EC : How To Start Your Game Narrative

[WALP]

interesting video from Extra-credits on what they think would be a good way to approach starting a story in games.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode...-narrative

So what do you guys think, should you start with an interesting mechanic? or is what EC is saying just dumb? would like to hear your opinions and reasons

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Aah, good ol' Extra Credits... If you ask me, the world would be a better place if more aspiring young game devs listened to what they have to say.
This episode in particular reminds me of all the student projects I've seen fail, because some innocent future game designer just desperately wanted to tell that awesome story he had in mind, that would require a game world half the size of Skyrim, 20 animated characters and 10 hours of recorded dialogue.

Okay, more serious now. I think their advice here is a good rule of thumb. Focussing on the core of what your story wants to say and then developing a mechanic that works well with that sounds like an effective approach to me.

From what I've heard, I also think the developers of Journey used pretty much this exact approach - with an amazing result.They first thought about the emotions they wanted the player to feel - say, love/friendship in this case - and then tried several gameplay approaches to convey them.

For example one of their first prototypes included a dragon that you had to protect your co-op partner from. But they found out that most players didn't feel like doing so and chose to save their own hide instead, which obviously didn't fit the message of the game at all. So they focussed on finding mechanics that would strengthen the bond between players (flying together by singing, energy recovery when standing close to each other...) and then found a story that matched these. In the end it didn't include a dragon anymore, but a mountain and a journey towards it, but the central message of the story remained the same.

Oh course there might be game projects where this approach may not work as well, like for example when you're making a game that goes with a movie and thus simply has to include certain characters, elements and actions. But in general I feel that when making games one should try to focus on what makes the medium "game" unique instead of merely trying to cram stories that would be better suited for book or film into this new medium.

[the dark side]

Ive always beleived in Starting with the Core Gameplay experience, what you will be doing for 90% of the game first, lets take an FPS model for this.

What Health System does the game use? Wolverine Regenerating ("bloody screen, so real", COD type)? Batman Medikits (just think Half Life)? or Superman Hybrid? (aka the Far Cry segmented Healthbar?) ?

how fast does the players health fall, faster than a narcoleptic roofer? (Two Makarov hits and your pushing up daisies) or so slow you make Arnhold look vulnerable? (5 million rockets to the face and still ticking)?

how many weapons can the player carry? a realistic number, say, 2? or as many as they find?

does the player have hand to hand ability? is it full with punches, kicks, and grapples like Riddick? or is it just slash a knife like the MMS genre?

how accurate is the players shooting, is it realistic with lots of bulletspread and the use of Aim Down Sites? is it totally unrealistic with every bullet slamming square? or is it the goldeneye 64 model, where its mostly accurate, but with a little bit of bulletspread to replicate mechanical innacuracy and give the game a sort of Sim-cade mix?

are the guns fictional "Futureblasters" (lazers?) or real world Slugthrowers?, are they total replicas of real world?, or slightly fictionalised versions with made up names?, how are they reloaded, realistically? (bolt release, no rechambering?) Isreali style? (always chamber a new round even mid mag?) or no reload animations at all, how realistic does the game look?

what sort of world is the game in, c21 Warzones? historical war (ww2), fictional takes on either (WWII with zombies for example from RTCW), science fiction future? Steam Punk Dystopia? James Bond Style Glamourous? what sort of art style do you have (this perhaps most strongly determines the direction of the storyline)

how fast does the charachter run? is it a COD spec 1/4 MPh crawl, or a 30MPH rocketbooted blast like serious sam? or somewhere in between?

how high and far can the player jump? can the player climb ladders? can he clim walls? can he do "hand over hand" shimmying? like mirrors edge? or is it boots on the ground at all times like call of duty?

How many enemies is there? is it a few at a time? or is it a total genocidal bloodbath?

Does the game have BOSS encounters?

is there Puzzles to Solve, like, say, Half Life? or is it just COD style run and shoot?

Can the Player use stealth to avoid enemies? is stealh Free form (MGS) or Scripted (COD, get spotted and mission failure)? or does he just kill everthing in the way? can the player use desquises Allied Assault style and bluff the enemy?

