Game Design: Theory & Practice- P9 pdf

l Out-of-Game: This is any storytelling that is done on the computer while thegame is running, but when the player is not actually playing the game.. l In-Game: Logically, this is the op

game-world and telling them the story as it happens The Dungeon Master plans out

in advance the locations the players will be exploring, has some idea of what acters the players will meet in what locations, and probably knows what majorconflicts will be presented The players, though, are in control of what parts of thelevel they investigate, and how they conduct themselves with the different NPCsthey may meet For instance, the DM probably does not have a script of what thedifferent NPCs will say when approached Instead, he knows what their personali-ties are like, and how they are likely to respond When a player asks an NPC aquestion, the DM is able to come up, on the fly, with a reasonable response Aclever DM will never have to say, “The NPC does not understand your question.”

char-As with the parent-child storytelling experience, the DM will be able to keep theplayers on track with the overall story he wants to tell, while allowing the players aconsiderable amount of freedom in how that story unfolds and perhaps even in how

in truly interactive storytelling, it is her responsibility to make the designer’s storyflexible enough to allow it to become the player’s story as well

Places for Storytelling

There are a number of ways in which a game can tell a story Customarily, gamesuse a number of different storytelling devices to communicate their story, with dif-ferent games relying on some devices more than others The type of story you hope

to tell, what technology you will be using, and the gameplay of your game willdetermine what storytelling devices will work best for your game

The simplest distinction one can make is in what context the storytelling takesplace:

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l Out-of-Game: This is any storytelling that is done on the computer while thegame is running, but when the player is not actually playing the game Thisincludes any cut-scenes during which the player loses control of his character,such as the cut-scenes or mission briefings that occur between levels in

Command & Conquer or brief non-interactive sections in Super Mario 64.

l In-Game: Logically, this is the opposite of the above, and covers any

storytelling that occurs while the player is actually playing the game Thisincludes the setting of the game-world, the behavior of the player’s opponents,any dynamic conversations the player may have, and any interactive

pre-mission planning the player may do

l External Materials: This includes any storytelling done completely outside ofthe computer, such as in an introduction written in the manual or any

paraphernalia that may come with the game, such as a map or a collection ofgems

A given game may use only one or all three of the above types of storytelling

Half-Life is an example of a game that included only in-game storytelling; the

player never lost control of her character from the beginning of the game to the end.The Infocom games are a good example of games that used both in-game and exter-nal materials to tell their stories In addition to the conversations and descriptions ofthe game-world the player had in the game itself, the Infocom games always camewith extra documents and knickknacks, which served to enhance the player’sunderstanding of the game-world, in addition to sometimes being required to com-

plete the game’s puzzles Command & Conquer used in-game storytelling through

its settings and mission design, while much of the story line was communicated

through the out-of-game, non-interactive cut-scenes Tekken is an example of a

game that tells its story, as insubstantial as it may be, almost entirely throughout-of-game cut-scenes: one precedes the gameplay and one plays after the playerhas defeated the single-player game using a specific character The settings of thevarious arenas have nothing whatsoever to do with the story line, and the charactersthemselves exhibit nothing of the personalities described in the scenes either,though their fighting styles usually relate to their nationalities Indeed, it is unclear

why the designers of Tekken felt compelled to include a story line at all Perhaps

they wanted to give the player something to reward them for defeating the game,and a cut-scene was the only suitable prize they could imagine

Out-of-Game

Out-of-game storytelling is perhaps the most prevalent form currently in games, and

it comes in a variety of forms One can attribute the popularity of out-of-game rytelling to its similarity to storytelling in other media For example, a cut-scene is

sto-very often like a film and uses established cinematic techniques, while a text ing for a level is not unlike what one might read in a novel These are both types ofmedia that have been around for many more years than computer games, and bothhave an established syntax which allows them to tell stories very effectively In away, it is much easier to tell a story through these methods than it is throughgameplay But as a designer you must ask yourself, are non-interactive cut-sceneswhat games are supposed to be about? If your gameplay is any good at all, playerswill want to get back to playing instead of sitting through long cut-scenes Playersplay games in order to interact If they wanted a more passive experience, theywould have gone to a movie theater or gotten a book from the library Non-inter-active storytelling may have its place in games, but designers need to be aware that

brief-it must supplement and not detract from an excbrief-iting gaming experience

