Week 1 - What is Writing for Games?

What is writing for games?

Module and Learning Space overview

Topics covered

Assignments

Lets start idea generating!

Week 2 - Story Mechanics

Readings For the Week:

Game for the Week - Florence

Available on:

Steam

Mac

IOS App Store

Google Play

Nintendo Switch

GOG

Articles for the Week

Designing Florence to convey the ineffable feeling of being in love By Phill Cameron

Narrative Game Mechanics in Interactive Storytelling by Teun Dubbelman

Weaving morality into game mechanics with Papers, Please by Nick Christophi

That Dragon, Cancer: A game that wrestles with grief, hope, and faith by Sam Machkovech

How What Remains Of Edith Finch guides players with words by Alex Wiltshire

Medium

"We often assume that stories told in one medium are intrinsically inferior to those told in another." (Murray, 1997 Pg.273) - Or, everyone hates the next generation...

The Epics (grand poems)

Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus - Legit.... why?

THE DREADED CANON

Novels/Short Story

Did people respect these at first?

Spoiler: NOPE

Why???

Novels & Short Stories were for 'weak minded-women' who couldn't cope with the Latin Epics

Silent Film

POISONED THE MIND OF THE YOUTHS

‘The Talkies’

TOOK AWAY FROM THE TRUE STYLE OF CINEMA

Video Games

POISONED THE MIND OF THE YOUTHS

.... Starting to see a pattern here?

"We need every available form of expression and all the new ones we can to help us understand who we are an what we are ding here." (Murray, 1997 Pg.274)

Topic of the Week: STORY MECHANICS

Narrative in Games

Ludo Vs. Narrative

In the past there was a real debate over whether story/mechanics should be 'most important' in a game.

Could they co-exist?

Could they co-exist successfully?

Traditional Narrative

Telling somebody else that something happened’ (Ryan, 2004, Pg.13)

What's needed to 'tell' somebody about something happening?

A 'Narratee'

What is the weakness of tell?

Narrative as a Mental Construct

David Herman & David Bordwell - Cognitive Narratology

‘Narrative is a mental image 'a cognitive construct' built by the interpreter as a response to the text [...] But it does not take a representation proposed as narrative to trigger the cognitive construct that constitutes narrativity’ (Ryan, 2004 pg. 9-10)

The Human mind is 'programmed' to think in stories, we 'construct' a sequence.

A Narrative Schema

It's how we make sense of the world, an adaptation of humanity.

“Adaptiveness derives from the capacity of the human mind to build a store of experience in terms of individual, concrete cases—not just the actual lived and self-described experiences…but the narratives accumulated in memory that make up storytelling traditions” (Dutton 2009, 189).

E.g. 'The Angry Bear'

Environmental Storytelling & Narrative Architecture

Where does environmental storytelling as an idea come from?

'Environmental storytelling is a concept borrowed from theme park design' (Fernandez-Vara, 2011)

‘In many respects, it is the physical space that does much of the work of conveying the story the designers are trying to tell. Colour, lighting and even the texture of a place can fill an audience with excitement or dread.’ (Carson, 2000 Pg. 2)

E.g., The Haunted Masion

Game Mechanics

Mechanics - "Means to guide the player into particular behaviour by constraining the space of possible plans to attain goals" (Järvinen 2008: pg.254)

Mechanics - ‘Game mechanics are methods [behaviours] invoked by agents, designed for interaction with the game state’ [Sicart, 2008, Pg.23).

Essentially, anything you can do in the game whilst abiding by the game's rules.

Narrative Game Mechanics

'Narrative game mechanics invite agents, including the player, to perform actions that support the construction of engaging stories and fictional worlds in the embodied mind of the player.' (Dubbelman, 2016 Pg.43)

So, a narrative game mechanic is a ludic action the player is encouraged to perform to progress the story while giving them a sense of agency.

Developed by Mountains

About the life & first relationship of Florence Yeoh

What did you think about it? Take a few minutes to gather your thoughts.

What mechanics did you see? Or, which ones do you recall best? Hop into groups & make a list!

Interview with Ken Wong (Creative Director)

“We depict an event in their relationship quite literally, like choosing what objects to put on a shelf, or shaking Polaroids. These are simple, mundane activities, but they carry powerful associations for players.”

Player's 'take on' the role, i.e. have agency in progressing the story & feel more in-tune with Florence.

