Level 10 Introductions & Readings

LEVEL 10: NON-LINEAR STORYTELLING

In Level 9 we learned some basic linear storytelling principles, as told to us by people that worked with books, plays, and movies. And this is fine and good for games that have a linear story. Many video games work this way, where the story is essentially told as a movie broken up into small parts, and the player has to complete each section of the game to see the next bit of movie. I do not mean this in any kind of derogative way; many popular games work like this, and many players find these games quite compelling. Even personally, I have had times when I would be messing about in the subscreens optimizing my adventuring party, only to have my wife call from across the room: “stop doing that and go fight the next boss so you can advance the plot, already!”

However, not all games are like this. As we’ve seen, player decisions are the core of what makes a game. Some games have a strong narrative intertwined with gameplay. For these games, it would make sense for player decisions to not only affect the mechanical outcome of the game, but to affect the narrative as well.

For some game designers, a true “interactive story” is something of the Holy Grail of games. In reality, we often fall short of giving the player the feeling that they are actually the starring role in a compelling story of their own creation. How have we told interactive stories in the past, and how can we make better ones in the future? It’s largely an unsolved problem, but we can at least cover the basics of what is already known, and that is our focus today.

Note that most board games do not have strong embedded narrative, so this entire discussion is mostly relevant to video game narrative, as well as tabletop RPGs. However, some modern Links to an external site. board Links to an external site. games Links to an external site. are in fact attempting to combine the tabletop board game experience with that of the RPG, including story elements that the players must interact with as part of the gameplay.

Readings

  • A Point of View Links to an external site., by Noah Falstein.
    We talk of the point of view of a story as “first person” or “third person” – and we also talk of the point of view of a video game in similar terms (First Person shooter, Third Person stealth, etc.). It is easy to assume that the two are equivalent, but they are not. This article makes the differences clear.

  • Diversity in Game Narrative Links to an external site., by Chris Bateman.
    This is a brief overview of the different kinds of story structures encountered in games.

  • Challenges for Game Designers, by Brathwaite & Schreiber.
    ReadChapter 13 (Designing a Game to Tell a Story). This short chapter covers today’s topic and can also serve as a review of some topics from last time.

 Additional Resources

For additional readings on these topics, click HERE. It is a list of resources that is student generated and regularly updated.