As I have discussed, there are a number of different methods that can be used totell a story outside of the gameplay A summary of the major methods is as follows:

l Cut-Scenes: What are commonly referred to as cut-scenes use cinematictechniques to communicate a narrative to the player These may take place in2D or 3D, and often involve cuts, pans, the “180 degree rule,” and otherdevices that anyone who has watched movies or television will be familiarwith

l Text: Many games use text to describe the story or to give the player goals forthe upcoming mission The text may fill the entire screen and then flip toanother screen as necessary, or text may scroll by at a slow enough speed thatthe player has time enough to read it

l Images: Sometimes players are presented with simple images that communicatesome part of the story line These do not qualify as standard cut-scenes

precisely, since they do not include camera cuts or other cinematic techniques,though a simple camera pan may be used to sweep across an image that doesnot fit on the screen The image may be a map of an area, an “establishing”image of the challenges to come, or a recap of those the player has justaccomplished Images are often mixed with text, sometimes using comic booktechniques but usually without word balloons

l Audio: Sometimes players are given directives that are spoken dialog or otheraudio This is usually when the budget did not exist to create FMV to go alongwith the dialog, or when the dialog is presented over other information theplayer is supposed to be looking at, such as maps, dossiers, or other documents.One of the most important goals to have when working with cut-scenes is toestablish a consistent visual appearance between the cut-scenes and the gameplay

If at all possible, the same engine should be used for the cut-scenes as for the rest ofthe game In the mid-’90s, as games switched to CD-ROM as the distribution

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medium of choice, for the first time games were able to include actual video back in the games, even if these movies often could not fill the entire screen Thus

play-came into being the dreaded FMV game, such as The 7th Guest Typically, these

games presented long FMV clips with mini-games between them, resulting in ucts that were more movies than games In these games the vast majority of theplayer’s time was spent not actually playing the game but instead watching totallynon-interactive cut-scenes, with these cinematic sections usually amateurish belowwhat one would find on even the cheapest TV show This serves to explain why thegenre quickly fell out of favor with players Other games, such as the aforemen-

prod-tioned Command & Conquer and Dark Forces, used FMV sections between the

levels that made up the actual game These games were fortunate enough to ally include viable and compelling gameplay and thereby stood up as gamesregardless of the inclusion of FMV However, the FMV sections of these gameswere created using live actors in worlds that looked nothing like the worlds that the

actu-gameplay took place in Other games, such as MechWarrior 2 and my own pede 3D, used super high polygon, pre-rendered 3D environments to handle these

Centi-cut-scenes, creating an environment that looked nothing like the ones generated bythe real-time 3D engines used for the gameplay The result is a disjointed visualexperience for the player, something that breaks whatever suspension of disbeliefthe player may have established The use of cut-scenes is in itself already a veryjarring experience for the player; one minute the player has an active role in the

proceedings, the next he has to be passive, content to sit back and watch instead.Using cut-scenes that look nothing like the game-world only exacerbates matters

Many games have successfully incorporated cut-scenes that use the same

graphics as the in-game visuals, going back to 2D games such as Pac-Man and Karateka, up to such modern RT3D titles as Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Drakan: Order of the Flame In these games, though the player may lose control of

the game briefly, at least the player has a completely seamless visual experience.The artists may complain that the cut-scenes do not look as good; after all, they canonly play with the number of polygons that can be rendered in real time But whatmay be lost in terms of visual quality is more than made up for by the overall con-sistency of the game

Another strange aspect of cut-scenes in many computer games is theirnon-interactive nature, which is indicative of the inability of the designer to under-stand the capabilities of the computer as an interactive device Consider spectators

at a movie or a play, or the nationwide audience watching a television show Theaudiences for those productions are unable to interact with the proceedings in anyway: the performance occurs and then it is over On the other hand, someone read-ing a book, watching a video, or being told a story is able to experience the medium

at whatever speed he wants Pages can be reread in a book, videotapes can berewound or fast-forwarded, and a child can ask his parent to further explain orreread part of the story he did not understand The key difference here is that theaudience of the first set of non-interactive media is a large group of people, whilethe audience for the latter set is a single person

