Storytelling

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Storytelling

• Game Design
• Vishnu Kotrajaras, PhD

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Designers story

• Many game has one predetermined story
• Story told with cut scene
• Some game allows simple branching
• But they are usually limited, and predetermined
  by the programmer anyway

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Players story

• Mini story unique to the player, of how he won
  that level
• The idea is to merge designers story and
  players story into one
• Allowing what player does to have impact on the
  main story
• Dungeon and dragons
• Dungeon master leads the game and telling the
  story as it happens, but he adds things according
  to what player does
• Neverwinter Nights
• Computer cant do this, so we have to anticipate
  what players can do
• Do your best, you cant come up with every
  possibility anyway

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Dungeon Dragons and d20 game
www.privateerpress.com
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www.wizards.com/dnd
monsters
items
Armors weapons
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Neverwinter Nights
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Places for storytelling

• Out-of-game
• In-game
• External materials

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Out-of-game storytelling

• The player is not playing when the story is told,
  such as
• cut-scenes cinematic techniques
• Text briefing before mission
• Images
• Map (Zelda, a link to the past)
• suggestion of a next challenge
• recap of what the player has achieved
• Comic book style
• Audio
• Together with document or mission briefing
  (X-Wing)
• Can save budget for cut-scene

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Zelda shows map guide before each journey
Admiral Ackbar briefs you in X-wing
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X-wing versus Tie fighter text briefing
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• But dont let it interrupt gameplay (players want
  to play)
• The 7th Quest (or any FMV game is a good example
  of FMVs failure because of using it too much)

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Designing cut scenes

• Consistent visuals between cut-scene and gameplay
• Many games use the same graphic engine for
  cut-scene and gameplay
• Pac-Man
• Karateka
• Zelda (2D and 3D)
• Metal Gear Solid

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• Games that dont use the same graphic engine in
  cut scenes
• Command Conquer
• Cut scenes between levels, but uses live actors.
  So it looks very different from the in-game
  environments
• Mechwarrior 2, Centipede 3D, Final Fantasy VII
• Super-high polygon, pre-rendered 3D (much more
  beautiful)
• Disjointed visual experience! This reminds player
  that this is a game!

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Mechwarrior 2 cut-scene
Mechwarrior 2 real game
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Centipede (PS) real game
Centipede (PS) cut-scene
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FFVII screenshots and cut scenes
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• Remember, cut scene is for single player to
  experience
• Therefore it is not like watching a film in a
  cinema
• So it must be like reading a book if possible
• Player must have freedom to stop, read text with
  her own pace, or re-watch cut scene

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Designing cut scenes

• Early final fantasy None (bad)
• Players have to hack to watch the movie file
• Final Fantasy X, X-2
• Cant re-watch cut scene right away, but can do
  later at a movie location
• Cinema experience when first watch (cant rewind
  but can pause if you want)
• But allows freedom of watching eventually

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FFX now graphics are almost the same for cut
scenes and normal scenes
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• The Last Express
• Egg save allows players to go back and re-watch
  cut scene at any time
• Damage Incorporated
• Interactive mission briefing
• Can flip back and forth between images and
  documents
• Pause, rewind, fast forward spoken dialog

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Damage Incorporated
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• What about skipping cut scenes?
• Necessary, since players may have played many
  times and will get bored if he is unable to skip
• The best is to allow skipping forward and back
  within the cut scenes,
• Especially for very long ones
• but this is quite rare at the moment

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Cut-scene examples

• Most famous Final Fantasy
• Tekken, what?
• Cut scene before the gameplay and after finishing
  the game with one character
• Characters do not show personalities during
  gameplay
• Arenas have noting to do with the story
• Why have a story at all? (yes, reward cut scene
  for finishing the game)

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Cut scene from Tekken 4
Tekken 5
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In-Game storytelling

• Story occurring while playing
• Setting configurations
• Choosing conversations
• Pre-mission planning
• Half-Life has only in-game storytelling
• Chat
• Announcement on PA
• NPC behavior
• Command Conquer
• In-game storytelling in mission design
• Otherwise, cut scenes
• Soul Edge
• Players have some control for the story at the
  end (mixing in-game and out-of-game)

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Soul Calibur 2
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Techniques for in-game storytelling