“Using speech bubble shapes as metaphors for dialogue was a powerful discovery, when we had to depict the characters arguing we revisited this metaphor, showing that the characters now talk to each other differently.”

Visual element of puzzle mechanic to convey emotion & tone - very clever

Solving a puzzle isn't just 'solving a puzzle' it's having a conversation, being a part of the conversation.

"Simplicity allows players to imagine more, and fill in the gaps"

What are they saying? Player's will infer.

This works great as a style in different genres & media too.

Music as voices

Each character was represented by an instrument

Florence - Piano

Krish - Cello

Matrix of Ideas

Filled in the first 24 in Wk.1

Now we'll expand!

Begin to fill in the 'Matrix of Forms', pulling first from your Matrix of Ideas

Basically you can fill in 24 of the 64 slots using those prompts

Then (if time) discuss in groups & see ways in which ideas can be combined

i.e. could your Racing Game ideas & Action (Horror) ideas somehow be combined?

Week 3 - Non-linear Story

Readings for the Week:

Game for the Week - Her Story

Articles for the Week

GDC Vault - Making 'Her Story' - Telling a Story Using The Player's Imagination

Make sure you are logged into your Falmouth library account to access this video. You may need to log in at the top right of the GDC Vault page and click for Falmouth access. If you have trouble, the YouTube link is below:

Nonlinear Game Narrative in Game writing: narrative skills for videogames

Please read chapter 4 for this week's seminar

Topic of the Week - NON-LINEAR STORY EXPLORATION

"Because they can"

Co-Writers of all games - The Players.

Players who love to push the boundaries of a game because you can.

Glitches

Story Progression

Look for the possible screw-ups & bugs and ways to progress through the game faster

Speedrunners, etc.

If you give players that freedom & the narrative isn't water-tight, they'll find out... and often share it on the internet for a good laugh.

So.... how to avoid this?

Get in the right mindset as a writer

Players aren't passive - they're active agents helping the narrative to unfold.

You can craft an ideal way for a your player-character to act, BUT!

This may not be how the player wants to move through the game.

e.g. Telltale Games’ Wolf Among Us (cause I know it well)

You can move through the entire game saying NOTHING. Very rarely making a dialogue choice.

The game still moves onward, Bigby Wolf WILL talk in several situations but at almost every point of dialogue choice you can have him remain silent.

Is this what the developers had in mind?

Likely not. But they needed to anticipate it might happen.

Make use of techniques previous game story writers have employed.

Story

Story often depends on structure. Structure works. We like structure, e.g.,

The Hero’s Journey

The Three Act Structure

Freytag’s Pyramid

The Narrative Structure of a Traditional Story (DeMarle, 2007 Pg.75)

"When designing a story, a writer comes up with a sequence of scenes and dialogues and unfolds consecutively in front of an audience." (DeMarle, 2007, Pg.74)

We (writers) do this so that by the end of the story, the climax, everything makes sense.

We know why the character is going to do what they'll do and how they'll do it. We expect the ending and are satisfied when the ending is what we expect.

But remember, satisfied doesn't always mean happy.

e.g. I was 'satisfied' when I watched 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales' and guess that Barbossa was going to die (he became a parent in a Disney movie)

But I was also bored since I saw it coming early in the film.

If we're good writers, our audience will be invested enough in our characters to celebrate or commiserate as the climax plays out.

In books, films, tv (mostly) & linear games, writers have complete control over this process.

In a non-linear game, players can explore, act with agency, chose different abilities, take different paths (without giving a hoothoot about what the writer wants)

So... how do we make sure a player reaches the climax of a non-linear game & ensure it'll make sense to them?

Techniques to Write a Non-Linear Story

Merge the Story & Game

Here are four story-game combinations (DeMarle, 2007 Pg.75-80)

Implicit Narrative

The story is in the player's mind

You can do so much, but the story never changes. e.g. Grand Theft Auto

Player can jump ahead, earn loads of money, BUT the MC will still complain about a desperate need for money during some cutscenes.

Being mugged in Skyrim

Them: "Your money or your life!"

Me: Slayer of Dragons, Master of all the guilds, Master of Winterhold College: "... Sure."

Formal Narrative

A 'mostly' linear story

Break Game & Story apart - you interact with the game but the story isn't interactive and very static.

e.g. giving 'yes or no' answers but you can only chose yes.