Consider the audience for a computer game Is it a group or a sole individual?Obviously, for multi-player games the audience may be more than one, butmulti-player games almost never bother with cut-scenes of any sort No, the story-telling games that require cut-scenes are almost all designed as single-playerexperiences Why, then, when the text scrolls by in the mission briefing for a game,

is the user unable to rewind it? Indeed, why is it scrolling at all? Computers areexcellent tools for giving the user control over her experience, and since the player

is usually playing the game herself, who would mind if she read the text at her ownspeed, as controlled by a scroll bar or arrows on the keyboard? Similarly forcut-scenes: why can the user almost never rewind to watch the cut-scene again?What if she missed a part of the story she wants to hear, or just wants to enjoy thepresentation again? It seems that the out-of-game sections of computer games aremore user-unfriendly than almost any other solo experience medium It seemslikely that game designers may be thinking that they are movie directors and there-fore want to create a movie theater-like experience, despite the extremely differentnature of the medium with which they are working

Some games are smart enough to allow the users to control the playback of

cut-scenes The Last Express in particular springs to mind, with its unique “egg”

save-game feature that allows the user to go back to any point in his game andre-experience it The game prided itself on transpiring in real-time or close to

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real-time, and hence the player was able to turn back the hands on a clock to anyparticular time he was interested in and the game would return him to that point, afeature which was essential for understanding the game’s complex story My own

game Damage Incorporated used extremely interactive mission briefings in order

to make sure the players understood what they had to do on a level Players coulduse the arrow keys to flip back and forth between text and image documents Dur-ing these mission briefings there was also spoken dialog which supplemented thematerial printed on the screen Players could pause, rewind, and fast-forward thisspoken dialog as they desired using tape deck controls displayed on the bottom ofthe screen In this way players were able to read the text at whatever speed theywished and relisten to portions of the dialog that they may have missed

Unfortunately, the only interaction with the cut-scenes that many games include

is the ability for the player to skip them entirely This is essential, since many ers will want to skip over the non-interactive sections of the game, as any

play-playtesting session will reveal Forcing players to watch cut-scenes is a totallyunnecessary limitation no game should attempt to enforce As I explained above,better than complete skipping is to allow players to skip forward and back throughcut-scenes as they desire, watching and rewatching them at their own speed

If one stops for a moment to consider the nature of out-of-game devices for rytelling in games, one will be struck by what a strange concept it is to disrupt theinteractive experience with a non-interactive one For instance, when you go to amovie, do the theater workers ever stop the film, bring up the lights, and direct theaudience to read a book that they handed out? Sometimes text is shown on thescreen, but never in a way that requires the audience to read more than a few words

sto-The Last Express’

at a time Instead, films present a consistent media experience for the audience.Games, on the other hand, still mix media in seemingly unnatural ways, forcingusers who may just want to play a game to have to read a bit of a book, watch amovie, and only then actually get to play Surely there is a better way to tell a story,convey a plot, and introduce characters from within the game itself that is far supe-rior to out-of-game storytelling, at least in terms of maintaining a fluid experiencefor the player.

In-Game

There are numerous powerful techniques for telling a story during gameplay

Half-Life was universally praised in the gaming press for the strength of its story.

However, if one looks at the game’s story, it is not actually all that compelling, haps even hackneyed Many other games, even many other first-person shooters,

per-have contained stories just as compelling What Half-Life did well, however, was to

tell its story entirely from within the gameplay The player never loses control of hischaracter, even if he is locked in an observation room, stuck on a tram car, orthrown in a garbage compactor The story is communicated through a combination

of level settings, chatty scientists, announcements over the PA system, and NPCscripted behaviors By the game’s end, the player is under the impression that thestory was excellent because of the compelling way in which it was told

