Gamasutra - what every game's designer needs to know

What every game designer needs to know about 
"Story is a universally human experience"

"Games aren't movies.... movies aren't games"

"They are a form of story, not jut a new toy"

"Story is conflict"

Robert McKee author of "Story"

Real substance of story is conflict

How classical stories move:
"it's simple. It works"

"First, there's a protagonist. a hero. His or her world is thrown out of order by an inciting incident."
The hero trys the right, real world approach and it fails, then attempts to try another method against the changed world which "pushes back too hard"

"There there is a reversal. Something new happens. or the hero learns something. She didn't know before, and the world is out of whack again. A second gap has opened up."

This is repeated i.e. our hero overcomes one gap another open and they have to adjust to overcome that, then another opens and so on for three "gaps". Which is when the biggest risk of all is taken to overcome everything and achieve their greatest goal.

"In a comic structure, the last gap is overcome. In a tragic structure, one final gap opens up, and stays there. But games are comic by their nature, so we'll assume it's possible to get to the end."

Character, and why it matters to games:
Characterisation = the superficial stuff e.g. clothes, car, eating habits etc

"Character is what he chooses to do" for example risk his life or stay safe that's the defining point of a character.

"Any good story will have pressures on the hero to bring out these choices, and therefore the character. This is called the principle of protagonist, because they conflict with her to define her character"

"The world of the game should be designed to oppose the player at every turn. As games become more interesting choices, and our characters will become deeper."

The importance of Reversals:
The reversal is what keeps the hero moving forward and not back or no where at all.

"As you can see in the brief summary of classical story structure, each act is driven by a reversal. When the hero accomplishes the ordeal before him, the reversal is what keeps him going forward instead of resting on his haunches. A reversal can happen through action (somebody shoots a cop's partner, and that changes everything) or by a revelation (Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is really his father) "

Lethal Weapon 2 = bad reversal when Danny Glover's character shoots the guy he could have shot earlier on. It's cheating and "Your audience can smell cheating"

"What a good reversal does is expand the story's universe. Everything you knew was true, but now there's more, so the world is flipped on its head with this new knowledge."

Story forms refine Games
Types of conflict and types of story:
Intellect conflict = "what goes on inside your head"
Interpersonal conflict = between people
External conflict = "Conflict with society in general or the physical world"

Why important? "Certain story forms to certain forms of conflict more naturally than others."

"Internal conflict happens most naturally in novels. 
Interpersonal conflict happens most naturally in plays, and in soap operas.  
External conflict happens most naturally in movies, and in games."

Games are primarily visual like movies and unlike plays, this directly affects the approach of handling dialogue in games.

"Games don't tolerate a lot of dialogue"

Empathy, and the big protagonist flip:
"The viewer is the protagonist" for the first time unlike other art forms so must relate, enjoy and understand them completely to want to keep playing.

"How do you define a character if you're not making the choices? The answer is open ended."

Pacing stretches, dialogue shrinks:
Pacing is extend like never before because the player is the protagonist and doesn't need telling because they are doing it for example in a world war 2 trench game is would be a 3 minute clip in a film but can be dragged out in a game because it's the players "ass" out there. "This is life or death."

But the dialogue shrinks, "even from the level of our very visual cousins, the movies. Players who are wrapped up in action don't have a lot of patience for talking."

Exception of the rule though is when dialogue is a game mechanic. e.g. When the text/dialogue is part of the conflict it works such as in Knights of the old republic.

A game story that works: 
Halo through a classical structure:

No deep character, as in no background or information on them, just a "Witty bad ass".
"It's thanks to Cortana that we see even that much of him"
 "It's got real reversals that drive interest in the game"

How Halo's reversals work: 
"Act 1:
Halo is a computer that the Covenant want to use as a weapon, so the humans, led by you, the Master Chief, have to get there first and activate its defence functions. There's a clear conflict: You versus the Covenant. And it's spurred by an inciting incident: The Covenant have attacked your ship, and you've had to take off in the equivalent of a minivan before the ship explodes.You have no idea what happened to Captain Keyes. 
Act II:
As you fight the Covenant along side the Marines, you walk into a room where a freaked-out Marine shoots you, and you have to kill him. That's a great moment of choice, even in a linear plot. You also see Covenant corpses that you didn't kill. Then you meet The Flood, which try to eat both you and the Covenant. Reversal: The conflict isn't as clear as you thought. It has expanded, and caused your world to change. Some of your friends are now your enemies, and there are new enemies."
Act 3:
"You are assisted by a hovering machine librarian in turning on Halo's defence system, so you can use it against the flood"
You then find out Halo is a machine designed to kill all life forms and you was tricked by the librarian as the flood and you will be destroyed.
You now have to destroy Halo.
Conflict expanded again.
The Ending:
"You have to destroy Halo" - Important point of all stories, in games the player has to end it and not just watch it.


"Show, don't tell" - stories rule
"Do, don't show" - games rule


"We want our players to experience as much of the story first hand, as the main actor in it. If there's ever opportunity to create the story through players action, make that choice. If there's a part of the story that must be out of the players control show it."


"Do show and tell in that order"


Story and the writer:
"Writers are essential to game story"


"Paste on some dialogue, buddy, and make it clever! NO, NO, NO. Don't do this."


Writers need to be involved from the start of the development process not just for dialogue, they need to know, understand, feel and believe in the whole story before dialogue so the writer knows what to write to keep the player interested.


Story and the whole development team:
"The writer isn't everything. The principle of antagonism might be planned by the writer, but it's created by the designers, and implemented by the programmers."


"Designers will always be the most direct allies of game writers."


"Designers are in charge of the forces of antagonism. Which are the essential elements of character development and plot advancement"


Art and sound obviously create the most perceivable parts of the game.


"Programmers work with everybody to keep the story alive in what the novelist John Gardner would call "The vivid, continuous dream.""


If everything is not at the same standard or something sticks out like a sore thumb the "dream" is broken.


"Creating this world so no one notices the code is the hardest job of all"
"It's not news that games are a collaborative effort"


But so is the story development in games design and this needs to be well established.


"The writer's job is to know all the details that I don't include here. Everyone else on the team, though, needs to know at least the basics I've outlined in this article. The development team has to speak a common language about story. If we all do, we stand an excellent chance of making games that will leave the last generation in the dust."