Throughout my years as a geek I've read/played/watched a lot of stories. The classic hero saves the world, boy meets girl, great threat of the world, the unwanted call to arms. You name it, I have in some way or form experienced it through all my interaction with fiction. Story is vital for me as a person who enjoys fiction, therefore I have in recent weeks thought about defining how video games can be told.
Note: This is pure theory. I have no experience from the video game industry apart from what I've picked up throughout the years (players go towards the light, extra credits stuff, etc.). If this topic is more clearly defined I'll be glad to read it as well as comment it.
First we'll have to define how video games tell stories. That means how video games tell you what happened and how it happens over the video game mechanics or cut-scenes. . I define videgame narrative in three ways: Fixed, Mixed and Free.
The first way is pure non interaction. Now this means that the player has no choice on how to define the story to himself. He has no power to change any matter of what goes on in the screen in front of him. The story is fixed and every problem the player faces has only one way of approaching. Specific items are needed to solve their problems and therefore does not allow alternative items. There's a specific narrative and there are firm points that has to be done in order to complete the game. Completion involves seeing the ending (good ending? Bad ending?) and therefore being «done» with the game.
There are great pros with this type. You fully control how the story is being told as well as can easily adhere to film tools for telling stories. This is great when the writer(s) has had previous experience in film making or standard writing. It also provides easier way of testing the game as you don't need to test every scene more then the required times when you change something else.
The cons of this method is when you have bad writing, which more then the other methods clearly shows when it is present. It also doesn't give the player their own story, meaning they often can get bored watching someone else getting all the glory.
Great examples of this are point and click adventure games and puzzle games. Games such as Monkey Island, cogs and Spacechem.
The free way to tell a narrative is through not having any defined beginning nor end. The games constructed this way often has no specific narrative in mind, rather they let the player go free with their creation. The point is to make a or several excellent mechanics that makes the player engaged in what they do then rather engaged in whatever story could be told. You also don't need to include any specific beginning nor end.
There are specific methods to making it easier for the developer to create this environment. These include RPG mechanics, renaming possibilities, chance of permadeath (no saves, no way out) and a big chance of death. Used well it can provide the user with a very strong personal story about what happened with their time in the game.
Pros are that bad writing is easily disguised as «RNG», personal value of what happens on screen as well as personal involvement. It also just requires a setting instead of providing a beginning and a end. It also can provide more hours of gameplay of the game when the game «never» ends.
Cons are that mechanics need to be complex as well as deep in order for the player to fully engage in the world. It also requires great code so that the player don't experience the same experience twice. Random events should be included, if everything starts the same players often get bored. It's also has the big possibility of making new players feel alienated and therefore quit the game before it starts fully.
Great examples are Dwarf Fortress and the nethack games.
Mixed provides a mixture of free as well as fixed narrative. This is the most common method of use today as it provides both easy approach for new players and lets the player have their own story through the game. Both having a beginning and an end provides a feeling of triumph for the player and incentive for players to explore.
Most shooters for example provides you with a setting and a story on what you have to do to win. The interactive part will then be how you shoot your enemies and how you behave in combat. Then when you are finished with your objective you return to the noninteractive portion. This method could also include changes that change what the ending of the game will be, but there are certain points of the story that will happen no matter what. This is to not overload the team with more work for every choice.
Pros are that it gives both engineers who want branch out to deep mechanics and writers that can write a defined story. It also lets all that their previous experiences (film school, coding work, writers class) in order to create their video game. This method also is so well used that every person that players video games knows how this method of storytelling goes. It is currently the standard used in video games and is currently the first type most players will experience.
Cons: It's not very special nowadays as it's very reliant that both writing is good and the mechanics are well executed. If they are not it will provide the user with a jarring experience and it will not be universally liked. It requires great planning to make sure both sides come together.
Here's a short table that shows each type is defined:
Type What it is? Used in
Fixed ? Noninteractive One story ? One way Point and click, puzzle
Mixed One story ? Sevreal ways Most games
Free - Interactive No story ? Sevreal ways Simulation
This is my current thought on the ways I define video game narrative. This is, I repeat, not a work of someone that works inside the video game industry nor done any work in teaching video games. This is pure theory. I do hope however that if someone reads it they'll find more clearly what type of storytelling they like from their video games as well as more clearly define how stories are told in video games.
P.s. Some games are hard to define, these include MMO's (one beginning, several ways, no end?) some adventure games (is the game over when you die or when you get any ending (even the worst one) as well as games such as Portal (is it fixed due to it only have one way of doing it or is it mixed due to speed running methods?)
There's also a problem that a huge amount of games that are in the mixed method, there's a desire to more clearly define it but they it becomes to specific.