• Text
• Signs, notes, books that players can read
• Graffiti on the wall
• Level settings
• Centipede garden
• Monopoly real estate
• RPG Scene can tell about inhabitant of an area,
  including the areas past
• Advent children (not a game, but good example)

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FFVII Advent Children
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Techniques for in-game storytelling (2)

• Dialog
• Conversation with NPC
• Items in the game PC terminal, PA systems, tape

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Phoenix Wright
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• NPC behavior
• Two people that hate each other will argue
• NPC in a peaceful village may flee when seeing
  our weapons
• In a hostile town, NPC may attack players who
  draw swords, demanding players to give up weapons
• NPC may interact with other NPCs in various ways

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• Marathon
• Lots of computer terminals
• Reveals more plots
• Objective of current level
• But the game is still active
• Player can be attacked while sitting at a
  terminal
• Keep tension of real-time
• Yes, player can control the reading speed and
  choose the page he wants to read

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• Damage Incorporated
• Dialog
• Response to players order
• Comment about mission
• Response to players performance
• Different teammates react differently
• Behavior
• Rebel against player when they do not agree

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Will player miss the story, if its in-game?

• Player may not have chance of talking to some
  character, or witnessing some events
• Dont worry, its the players responsibility to
  seek the complete story elements

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External materials

• Introduction written in the manual
• Back-story
• Map
• Often used for games with limited hardware (old
  games)
• Arcade
• Written out on the cabinet
• Infocom games always come with extra documents
• Some time the extra materials are needed to
  complete a puzzle (not good in term of gameplay
  though)

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Infocom text adventures
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External materials used today

• We dont need storytelling in the manual anymore
• Technology is better today
• It distracts from gameplay
• but extra materials to the game world is welcomed

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Linear story?

• Screenwriter and novelist
• Not good for non-linear storytelling because they
  only know how to create one-track story
• Movie-like nonlinearity, because they will delete
  non-narrative path
• But we need various paths, even not-so-narrative
  ones.
• Player story is more important than designers
  story
• Glory of film maker
• Some game designer wants it
• Long cut scenes -gt failure as a game

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Character personality

• Player character needs a distinct look
• But little personality
• Because players want to play as themselves
• Mario
• Lara Croft
• too strong character will make a player feel that
  she is not in control
• Player character keeps repeating irritating
  dialog
• Some popular characters are exceptions!

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An exception!
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Tomb Raider angel of darkness
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NPC personality

• On the other hand, NPC needs to have memorable
  personality
• If player is annoyed by an NPC
• Its actually not bad
• It means the NPC has enough personality
• Sephiroth vs Ultimacia, the opposite
• Yuffie (\_/), Rikku (_)
• Oaka (do you want to visit him?)

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Writing story

• Should worry about situations that player can
  interact with game world
• If characters and situations are good, then the
  story does not really matter
• But its even better with a good story
• Just dont overdo telling story
• Only give players what he needs to continue
• The rest, player will figure it out, or fill it
  with their own imagination
• Final Fantasy VII ending

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Overdoing the story

• Star wars
• The force, mysterious power in all beings
• It doesnt need an explanation
• Episode 1, Mediclorian. What the hell?

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Underdoing the story

• Too many unexplained things
• Or does not explain important points
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Time compression? No explanation? And no clear
  picture in our head how it would benefit
  Ultimacia
• Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions
• Hard-to-understand dialogs
• Where are the henchmen from Matrix 2 in Matrix 3?
• Why does Neo have power out of Matrix? (this is
  totally impossible, and actually destroys my
  belief of The Matrix)

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Non-Linear writing

• use in-game storytelling when possible
• It forces us to think in non-linear term
• Branching story
• Player chooses order of the story components
• Maybe only the first and final chapters need to
  be in order

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Working with the gameplay

• Do not contradict gameplay and technology with
  story
• See the environments you are working in
• Think of the most interesting content possible
  for that environment
• Example
• Know that we will have team mates in FPS
• then think about each team mate personality,
  their reaction when comrades are killed, what
  kind of person each one is
• Ideas come out of limitations, gameplay, and
  technology available

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Beware of marketing people

• They want complex story
• Easier to put in advertisements than game play
• They want strong personality character
• So they can sell action figures
• But great games must allow player to tell their
  own story
• Sim city
• Civilization

No pre-made or complex story at all
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Story Tip 1Create a Conflict!