Beating a boss only to have them beat you in a cutscene afterwards anyway

Often breaks immersion

Acceptable but has limits. If you're only telling the story through cutscenes... make a film.

"Wow that was an amazing opening cinematic sequence... I wish I could've done something in it."

Interactive Narrative

Exposition relates to player action (ludo success = narrative advancement.

You ‘Gate the Narrative’

Jak 2 did this

Used very often to stop 'open world' games being too 'open'

Other examples:

OP Enemies,

The location doesn't have events loaded in yet,

You need a 'certain item/skill' to get in etc.

My favourite one:

Pokemon Blue

In game

And the Meme

Interactive Story

The player's actions effect how the story goes.

Multiple pathways to multiple endings,

Detroit: Become Human

A risky but often rewarding technique, though difficult for smaller indie developers.

Leverage Player Experience

High Story & Immediate Story

High Story - Plot of game.

Pokémon

You travel around the world, beating all the gym leaders, stopping a criminal organisation from destroying/taking over the world & become the most powerful trainer in the land.

... You are also 10 years old.

Immediate Story - What we did in the game. This is what we usually talk about.

e.g., Pokémon Nuzlockes

A whole new narrative several YouTubers have taken advantage of bringing new love and attention to the franchise.

Eliminate Internal Inconsistencies

Plug all your story-holes

Identify the vehicles used to tell your story

Items - If you have models for them, use those too

Cutscenes

Dialogue

Environment

If you're part of a studio, talk to ALL the other departments

Layer the details

Use the importance scale: 1 to 6

1 - VITAL

Your father was murdered by the BBEG (Big Bad End Game)

6 - Fun Fact

Your Great Aunt Miranda liked to collect ribbons and had a pet cockapoo named Florence

Think 'modular'

Each time a player encounters a chunk of narrative they'll try and make sense of it. Remember we think in stories & structures.

We add the structure in & reorganise as more info is made available.

We'll even put up with things NOT making sense under the assumption it WILL down the line.

If it doesn't... then we RIOT

Her Story

Speaking of thinking modular....

How does Her Story interact with you?

How did you interact with Her Story?

Did the way you interact change the more you progressed?

Did you keep track of important modules?

Did any modules really stick with you? Why?

Where's the 'game’?

Week 4 - Branching Narrative

Readings for the Week:

Game for the Week - Firewatch by Campo Santo

Articles for the Week:

In This Remarkable Hit Video Game, the Biggest Adventure Is Having a Great Conversation by Laura Hudson

The past, present & future of interactive narrative storytelling: multi-branching narratives by Louis Alfieri

Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Radiator Blog: How To Tell A Story With A Video Game (even if you don't make or play games) by Robert Yang

Choice, Complicity and Consequence by Failbetter Games

GDC Vault - All Choice No Consequence: Efficiently Branching Narrative by Cassie Phillipps

Topic of the Week: BRANCHING NARRATIVE

Player Choice

“A game is a series of interesting choices." Sid Meier (Civilization's programmer, designer, and producer)

Failbetter Games

Makers of Fallen London (2009) & Sunless Skies (2019)

Divide 'Choice' into three parts:

"Choice is your experience immediately before a decision; complicity the experience of acting on that decision; and consequence the experience of what happens later." (Failbetter, 2012)

Choice

"Choice is that sense of fulcrum-shift you get when you consider a decision you care about. We normally think about emotional or moral choices (save her and let him die? dogs or cats?) but it can be strategic or mechanical choices (take the money or open the box? use that favour from the Don now or save it?) or personally expressive choices (Failbetter 2012)

Complicity

"Complicity is the experience of acting within the story. Again, the vogue is to think of this in terms of emotional or moral complicity (I’m letting him die! The look on his face -) – but it can equally be a vicarious thrill or a power fantasy (I paid big for that favour! and now I get to call it in…). Either way, it’s the experience of." (Failbetter 2012)

Remember Complicity is akin to Agency

If you felt the agency was lacking in a branching narrative style game the experience will be lesser.