Some of the different techniques one can use to tell a story through gameplayare as follows:

l Text: A lot can be communicated to the player through text placed around thegame-world These can be signs explaining directions to locations, pinned-upnotes left by previous inhabitants of a given area, graffiti on the wall, or booksleft lying around for the player to read

l Level Settings: Almost all games use this technique, regardless of whether they

attempt to tell a story or not Consider the garden setting of Centipede, the hell-like setting of Doom, or even the art deco real estate setting of the board game Monopoly What little story these games have is told entirely through

setting, but setting can also be key to telling more complex game stories Theplayer’s exploration of the game-world can lead to discoveries about the type ofpeople that inhabit a given area, or inhabited it in years past Instead of reading

in a cut-scene that the land is run-down and decayed, the player can simply seethat truth by navigating the game-world Setting is a perfect example ofshowing a story instead of telling it

l Dialog: Dialog with NPCs during gameplay is another massively powerful toolthat designers can use to great storytelling effect This dialog can be spokenduring gameplay through conversations the player has with NPCs, where theplayer gets to choose his character’s response to the NPC’s dialog, either

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through a multiple choice of responses or by typing in his own response Dialogcan also happen non-interactively during gameplay, with NPCs, either friendly

or unfriendly, speaking to the player during the game and thereby ing more of the game’s story Dialog can also come from computer terminals,

communicat-PA systems, or tape decks, to name just a few devices

l NPC Behaviors: Of course, the NPCs should not just talk to the player; theyshould perform actions that back up the story line For instance, say that theplayer fights two different races of aliens in the game, and according to thestory line the two races bitterly despise each other If the player is ever battlingboth at once, he should be able to trick them into fighting each other In apeaceful village, if the player approaches the NPCs with his weapons drawnperhaps the NPCs will flee from the player In a more hostile town, the NPCsmight draw their own weapons and threaten to attack the player if he fails tostand down NPCs can also be engaged in scripted behaviors that communicate

to the player the nature of the game-world For instance, say the people of atown live in fear of the Gestapo-like police force As the player enters, he mayobserve a townsperson receiving a harsh and unjust beating from a member ofthe police

The Marathon games used text expertly to communicate their story line while

never taking the player out of the game The game featured computer terminalsscattered throughout the levels the player navigated The player could walk up toone of these terminals and hit the “action” key to activate it Then the player’s view

of the game-world would be replaced by a close-up view of the terminal Theplayer could then use the arrow keys to flip back and forth between different textscreens which revealed more details about the plot and told the player what herobjective was for the current level The great thing about these terminals was thatwhile the player was reading them, though she could no longer see the game-world,the game-world was still very much active and the player could be attacked byaliens or drowned by rising water This sometimes gave the reading of the terminals

a certain urgency, keeping the player’s game-world tension active Of course, theplayer was able to control the text by flipping forward and backward through thescreens, rereading the text at whatever speed she wanted

My own game Damage Incorporated used a combination of NPC behaviors

and dialog to give the player some sense of character about the teammates whoaccompany him through the game’s various missions The player was able to pickfrom among thirteen different marines the four he wanted to accompany him on agiven mission Each of these marines had a distinct personality and would commu-nicate this through the dialog he spoke during the missions themselves This dialogmight include the response to a directive from the player, a comment about thenature of the mission itself, or a response to the player’s particularly effective

killing of an enemy Furthermore, different teammates could react differently tobeing taken on different missions Some of the marines were less mentally soundthan others and if taken on too many missions they would become “shell shocked”and run around the level at random, muttering gibberish all the while Othermarines would have moral objections to some of the missions on which the teamwas sent As a result, these rogue teammates would rebel against the player and hisother teammates in certain circumstances, shouting their disapproval for the task athand as they went on a rampage Thus, a combination of dialog and NPC behaviorscreated a group of teammates with real personalities, almost all of which was com-municated during the gameplay itself.

One of the big concerns some people have with in-game storytelling is that theplayer may miss some of the story What if the player fails to see the story beingtold? Since the player never loses control of the game with in-game storytelling,this makes it possible for the player to avoid talking to characters, witnessingscripted NPC behaviors, or reading signs It is true that locking the player in front

of a non-interactive cut-scene or scrolling text is one way to guarantee that she seesexactly what the designer wants her to see But, as I have stated previously, oneneeds to remember that games are an interactive form, and that if the player doesnot experience every last element of the story, that is the nature of interactivity Ifthe player is interested in getting all of the story, it is the player’s responsibility toseek it out If the player would prefer to just charge through the game focusingsolely on the gameplay, that is her choice to make Indeed, having different layers

of the story that can be discovered on playing the game a second time can be a nificant incentive for replaying the game

they can read

more about the

game’s complex

story Pictured

here: Marathon

2.

