GAME WRITING INTERACTIVE NARRATIVEINTERACTIVE STORYTELLING

marcin.sarnek@us.edu.plhttp://prac.us.edu.pl/~marcin.sarnek

Defining ‘game writing’

Story / Game story / Game Story / Plot Story / Plot ≠ Gameplay! Story / Plot ≠ Storytelling ≠ Narrative Game Narrative ≠ Gameplay ≠ Game

story Interactive Narrative ≠ Interactive

storytelling

Purposes of Game Writing

Purposes of game writing should be – at the end of the day – the same as the purposes of game development? Immersion Reward Identification Flow Fiero moment

In other words – the purposes of game writing are to deliver / create / facilitate the above through writing.

Game Writing Tasks

Game story Game world design Character design Backstory Supporting texts Cutscenes / scripted events Dialogue writing (in cut scenes, in scripted

events and in-game dialogues) Game artifacts Asset design

Plot

Aristotle’s Poetics Plot – a sequence of meaningful events Plot unfolds as a result of a conlfict

Internal or external conflict experienced by the main character

Freytag’s Triangle

Peripetia / climax

Diesis

/ ty

ing

Lusis / resolution /

denoument

Aristotle’s STORY ARC on the Freytag’s Triangle

Morphology of the Folktale

Vladimir Propp, „Morphology of the Folktale”, 1928 (English translation 1958). a founding text of structuralism 31 functions within folktales 8 character types

The hero or victim False hero The villain The dispatcher The (magical) helper The donor The princess or prize Her father

Morphology of the Folktale – structural analysis Syntactic analysis – analysing a sequence

of events. Paradigmatic analysis – seeking structure

of the work which does not need to be the same as the syntactic structure.

Synchronic analysis – anylizing (and intepreting) the work / the plot as a sequence of events.

Diachronic analysis – analyzing (and intepreting) the work as a whole.

The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Cambell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949.

Influenced by C. G. Jung collective unconsciousness / archetypes

common patterns found in numerous stories from around the world

The Hero’s Journey

Cambell’s model of the Hero’s Journey on the Freytag’s Triangle

Departure

Initiation Return

Supreme Ordeal

Ordinary

world

Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Mentor appears

The Threshold

Threshold Demon / Guardian

The Road of

Trials

Allies /

Enemies

Inmost Cave

The Road B

ack

Resurection

Special

World

Returns with Elixir

Three Act Screenplay model

One page = one minute Act One

Set up (exposition) – mood, tone, main character First Plot Point

Act Two Mid Point – Main reversal / change/

intensification Plot Point Two (Climax)

Act Three denoument

Three Act Screenplay Model

Act One

Act Two

Act T

hre

ePlot Point One

Mid Point

Plot Point Two

Cambell’s model of the Hero’s Journey on the Freytag’s Triangle

Departure

Initiation Return

Supreme Ordeal

Ordinary

world

Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Mentor appears

The Threshold

Threshold Demon / Guardian

The Road of

Trials

Allies /

Enemies

Inmost Cave

The Road B

ack

Resurection

Special

World

Returns with Elixir

Campbell’s character models (supposedly) based on Jungian

archetypes The Mentor The Threshold Guardian The Trickster The Herald The Shapeshifter The Shadow etc.

The significance of the Hero’s Journey A scholarly (although heavily critisized)

text is read as a manual for storytelling Consequence – a storytelling trap. Think Star Wars again. Campbell’s model simplified:

Hero gets in trouble. Hero gets out of trouble. (Kurt Vonnegut)

Aristotle’s Poetics: the remaining elements of the story Theme / Thought

Motivations, cogitations of the main character Internal monologue, soliloquis THE WHY?

Medium (Diction / Pattern) Language used THE HOW?

Spectacle Setting Set Special Effects

Story vs. Narrative

Story: plot – sequence of events, set to motion and driven by characters in a fictional space

Narrative: all methods used to communicate the story to the audience

In other words: Changes in narrative do not change the story

YET The same story (the same plot) + different

spectacle = different narrative The same narrative methods (similar

spectacles) do not create the same stories Think game genres…

Videogame storytelling: basic (theoretical) delivery methods Not TYPES (genres) of games but delivery

methods.