Can the player Talk to NPC's? is the dialoque the same all the time like, say, SOF II? or can you choose your dialoque RPG style in the vein of NOLF or Deus EX?

can the player use vehicles? what perspective are they in? 1st person, 3rd? how do they drive, are they totally realistic with weight transfer, surface induced grip loss, inertia? are they totally unrealistic meaning you can oull doughnuts in a URAL trucK? or are they simcade, the have weight and inertia, but are still fun and rewarding to drive? what sort of vehicles can the player use? boats? cars? trucks? airplanes?

what sort of level design to you want, a complete "funnel to the next explosion" corridor fest like COD? totally open plan like Serious Sam, or sort of inbetween with a nice mix of corridors and open areas with many routes from A-Z, like doom? , do you just need to shoot your way from a-c to get the keycard and then shoot your way to b to flip a swich and end the level Wolfenstein 3d style? or are there multiple objectives the player needs to complete before they reach the end of the level, a-la Return To Castle Wolfenstein?

can the player take damage from falling of a ledge? can the player even fall of ledges? is there invisible walls stopping them?

is the player a Stallone Style One Man Army, or part of a huge squad of sterotypical angry american marines?

once you know all that, how realistic or not the gameplay is, and what fundamental mechanics you have, you can work out how realistic the world needs to be and the charachters, are they totaly realistic with soldiers and grey urban warzones, over the top with super-heros, futuristic cityscapes, aliens and demons? or sort of a mix, based on our world, but with some suspension of disbeleive required like many of the silver age espionage games. knowing the mechanics is also vital when it comes to designing the levels, so you know how to set them out, how big, or not, to make them, and what ways the player can get around them and complete the level.

if you focus on the Gameplay gimmicks first,and not the Core Gameplay however, you basically end up with Duke Nukem Forever, all filler no killer. Then you do the story, and Fully, all fleshed out to NOVEL level specifications, you must ALWAYS do the story Second if the game is story focussed i feel. and Never, Ever mistake story for "micheal bay BOOM!" or then you just get an MMS, lots of big detonations limnked together by the easiest, most casual gameplay possible.

my beleive is take gameplay that is tried and tested and to YOUR preference, in my case, ye old school Silver Age FPS. once you have got that Basic, a Strong Gameplay core that will appeal to your target market (ye old school PC gamers), that core will be the basic behind every little gameplay addition that will be added in to fit with the storyline.

Storyline is also something that has to be done in a SPECIFIC order, if you follow the current idea of making up all the big detonations the 'muricans like so much, your just going to get disjointed war propoganda pap, a Story is not WHAT happens, its WHO it happens to and WHY!, this is something i feel "The Operative: No One Lives Forever" gets particularily correct, even going as far back as charachters Childhoods to explain why they ended up the way they are as adults, to such an extent i even ended up feeling sorry for one of the villains (inge wagner) .

to me, the Precise order of telling a story is this.

1. the overall story objective, whats its thematic?, its objective? Its Moral? does it have a political Statment?, is it propoganda? or a decent plotline?

2. the story in synopsis form where the charachters go and what they do when they are there, whats the background to each chapter?

3. the charachters, who they are, where they have come from, what formative experiences they have had in the past that has shaped who they are in the games continuum, How Old are they, what do they look like? (concept art helps here!). what sort of persona do they have, how intelligent are they, how do they interact with the other charachters they encounter?

4. the Story, Starting on your synposis, flesh out the story, what happens to each charachter and the world around them, what actions do they take? how do those actions affect the other charachters? how do they affect the Story universe? WHY does what happens to them happen and WHY does it affect the other charachters and the game world (from this you can work out the Setpeices, the level designs, mission Objectives ETC)

5. The Setpeices. they things that will make the game memorable for the player.

6. the game Scripts, who says what, the dialoque shooting script if you will.

then you work on the games level designs, and of course, the extras on top of the gameplay core to tell that story,. why settle for having a Jet fighter chase as just a cutscene? why not incorporate flight Sim controlls so the player can fly the jet himself? if the level is a warzone, why have the streets occupied by the same faction every time?, why not seperate the level into seperate "controll points" were the dominant faction is permanent until the player annihilates them from the controll point, but the Area in between is "No Mans Land", using procedurally generated AI to determine wich way the battles go, meaning that the same faction may not be entrenced in that area each time, and the player may even wander into the middle of a raging 5 way battle that can go in the way of any one of the factions? see, little additions to the core gameplay based on story events and locations that can take the game into all new gameplay territories, while still being comfortably familiar in terms of its core experience. all based, of course, on the Narrative that has been formed by following that Specific order. sure, it means the design can take a year instead of 3 months to create, but the overall result is a better designed gamplay experience with a FULLY fleshed out, intriquing, and beautifully Exposed story with no need for 15 minuites of exposition just before the end like in so many modern titles.

at least, thats what i think works for me personally.

TDS.







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