Almost everyone has had an English teacher who has emphasized the tance of showing instead of telling in creative writing Instead of being told that thepeople are wealthy, readers should be able to read the author’s description of anarea and from that, deduce that the region is populated by a prosperous people Forgames, in-game storytelling is the equivalent of showing, while out-of-game

impor-cut-scenes and other methods are telling For in-game storytelling, players get toexperience the story themselves instead of being told it secondhand In addition tomaintaining the player’s immersion in the game-world, in-game storytelling showsthe player the story instead of just telling it to him

External Materials

Many games have used external materials to tell their stories This was particularlytrue in the 1980s when disk space was severely limited and designers could not fitall of the story they wanted to include onto a single 400K or smaller floppy disk.Some designers used manuals to communicate the game’s back-story, writing a nar-rative that would lead the player up to the point where she would start playing the

game Some games, such as the classic Wasteland, even used “paragraph” books,

where the game would play for a while and then, when the player got to a ing juncture, would be instructed “Now read paragraph 47.” Sometimes this

storytell-referencing of the manual was used as a form of copy protection, in that the playerwould be unable to play the game without having a copy of the manual

Arcade games also used external materials Often the names of the game’s acters were written on the side of the cabinet instead of in the game Some cabinetseven included a few sentences further explaining the game’s setting and the player’smission The artwork featured on the sides of arcade game cabinets used superiorgraphics to add a small amount of depth to what meager story lines the games mayhave had

char-These days storytelling in manuals and other materials is generally frownedupon, and rightly so We are certainly no longer presented with the technologicallimitations that necessitated storytelling through external materials Furthermore,often the stories told in the manuals were not written by the game’s designers oreven with their consultation Therefore these stories can hardly be considered a part

of the game itself, but rather the marketing department’s attempt to create a

game-world they could hype on the back of the box I would certainly never use amanual to convey the story in one of my own games since I believe it detracts fromthe continuous experience of playing the game on the computer or console

That said, some games have used external materials extremely effectively Inparticular, the Infocom games always included materials in the boxes which added

to the player’s gameplay experience in meaningful ways Often the games referred

to these materials, saying something to the effect of, “The magazine you find is the

same one as came in your game package.” These materials were customarily pared by or in conjunction with the game’s author, thereby making them valid parts

pre-of the game itself For more information on how Infocom used its packaged als to add depth to the story and the motivations for doing so, consult the interviewwith Infocom author Steve Meretzky found in Chapter 10

materi-Frustrated Linear Writers

One of the primary story problems that many computer games have is that their ries are written by people who wish they were writing in a more linear medium.Sometimes failed screenwriters or novelists are hired to work on game projects.These writers often feel disappointed to have to work in games and see their gamework as something they do strictly for the money, while simultaneously seeingthemselves as above gaming as an art form As a result of their training in linearwriting and distaste for interactive writing in general, these writers use all of the lin-ear writing techniques they have honed over the years and try to apply them togames, where they fail miserably

sto-Sometimes the game developers themselves secretly or not-so-secretly wishthey were working in another medium and make their story writing choices accord-ingly After all, for as long as games have existed, film has been a more respected,popular, and financially rewarding medium to work in, with mammoth cults of per-sonality surrounding actors, directors, and sometimes even writers Game designerscan be sucked in by this allure and become envious of filmmakers These designersoften start emphasizing the cinematic nature of their games, sometimes attempting

to deny that they are games at all by calling them “interactive movies.” The games’cinematic cut-scenes become longer and longer, with the predetermined story linedominating the gameplay completely