Story develops in direct RESPONSE to player action B happens BECAUSE player did A

OR Story develops partiallly in response to player

action (for example in striclty linear games) B happens AFTER player did A

OR Story develops irrespective of player action.

B happens anyway, it’s just a matter of time…

Videogame storytelling – a nice optimistic theory

Implicit NarrativeFormal Narrative Interactive Narrative Interactive Story

Implicit Narrative

Emergent NarrativeA powerful device (if you can master it) On a certain, level narrative (and hence

storytelling) happens due to cause and effect connections created by the audience (reader, moviegoer, player). Thus, stories are developed by inventing connections between actions / events.

Reader’s response theory (post-structuralism) explains it SO MUCH BETTER.

Implicit Narrative

Interaction of elements within game system to develop events which may be interpreted as story – results that are IMPLICIT to the game system.

In game-space narrative elements are NOT SCRIPTED formally, but happen nonetheless.

How to control prescripted events – well, it’s realtively easy

How to control non-prescripted events???

Implicit narrative makes the player experience unique (high-level narrative vs. low level narrative)

Formal Narrative

Prescripted methods Diegetic:

NPC dialogue Scripted events Artifacts (text files) Splash screens, etc. Cut scenes / cinematics

Nondiegetic elements of the narrative ‘Prescripted’ does not mean non-

interactive’ – all of these can be triggered in response to player action – that’s how Interactive Narrative is created

Interactive Narrative

Implicit narrative combined with Formal narrative methods Player’s actions are ‘echoed’ in the

narrative as often as possible Creates an illusion (?) of Player Agency

E.g. : responses to player success or failure responses to other in-game actions

Interactive Story

Player actions have consequences upon the STORY, not only upon the NARRATIVE

So – not only HOW the story gets ‘told’ (communicated) is interactive (responsive to player actions) but also WHAT is communicated, on the PARADIGMATIC LEVEL, is responsive to player actions

Player Agency no longer an illusion? (well, not quite)

IS IT AT ALL POSSIBLE? IF NOT – WHY? Budgets (multiple storylines need to be developed –

more on this in the future lectures) OTHER REASONS?

So how is game story delivered?Narrative deliveryGame structureProgress structureStucture of the story itself (plot)

Player Agency

Narrative delivery

TextDialogueStatic imagesCamera casesCut Scenes (in-engine/ scripted or FMV)

Scripted events

Game structure

Well, things are (or should be) getting interesting here

How to structure the game to actualy deliver a story? Well, it seems to be relatively simple with

strictly linear games Well – it isn’t! Just one example: how to control the

pacing of the game to deliver the story?

Progress structure

How and in what conditions major developments in the game story are ‘allowed’

Four major models: Linear Continous Domain Contigous

Linear progress structure

Linear series of game levels Story is parallel to gameplay Narrative delivery of choice:

Cutscenes between the levels (reward) Mission briefings, In game texts, etc.

Continous Progress Structure Game progress is linear Yet no conceptual breaks between game

areas ‘A single journey’ Reverse movement allowed! Usually no cut scenes (why?) Narartive material presented ‘live’ – possibly

in prescripted form (scripted events) Players often do not need to ‘participate’ in the

narrative (think Half-Life) Or in triggered events

Players need to participate in the narrative, and can only select to skip its parts

Domain Progress Structure

A central hub, from which the player ‘operates’ Upon completion of a task new domains are

open Players may chose to revisit domains This means that narrative material must be

presented selectively, but certainly (no need to present redundant narrative material to the player who has previously completed the level).

Also – if revisits are expected – alteranative versions of dialogue are also expected from the writer

Contiguous Progress Structure The illusion of a complete, explorable

world Movement allowed in all directions Contigous structures can use domain

structure elements (think TES IV:Oblivion, TES V: Skyrim)