactive narrative adventures. The focus of the game is on the story and the player’s willingness to progress comes from their desire to complete the narrative and find out what happens to the character in the end. The games paint a picture of a world and then draw you into that world through the characters and the narrative. These are known as interactive stories.

 

Summary

I have never created a fully functioning game demo before, this will be my first attempt at it. Because of this the game is going to mostly be quick and simple and the overal storyline will not be complex. However, I would like the game to have some sort of linear storyline ‘to inspire a greater variety of emotions’ (Adamns, 2010). As well as the typical single-player gameplay emotions such as pleasure in sucess, frustration in failure and determination to complete the game I would also like the player to feel a sense of fear and dread. The game will be an interactive thriller with an eerie feel, a sense that something is wrong and an urgency to escape the tunnels, because of this I would need to include some sort of story and exposition.

I have chosen a linear story because it requires less content than a nonlinear one and is less prone to bugs and absurdities. For practical reasons, as the sole contributor to the visuals of the project and in terms of time management, leaving room for coding errors and problem-solving, a linear story would be the most achievable option. Because of this, the player is not going to be able to change future events in the game, however, he/she will still be interacting with the story and contributing to the sequence of events. ‘A story can be linear but still be interactive.’  (Adamns, 2010) The actions of the player will move the plot along and when the player fails to overcome a challenge ‘the story simply fails to advance – the player doesn’t see the future story events until he manages to get past the specific obstacle.’ (Adamns, 2010)

As far as the gameplay goes, the focus of the story is going to be on the narrative itself. The character will interact with items to progress the story, because of this it is not so much a ‘game’ as there will be few actual gamified elements instead it will be an interactive narratve with a linear storyline.

(Adamns, 2010)

Source:

Adamns, E. (2010) Fundamentals of Game Design. Berkely, CA: New Riders.