And in a way, the mistakes game developers make putting story into theirgames are forgivable due to the youth of the medium For example, when the tech-nology that enabled filmmaking was introduced, many of the first films that weremade were documents of stage plays A camera was placed in a fixed position on atripod and the actors considered its frame to be their stage, just as if they wereworking with a live audience There were no cuts, pans, or camera movement ofany kind, because the language of film had yet to be invented As time went on,however, filmmakers learned that their films could be more than straight transcrip-tions of stage plays, and they could instead take advantage of the strengths of theirnew medium In some ways, games still suffer from the same problem, whereestablished mediums, film in particular, are taken and just thrown into games with-out considering how a story might best be told in a language suited to interactivity.What results from these frustrated linear writers are projects that try to be bothgames and movies, usually with the end result that they do neither very well Using

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storytelling that is suited to an interactive experience is significantly harder thanusing traditional linear techniques, but the payoff in the quality of your final gamewill be more than worth it There are a number of symptoms that arise in such a sit-uation, and recognizing these problems as they come up is crucial to preventingthem from ruining your game.

The first problem is forcing the player to experience the story in only one determined path The linear writer often feels that there is only one way for thedrama to unfold, and if the player tries to pursue anything else he, or at least hischaracter, should be killed The linear writer does not want to allow the player todiscover different ways of navigating through the story space, when there is onlyone path that makes for the most powerful narrative What the linear writer fails torealize is that games are about letting the player find his own path through thegame-world, regardless of how uninteresting a path that may be What the path maylose in drama it makes up for because the player feels ownership of it It is theplayer’s story instead of the designer’s story

pre-Linear writers also often try to force the player’s character to have a strong sonality There is a popular misconception in game design that gamers want to havemain characters with strong personalities for them to control, particularly in adven-ture and action games But if one looks at the most popular entries in these genres,one will quickly notice that the player character’s personality is often kept to a min-

per-imum Look at Super Mario 64 Though Mario has a fairly distinctive look, what

really is his personality? He does not actually have one, leaving him undefinedenough for the player to imprint her own personality on him What about Lara Croft

in Tomb Raider? Again, a very distinct appearance, a very undefined personality And if one looks at the space marine in Doom or Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, one

will find no personality whatsoever

The reason for this is simple: when players want to play games, they often want

to play themselves If the character they are controlling has a very strong ity, there is a distancing effect, reminding the player that the game is largelypredetermined and making him feel like he is not truly in control of what happens

personal-in the game Particularly frustratpersonal-ing are adventure games that feature strongly acterized player characters who keep speaking irritating lines of dialog I rememberone adventure game in particular where the player had to control a spoiled brat whoconstantly said annoying, idiotic things to himself and to the characters he met.Who would want to control such a character? The dialog for the character was actu-ally quite well written and amusing, but not to the player who was forced to gothrough the game using that obnoxious character as his game-world surrogate Itwould appear that the game’s writer got carried away with this interesting charac-terization for the main character without realizing the detrimental effect it wouldhave on the player’s gaming experience

char-I do not mean to suggest that your game cannot have terrific characters in it,and indeed, without strong characters your game will fail to have much of a story atall Instead of trying to imbue the main character with a lot of personality, make theNPCs the player encounters in the game memorable and interesting If the playerfinds these characters annoying that is totally acceptable; it means that they haveenough personality for the player to feel strongly about them But the player’s char-acter should be sufficiently amorphous and unformed that the player can think ofthat character in whatever way he sees fit And fear not, after spending forty ormore hours with that character, the player will come up with his own ideas of whatmotivates and drives his game-world surrogate The character he creates in hismind will be one whom he likes and with whom he will want to continue to play

Game Stories

As I have discussed, when writing a story for a game, it is important to stay awayfrom the conventions of linear media, such as forcing the player to follow only onenarrative and instilling too much character in the player’s game-world surrogate.Beyond the pitfalls to avoid when creating the game’s story, the game’s scriptwritershould worry less about the overall plot and more about the situations in which theplayer finds himself and characters with which he interacts Indeed, many filmdirectors are keenly aware of this technique For instance, in talking about his film

The Big Sleep, director Howard Hawks said: “Making this picture I realized that

you don’t really have to have an explanation for things As long as you make goodscenes you have a good picture—it doesn’t really matter if it isn’t much of a story.”

