Thoughts on Critical Game Studies II

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Thoughts on Critical Game Studies II

• David Finkel
• Computer Science Department
• Interactive Media and Game Development

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Purpose of this talk

• Previously An overview of the Critical Game
  Studies course
• In this exciting episode A more detailed look at
  one of the topics in the course storytelling and
  games
• This topic might occupy one week of the course.

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Why stories?

• The role of stories in life. Why do we tell
  stories?
• A way of organizing our experiences
• To inform other people about our experiences
• To amuse other people
• To create a shared emotional experience

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My theory about storytelling

• In our brains visual system, we have a series of
  centers responsible for interpreting colors,
  objects, scenes.
• Similarly, I believe we have special brain
  centers for organizing events into stories.

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Storytelling and games

• Why do we have stories in games
• May have no story Tetris
• Or minimal stories Space Invaders
• To motivate the game play
• To create a more long-term interest than the
  game-play alone can create
• To provide an emotional experience
• To provide an experience different from our
  everyday lives

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The role of stories in games

• The backstory
• The story of the game
• Who is the storyteller?
• What is the role of the player in determining the
  narrative?
• The stories the players tell each other

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Backstory Examples

• Phantasy Star
• Warcarft III
• Max Payne

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Another classification(Shamelessly stolen from
Deans course description)

• Linear
• Branching
• Emergent
• Examples

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The rest of the presentation

• is intended to tell students about some
  specific approaches to constructing stories and
  to convince them that its worth learning
  something about how to create stories before
  starting to write their own stories.

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Sources

• Andrew Rollins and Ernest Adams on Game Design,
  Chapter 4
• Narrative A Critical Linguistic Introduction, by
  Michael J. Toolan
• While functions proper are distributional,
  sequential, completed further on in the story
  and so have a kind of syntagmatic ratification,
  indices are said to be integrational,
  hierarchically-oriented, realized by relating
  them to some higher, integrated level, a
  paradigmatic ratification.

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Approaches to story telling - 1

• One approach
• The monomyth / the heros journey
• Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
  (1949)
• Christopher Vogler A Practical Guide to the
  Heros Journey see handout

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Approaches to Story Telling - 2

• Propps analysis of the Russian fairytale
• 31 functions
• See handout
• Analysis of childs story

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Multipart-stories Series

• Different narrative formats for multi-part series
  (Terminology from Rollings and Adams)
• Series Story is broken into epsiodes, each of
  which resolves its own story line and also
  advances the overall theme.

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Multi-part stories - Serial

• Serial Episodes, but there are multiple
  overlapping story lines. Each episode advances
  one or more story lines. No overall story, so
  potentially infinitely many episodes.

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Story telling - Episodic

• Epsiodic Overall story line developed
  throughout, with tight integration between
  episodes and significant overlap of plot threads.

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Topics for class discussion

• Different styles of presenting back story, and
  why they might be appropriate for different
  games.
• For different games, identify the types /
  organization of the stories.
• For a new game, discuss the way to present the
  story.

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Thoughts on Critical Game Studies II

• David Finkel
• Computer Science Department
• Interactive Media and Game Development