Consequence

Consequence is the experience of watching events unfold. Sometimes, consequence is no more than the pay-off that stops choice feeling hollow (and now his children will go hungry), sometimes it’s the pleasure of the intricate ramifications of plot (and now the Don looks weak – so Tony’s making his move early – which means I have to get the gold out by tomorrow)." (Failbetter, 2012)

Paper's Please

Making money vs. being kind

Shadow of Mordor

Using the weaknesses of Orc Captain's against them

"Of the three, consequence is the most expensive – and it gets more expensive very quickly as you add more complexity. It’s also what people tend to think of as the key part of an interactive story, which is why so many RPGs trumpet the number of variant endings as a feature. But twenty variant endings aren’t ten times as good as two variant endings – not if the complicity you felt, and the choices you made, were poorly implemented." (Failbetter, 2012)

The Nine Types of Choices

The Hollow Choice

A choice that has almost no consequence on the rest of the player experience, usually based on pure preference or random selection. E.g. Forza Motorsport 6, where you customise your car.

The Obvious Choice

A choice in which there is technically no real decision being made. A lot of times, these might be implemented via the game’s level design. E.g. Batman Arkham Asylum, the game presents two paths but one is blocked by some kind of obstacle so the 'choice' has been made by the game.

The Uninformed Choice

A choice that may have an influence on the gaming experience, but the player has little to no information available to them to make an informed decision (on their first play-through). Their choice may matter in the future, but in the moment, they’ll make it based on random selection or personal preference. E.g Your starter in Pokémon

The Informed Choice

The Informed Choice will have influence on the gaming experience. However, the player has also been given the opportunity to learn a bit more about how the choices differ and how it might affect the trajectory of their game. E.g. Sid Meier’s Civilization V, where players are given the choice between dozens of starting civilizations, all of which have certain perks and bonuses unique to them.

The Dramatic Choice

Unlike the Informed Choice, which empowers the player to make a decision based on information, the Dramatic Choice empowers players to make their decision based on emotion. It’s easily one of the most narrative-based choices a player can be given in a video game. E.g. Making the choice to shoot Emily or just try and save Sam during the final confrontation.

The Weighted Choice

The Weighted Choice provides the player with a decision that will have consequences either way. The choice will certainly dictate how the game progresses, but it’s also riddled with its own set of distinct pros and cons. The player must choose which sacrifice is more worth it, in their opinion. E.g. Character deaths in Dragon Age or Fire Emblem

The Immediate Choice

As the name might suggest, an Immediate Choice provides players with instant feedback of their actions. Feedback of a game is directly tied to the satisfaction a player feels in participating, so the benefits of providing such feedback instantaneously are clear. E.g. Mass Effect - Paragon or Renegade

The Long-Term Choice

The Long-Term Choice is any decision the player makes that is not immediately felt. There is some form of delay in the feedback of this choice. E.g. Saving the Little Sister's in Bioshock

The Orthogonal Choice

The Orthogonal Choice is a decision the player makes that drastically changes the trajectory of the gameplay experience. Many choices in video games can seem like major decisions to make, but very few actually take the game into completely different directions. E.g. The Witcher 2: Assassins of King choosing to help either Lorveth and Roche having a profound effect on the storylines & gameplay of the game's second chapter.

Narrative Structure (For Branching Narratives)

Dramatic Structure

Successful dramatic structure ===> PLEASURE

Aristotle: good drama creates catharsis

Catharsis

Catharsis: release from pity and fear

Pity: identification with and/or empathy for the character

“A sympathetic character is not necessarily a pleasant character, but basically he or she is morally good” (Hiltunen 2002, 10).

Fear: concern over impending danger to the character

The writer’s job is to construct a character the audience pities within a structure that conveys impending danger.

The Branching Narrative Tree (also called The Time Cave)

Each option leads to new choices. These tend to have short play-throughs but encourage reply (think of them as broad games, rather than long ones). Even with multiple play-throughs, it's likely players will miss some of the content.

You need to consider the value of & the resources available to you when considering this path (a lot of work when some of it may never be seen/read)

Most importantly, how can you maintain your narrative impact, your dramatic tension, with so many different options?

Think back to high narrative, modular chunks and the 'value system' we talked about last week

The Gauntlet

Gauntlets have a relatively linear central thread with optional branching content that ends in death, backtracking or quick rejoining. If there are multiple endings, they most likely derive from a final choice.

Think how a structure that's long rather than broad creates an atmosphere of a hazardous, difficult or constrained world.

Here's an example:

The Quest

The Quest Structure forms distinct branches that tend to rejoin to reach a small number of endings.The narrative tends to be fragmented and episodic with chunks of story not having great significance for the main narrative.

Suited for journeys of exploration focused on setting. Often organised by geography rather than time. Good for consistent worlds where the character situation is constantly changing. E.g. MMOs.