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I have played countless games where the overall plot was completely lost onme; I simply did not care to follow it Often in these games, I enjoyed the

gameplay, the situations the game placed me in, and the interesting and amusingcharacters I met there Since the characters and situations were interesting, it didnot really matter if I knew who did what to whom and when All I knew was that Iwas having fun playing the game Often when games try to hit me over the headwith their plot through long cut-scenes which go into minute detail about the rea-sons for the state of the game-world and the character’s motivations for every lastaction, it becomes tedious Remember that players want to play games If the storyenhances that experience, that is good, but if the story starts to get in the way of thegameplay, that is bad Spelling out too much of the story is also a common failing

of novice writers Readers, viewers, and players alike are able to figure out muchmore than authors give them credit for It makes sense for the author of the story tohave all of the character’s motivations figured out in detail, with all of the nuances

of the different twists and turns of the plot detailed in her notebook, but does everylast element of this story need to be included in the game? No, what is more impor-tant is that the story the player is presented with is consistent and could be used toput together the complete story Players will not mind if every last plot point is notexplicitly spelled out

In Chapter 9, “Artificial Intelligence,” I talked about Brian Moriarty’s concept

of “constellation” and how it could help to create more interesting AI Constellation

is a natural tendency that game storytellers can also use to their advantage arty has described constellation in media as the ability of an audience to fill in theholes or inconsistencies present in a storytelling experience, regardless of whatform that story may take For instance, if a storyteller only hints at the true appear-ance of an evil foe, the image conjured in the mind of an audience member may befar more frightening than what the storyteller might be able to describe to the audi-

Mori-ence One can also look at the fan base for a TV show such as Star Trek The

slightest hinting at a bit of story by the writers of the show will lead to endlessspeculation among the audience members as to what the implications of that subtlehint are, and the fans will come up with their own explanation for what it mightmean This may or may not be the explanation the writer originally intended, butwhat is important is that it involves the audience in the work to a much greaterdegree, switching them from a passive mode to an active one Of course, games arealready much more interactive than television, and therefore it makes sense thatgame storytellers would not tell the audience every last detail of a plot This willinvolve the players still more in the game as they try to figure out what exactly thestory is all about

Much talk is made of non-linearity in games, and storytelling in particular is a keyarea where non-linearity can be used to enhance the player’s gaming experience Ifeel the goal of game storytelling is to create a story in which the player feels he canplay a significant role that may affect the outcome Non-linearity is an essential toolfor accomplishing that goal In a way, in-game storytelling is non-linear In-gamestorytelling allows the player to talk to some characters and not to others, to choosewhich signs to read and which to ignore, and to explore the game-world in order toreveal its relevance to the story line, exploration over which the player has control.With the player empowered to explore the story-space in his own way, some degree

of non-linearity is unavoidably created

One popular way to add non-linearity to the storytelling experience is through abranching story With a branching story, at various points the decisions the playermakes will have a significant effect on how the story progresses This may mean ifthe player succeeds in defeating a certain adversary, the story will progress differ-ently than if the player fails to kill that foe In the latter case, it may be that theplayer will have to kill that foe later, or that the foe will summon a force to helphim that the player will have to confront Of course, branching stories increase theamount of content that will need to be created for a game, at least in terms of gamedesign and dialog, if not also in art assets This can sometimes make this techniqueunpopular with the cost accountants who see the creation of such assets as wastedmoney What they fail to see is that if the branching story line is implemented prop-erly, the gameplay payoff will be tremendous, hopefully making the game morepopular

Another technique that can be used to inject some non-linearity into the game’sstory is to allow the player to determine the order in which different story compo-nents occur Suppose there are three sections of the story you need to tell Perhapsthe order in which the player experiences those components is not so important.With a little extra work, you may be able to give the player the choice of which sec-tion to do first, which to do second, and which to do last If one thinks of this interms of the “chapters” of a game’s story, often designers find that, though the firstand final chapters of the narrative must happen respectively at the beginning andend of the game, the other chapters in the game can happen in any order Of course,issues with the difficulty of the sections may arise, since ideally designers want thedifficulty of their games to ramp up continuously This, however, is more of a gamedesign question, and one that clever designers will be able to work around

Of course non-linear storytelling in games goes hand in hand with non-lineargameplay: one can hardly imagine one without the other Non-linearity is exploredmore in Chapter 7, “The Elements of Gameplay.”

232 Chapter 11: Storytelling