It also would be good to get some response from someone that is being educated or educating in video games or storytelling.
Hopefully some of you won't ignore this huge amount of text and try to read it, also I hope it'll create some discussion on this topic.
Note: This is pure theory. I have no experience from the video game industry apart from what I've picked up throughout the years (players go towards the light, extra credits stuff, etc.). If this topic is more clearly defined I'll be glad to read it as well as comment it.
First we'll have to define how video games tell stories. That means how video games tell you what happened and how it happens over the video game mechanics or cut-scenes. . I define videgame narrative in three ways: Fixed, Mixed and Free.
The first way is pure non interaction. Now this means that the player has no choice on how to define the story to himself. He has no power to change any matter of what goes on in the screen in front of him. The story is fixed and every problem the player faces has only one way of approaching. Specific items are needed to solve their problems and therefore does not allow alternative items. There's a specific narrative and there are firm points that has to be done in order to complete the game. Completion involves seeing the ending (good ending? Bad ending?) and therefore being «done» with the game.
There are great pros with this type. You fully control how the story is being told as well as can easily adhere to film tools for telling stories. This is great when the writer(s) has had previous experience in film making or standard writing. It also provides easier way of testing the game as you don't need to test every scene more then the required times when you change something else.
The cons of this method is when you have bad writing, which more then the other methods clearly shows when it is present. It also doesn't give the player their own story, meaning they often can get bored watching someone else getting all the glory.
Great examples of this are point and click adventure games and puzzle games. Games such as Monkey Island, cogs and Spacechem.
The free way to tell a narrative is through not having any defined beginning nor end. The games constructed this way often has no specific narrative in mind, rather they let the player go free with their creation. The point is to make a or several excellent mechanics that makes the player engaged in what they do then rather engaged in whatever story could be told. You also don't need to include any specific beginning nor end.
There are specific methods to making it easier for the developer to create this environment. These include RPG mechanics, renaming possibilities, chance of permadeath (no saves, no way out) and a big chance of death. Used well it can provide the user with a very strong personal story about what happened with their time in the game.
Pros are that bad writing is easily disguised as «RNG», personal value of what happens on screen as well as personal involvement. It also just requires a setting instead of providing a beginning and a end. It also can provide more hours of gameplay of the game when the game «never» ends.
Cons are that mechanics need to be complex as well as deep in order for the player to fully engage in the world. It also requires great code so that the player don't experience the same experience twice. Random events should be included, if everything starts the same players often get bored. It's also has the big possibility of making new players feel alienated and therefore quit the game before it starts fully.
Great examples are Dwarf Fortress and the nethack games.
Mixed provides a mixture of free as well as fixed narrative. This is the most common method of use today as it provides both easy approach for new players and lets the player have their own story through the game. Both having a beginning and an end provides a feeling of triumph for the player and incentive for players to explore.
Most shooters for example provides you with a setting and a story on what you have to do to win. The interactive part will then be how you shoot your enemies and how you behave in combat. Then when you are finished with your objective you return to the noninteractive portion. This method could also include changes that change what the ending of the game will be, but there are certain points of the story that will happen no matter what. This is to not overload the team with more work for every choice.
Pros are that it gives both engineers who want branch out to deep mechanics and writers that can write a defined story. It also lets all that their previous experiences (film school, coding work, writers class) in order to create their video game. This method also is so well used that every person that players video games knows how this method of storytelling goes. It is currently the standard used in video games and is currently the first type most players will experience.
Cons: It's not very special nowadays as it's very reliant that both writing is good and the mechanics are well executed. If they are not it will provide the user with a jarring experience and it will not be universally liked. It requires great planning to make sure both sides come together.
Here's a short table that shows each type is defined:
Type What it is? Used in
Fixed ? Noninteractive One story ? One way Point and click, puzzle
Mixed One story ? Sevreal ways Most games
Free - Interactive No story ? Sevreal ways Simulation
This is my current thought on the ways I define video game narrative. This is, I repeat, not a work of someone that works inside the video game industry nor done any work in teaching video games. This is pure theory. I do hope however that if someone reads it they'll find more clearly what type of storytelling they like from their video games as well as more clearly define how stories are told in video games.
P.s. Some games are hard to define, these include MMO's (one beginning, several ways, no end?) some adventure games (is the game over when you die or when you get any ending (even the worst one) as well as games such as Portal (is it fixed due to it only have one way of doing it or is it mixed due to speed running methods?)
There's also a problem that a huge amount of games that are in the mixed method, there's a desire to more clearly define it but they it becomes to specific.
It also would be good to get some response from someone that is being educated or educating in video games or storytelling.
Hopefully some of you won't ignore this huge amount of text and try to read it, also I hope it'll create some discussion on this topic.