The Open Map

A structure of multithreaded pathways where travel between nodes is reversible. The narrative tends to be slower paced and less directed. The player has more leisure to explore the world.

Often employed by larger games like GTA & the newer Assassin's Creed games.

The Loop & Grow

The game has a central thread that 'loops' around, over and over to the same point. Each time around new options may be unlocked and others closed off.

You have to justify WHY whole sections of your narrative can repeat. And, to what extent, a player will tolerate it. E.g. Groundhog Day/Time Travel

Silent Hill P.T. used this structure to increase horror

Hades used it to reflect increasing player resources and skill

The Hub & Spoke

The game has several major branches but they all originate at, and return to, a central node or set of nodes. Players may go out along each spoke once, or many times.

Games like Crash Bandicoot & Spyro used this structure.

Use the hub to your narrative advantage; think what can change to a higher or lesser degree as players explore more spokes.

The Foldback (Also known as 'The Branch and Bottleneck')

The game branches out, but these branches regularly rejoin, usually around events common to all versions of the story. These structures almost always rely on world-state tracking.

This style can allow the player-character to construct a distinctive storyline/personality, while still allowing for a manageable plot.

Works well in larger games, you need to have the time to construct player growth before showing it off at the bottleneck portions.

E.g. Skyrim - you'll do your optional quests between main storyline events so by the time you reach each one your player-character (and the player) aren't the same person they once were.

The World State

Tracking World State is an effective way to balance player agency with a dramatic arc.

Some examples of world state variables:

Skills

Personality

Morality

Status

Resources

NPC Relationships, etc.

Firewatch

How do Choice, Character, Story, Text & Visuals work together to create an interactive opening to Firewatch that sets up the core game experience?

Opening text game

What's your relationship to Henry (Hank) as a player?

How do you feel about the choices offered?

What impact do they have on your understanding of the player-character and the context?

All comes back to...

Play, don't tell:

“We needed to inject all this knowledge about Henry into every player in the first five to 10 minutes, so I made a [text] game where you played as him. Then I never had to tell you who he was, you could just feel who you wanted him to be.” Sean Vanaman, the writer of Firewatch.

Choice - Complicity - Consequence

You chose how you want Henry to respond, you become complicit in his choices and you suffer (or revel in) the consequences of your agency.

All done in those 5/10mins setting up Firewatch.

And then continued to build through his dialogue choices with Delilah.

Twine Game

Select one of your Game Concepts from the ideas generation exercises in weeks 1-3 (or indeed the concept you are going to develop for the module)

Now imagine it as a story-led branching narrative. If you were already thinking of using a branching narrative structure this will be easy.

If not re-imagining it might be tricky but it will help you to ask some important questions about your story.

Now create a branching narrative demo using Twin.

It's quite an intuitive platform and there are lots of resources to help you on the Learning Space.

You can also think about Twine as a tool for scripting a game, and creating a live script, rather than making a finished product.

Week 5 - Semiotics of Narrative & Game Scripts

Assessment 2: Portfolio - Due end of Wk.14 (Friday 9th January)

Resources available on Learning Space

Readings for the Week

Game of the week: Limbo

Articles of the Week:

Semiotics

Limbo: Balancing Fun and Frustration in Puzzle Design by Jeppe Carlsen

Videogame analysis: a social-semiotic approach by Óliver, Mercè & Reinald

Game Scripts

Video game storytelling : what every developer needs to know about narrative techniques by Evan Skolnick (Available Online)

'Adding Magic–The Voice Actors' and 'Dialogue Engines' in Game writing: narrative skills for videogames by Chris Bateman

Top 10 Worst Lines of Dialogue in Video Games (YouTube Video) by WatchMojo

Topic of the Week: SEMIOTICS OF NARRATIVE

Semiotics -Ferdinand de Saussure

A Swiss Linguist

CAT

What is this?

PIPE

And what is this?

Understanding & Interpretation

Thoughts = unshaped/undirected blobs

Sounds = unshaped/undirected blobs

Thoughts + Sound (+ Context) = Language

Context built from culture & language give meaning.

"The children's homework was to create a family tree with pictures, birthdates, and full names for the current Royal family."

"We took shade under the old oak tree, and Father commented that it seemed to be dying, and might not last the winter."

Think how we talk to pets.

There are a plethora of tools writers can employ utilising signs to create meaning...

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -Anton Chekhov