• No conflict, no story.
• Conflicts are interesting.
• Keep it simple.

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Story Tip 2Put the story to work!

• Shape it to meet your needs! Story is more
  flexible than gameplay.
• 3DO story
• Gravity Gun
• Use clichés when they can help you!
• Examples?

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Story Tip 3Use Simplicity and Transcendence!

• Medieval
• Futuristic
• War
• Modern

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Story Tip 4Keep your story world consistent!
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Jumping the Shark
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Jumping the Shark

• Same Character, Different Actor
• Birth Death
• Ted McGinley
• Puberty
• Singing
• Live!
• I Do
• They Did It

• The Movie
• Moving
• Special Guest Star
• A Very Special...
• New Kid In Town
• Hair Care
• Exit...Stage Left
• Graduation
• Color

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Story Tip 5

• Make your story world accessible!

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Finding preferred narratives

• Exp 1
• 12 students (age 20-23, played 10 or more games
  in the past, selected from 70 final year
  multimedia students ) played 4 adventure games
  individually.
• Broken Sword 2 The Smoking Mirror
• Ecstatica 2
• Discworld 2 Missing Presumed
• The Curse of Monkey Island
• Analyzed their responses to those games in 5
  small group sessions (group size 3,2,2,3,2).

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Broken Sword
Ecstatica
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Discworld II Mortality Bytes
Monkey Island
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• Exp2
• Inviting all 1st year management students.
• Selected by gender, gameplay exp., and earliest
  response.
• Four sessions 3,2,4 and 4 participants, playing
  individually before joining discussions.
• Play for a few hours.
• Gothic, Might and Magic IX, Morrowind
• Propositions from exp1 were debated.

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Gothic
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Might Magic IX
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Morrowind
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Like

• Social/Psychological traits in the story
• Trust, suspicion, anger, rudeness, goodness,
  badness
• Player likes to be able to choose how to respond
  to questions (polite, rude, angry, etc)
• And they like it even more if has a subsequent
  effect on a story.
• Gothic people go around asking what you are
  doing.
• Background/character story interspersed with play
  activities
• Morrowind too long speech, not good.
• Broken Sword Every time you click on an object,
  itll give you a little bit of story. You build
  the story yourself. D
• Gothic you only get the info you need.

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Like2

• Long term character memory
• Morrowind NPC talks the same all the time.
• Broken Sword NPC changes what he/she talks every
  time.
• GTA gangsters try to kill you after you betray
  them.
• Gothic meeting guards, they remember they met
  you before.
• 1st they warned you that theyd kill you.
• If you go up to them again, they will really do
  it.
• Gothic enemies follow you all the way.
• Combat that arise from players own aggressive
  behaviour
• Might and Magic enemies attack you the same at
  the same location, not good.
• Control in navigation
• M M only 1 path, not good.
• Gothic many choices D

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Like3

• Choices to be limited
• A story to be episodic and directed.
• Difficult level can be opened for access, but the
  player will choose not to go there until they are
  ready.
• This keeps the story linear, but also gives the
  player the feeling that its his choice not to go
  there.
• Not allow to leave certain areas unless players
  obtain necessary resources.
• So that the player do not have to come back after
  progressing for many hours.
• NPC to direct him to another NPC. Otherwise the
  player will get bored, not doing what the story
  is focusing.
• A game that maintains the degree of the
  illusion of freedom of choice.

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Dont like

• NPC talking too much
• Discworld NPCs talk too much about themselves
  (too much background), without giving direction.

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Illusion of choice that player wants

• Different paths in traveling.
• Different speeches.
• Different items and equipments.
• Side quests
• Baldurs Gate
• FF
• Offering earned clues when a player gets stuck.
• Allowing different ways of solving problems.
• Different elements in fighting monsters in FF,
  but players dont need to use it.
• Buy your way into a castle, or smuggle your way
  in.

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Tools and techniques

• Façade
• IDTension
• Planning (LISP) using intention parameter
• http//people.ict.usc.edu/riedl/pubs/dissertation
  .pdf