Brenda Braithwaite Designing a game to tell a story

Designing a Game to Tell a Story:
"Most important feature of all - games are about players making meaningful choices that affect the outcome of the game"

If there is only one narrative trail, there is no story or options for the player, and basically no game.

Writer, designer or both?
"The game writer is also a game designer, but the two jobs are distinctly different and require different skill sets"

Best results are when a game writer is part of the project from start to finish.

Story Arcs:


"If you have any idea of where your story is going results in a better execution than slapping a story together on the fly. To do this game writers create story arcs."

Story arc us the path of the story from start to finish.

Two kinds of arcs normally used:
Classic three-part story arc (Aristotle)
Five part arc (Campbell)

Three act story arc:
The story follows this path:
Act 1:  Start with "inciting movement", maybe hours of gameplay before inciting moment (prelude or and opening sequence). Common in games is a rubbish inciting moment that doesn't motivate the player. After inciting moment, player progresses for some time towards his final goal.
Act 2: A dramatic reversal occurs. The reversal should be realistic and believable not what Aristotle calls a "Deus ex machina " an impossible or improbable  "machine of the gods" created to help the writer achieve his needs.
Act 3: The goal from the inciting moment is resolved. "An irreversible resolution is achieved. Sometimes a second reversal may occur."

The five-part hero's journey:
"As Campbell saw it, there is but one hero and one path told in a thousand different ways. He called this "Monomyth "(The hero with a Thousand faces)"

Campbell's five part story arc:
Part 1:"Hero receives a "call to adventure" and begins a journey"
Part 2:"The hero passes through a series of challenges (a trail of trials)"
Part 3:"The hero confronts the final evil and achieves his goal"
Part 4:"The hero returns to the everyday world"
Part 5:"The hero applies the lesson or objective learned in the adventure to that everyday world."

Narratology and Ludology:
""Ludology" is the study of games as rules (or mechanics)"
"Ludologists believe that a game is first and foremost a collection of rules that give rise to the dynamics of play when a player sets the game in motion through an interface of some sort"
Looking from this perspective, "modern-day games are an extension of ancient games like GO and Chess. Story is not a part of a game, but rather something layered on top of the mechanics of third person shooters."

Cheapest method
Linear Stories:
"Progress from point A to B to C. Have periodic and frequent side quests."
"Shares most common with other storytelling media so it is familiar"

Can be emotional
"does not require players to play through the game several times just to see all possible outcomes"

Mid Rang in Price
Branching Stories:
Multiple ways to get through a story, possible multiple endings.
Play path changes by player input/choices.
Take advantage of game interactivity
Can be expensive as writer has to make several related stories not just one e.g. each branch will have different story, art assets and code etc.
Variant of branching story = parallel path, makes story fold back on itself at key pre-determined points, but can reach them in many ways due to branching. This keeps price down as it is still linear arc (Parallel path).

Most Expensive
Open ended stories:
"Open ended (or multi-linear or threaded) stories start players in a particular place or a variety of places and allow them to progress in many different directions, each of which affects the outcome of their play."

Key example is Elder Scrolls Skyrim as the player can take 100's of paths so has a lot more paths than a branching story.

"Designers are careful to prevent situations where the story makes no sense because it is told out of order, either by limiting the player's choices through fact trees (if they don't know about x, don't tell them about y), or writing different stories for different paths that the player takes"

Normally have teams of writers who's job it is to make and test these vast stories.

Instances:
Special case of open-ended stories. commonly used in MMO's present player with "instance" of a particular story thread.

"Self contained mini-stories. Make them easier to write, and it also allows new instances to be added as a later time"

Emergent stories:
"Arise purely from the lay mechanics of the game"
"Stories created by player experience or player-created content... not placed by game's designers."

Thematic set-ups;
"Opening cut scenes" give an intro to the story but give no more info on the rest of the story.

Algorithmic Stories:
"Constructed by computer AI and respond to player inputs to determine story direction"
AI written by humans but the AI is given "pre-determined plot points... like a bunch of self-contained, small,open-ended stories linked together in a larger, open-ended main-story."
Very few disadvantages
"Façade took over five years to construct", but plays through in 20 minutes.

Story telling methods:
Cut scenes and cinematic's
In game events - "Do no remove from player but trigger when player does something"

Dialogue:
Spoken audio/visual; player can interact, opening different paths. In cut scenes the decision is fixed.

Text:
Useful to convey back story, cave writings, notebooks etc.
Can't force player to read text as they would get bored but if they chose not to read, they could lose valuable information. This shows the story in a passive way.

Setting and Character:
"People want to play cool characters" in a world they couldn't normally experience.

Character Design:
More than looks, good characteristics survive due to behaviour and personality.

Environment Design:
More about feel than wowing special effects.