Storytelling in Single Player Action Computer Games

The tools of the trade

W I L H E L M Ö S T E R B E R G

Master of Science Thesis Stockholm, Sweden 2007

Storytelling in Single Player Action Computer Games

The tools of the trade

W I L H E L M Ö S T E R B E R G

Master’s Thesis in Human Computer Interaction (20 credits) at the School of Media Technology Royal Institute of Technology year 2007 Supervisor at CSC was Björn Thuresson Examiner was Yngve Sundblad TRITA-CSC-E 2007:001 ISRN-KTH/CSC/E--07/001--SE ISSN-1653-5715 Royal Institute of Technology School of Computer Science and Communication KTH CSC SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden URL: www.csc.kth.se

Abstract

Storytelling in Single Player Action Computer Games –The Tools of the Trade

Stories have been told in computer games for as long as the games medium has existed. Theirquality has in most cases been poor, and the modes of storytelling used have been haphazard atbest; the story often even interfering with the gameplay experience. This has begun to change inrecent years, with new technology rapidly expanding the possibilities of the games medium andcomputer games reaching the mass-market and high profitability. Game development being a youngcraft and game storytelling even younger, there are still no acknowledged methods or systems forstorytelling in games however.

This Master Thesis examines the storytelling of games in the single player action genre bylooking at four representatives of the genre: Just Cause, Gun, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas andFable. First, eleven tools used for conveying story in games are identified and explained. These formthe toolbox available for constructing the story part of a game. Secondly, the four benefits of havingstories in games are defined, with the further discussion focusing on three of them: cohesiveness,motivation and immersion. Lastly, combined use of the tools for maximising the positive e!ects ofstory in the action genre is discussed and some practical suggestions are made.

These results are a first step towards a methodology for telling stories in computer games.Defining the objectives of stories in games is important for bringing an awareness of what thepurpose of a game’s story component is. Lining up the tools available tells us how we can reachthese objectives. This knowledge can act as a foundation for taking the craft of storytelling in gamesfurther in the future, bringing it from an intrinsic craft to a more conscious working methodology.

Sammanfattning

Berättande i actionspel – verktygen som användsLika länge som datorspel har existerat har också berättande funnits i dem. Kvaliteten på

berättandet har dock i de flesta fall varit låg och någon egentlig metod för hur det ska göras harinte funnits. I värsta fall har berättandet i spelen till och med stört själva spelandet. Under senareår har det här börjat förändras, framför allt tack vare att bättre datorer och spelens penetrationpå massmarknaden har gett helt nya tekniska och ekonomiska förutsättningar. Eftersom dator-spelsskapande (och särskilt berättande i datorspel) är ett ungt hantverk finns dock inga vedertagnametoder för berättande i spel.

I detta examensarbete undersöks berättande i genren actionspel för en spelare genom att fyrarepresentanter för genren har tittats på: Just Cause, Gun, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ochFable. För det första identifieras och förklaras elva verktyg för berättande i spel. Tillsammansutgör de den verktygslåda som finns tillgänglig för skapandet av berättelser i datorspelsmediet.För det andra definieras de fyra anledningarna att ha berättelser i spel. Av dessa diskuterassedan tre stycken vidare; jag kallar dem sammanhang [cohesiveness], motivation och immersion.Slutligen diskuteras hur verktygen kan användas tillsammans i den aktuella genren för att maximerafördelarna som tagits upp. Avslutningsvis förs också några förslag på praktiskt tillvägagångssättfram.

Resultatet av den här studien är ett första steg mot en metodik för att forma berättande ispel. Att definiera fördelarna med att ha berättelser i spel är mycket viktigt för att skapa enmedvetenhet kring vad själva syftet med berättelsekomponenten i spel är. Att sedan rada upp ochdefiniera verktygen som finns tillgängliga visar hur man kan nå detta syfte. Den här kunskapenkan fungera som en grund att stå på för att i framtiden ge det numera svårdefinierade arbetet medberättande i spel ett mer medvetet arbetssätt.

Contents

Contents

List of Figures

1 Introduction 11.1 Task Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1.1 A Note on the Evolution of Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3 Choice of Research Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 The Structure of this Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Background 62.1 Human-Computer Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.1.1 HCI and Computer Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.2 Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3 Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.4 Immersion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.5 Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.6 Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.6.1 Storytelling in Computer Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.6.2 A Note on the Interactive Nature of Storytelling . . . . . . . 15

2.7 Narratology Versus Ludology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 Method 183.1 Analysing Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.2 Playing the Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213.3 Literature Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.4 Interviews with Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.4.1 Interview Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233.5 Method Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4 Results 254.1 The Benefits of Storytelling in Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.2 Fable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.2.1 Fable’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294.3 GTA: San Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4.3.1 GTA: San Andreas’ Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304.4 Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4.4.1 Gun’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334.5 Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.5.1 Just Cause’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354.6 The Telling of Story in the Games Played . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

5 Analysis 405.1 The Eleven Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

5.1.1 Pre-Rendered Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415.1.2 In-Game Cutscenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415.1.3 Scripted Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425.1.4 Voice-over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425.1.5 Ambient Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425.1.6 Character Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435.1.7 Location Evolvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445.1.8 Interactive Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445.1.9 Storytelling Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455.1.10 Player Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455.1.11 Plain Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5.2 Using the Tools Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465.2.1 Tying Story to Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

5.3 Implementing Story in the Action-Arcade Genre . . . . . . . . . . . 505.4 Conclusions and Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Bibliography 53

Appendices 55

A Ludography 56

B Glossary 57

List of Figures

2.1 The cross-disciplinarity of HCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4.1 Screenshot from Fable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284.2 Screenshot from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314.3 Screenshot from Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324.4 Screenshot from Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

5.1 The strengths of the storytelling tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485.2 The tools’ suitability for tying story to gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter 1

Introduction

“Ah! Sweet freedom!” José Caramicas, San Esperito

As a play tester of Just Cause, I was faced with an enormous world full offreedom to act. Run or swim for hours, drive a huge number of vehicles or wreakmindless destruction on the island republic of San Esperito. However, all theseactions did not have much to tie them together. There were story missions, yes,but most of the play time was spent on roaming free on missions of my own design.The questions arose: Can nothing be done to make all these actions play a part inthe greater whole? Wouldn’t it be great if my two hours of hunting down corruptsoldiers had an impact on the story and the next mission?

There are a great many games that have taken the story-part one or many stepsfurther, especially in the RPG genre. It has to be noted, though, that Just Causeand games like Just Cause are action games – the player doesn’t expect and doesn’twant a massive plot with branching storylines, dramatic choices galore and cherrieson top. As it is now, the story is there just because that is what the player expects:A minor component that doesn’t interfere with the action-packed gameplay toomuch. So what’s the problem? It is that this is far too obvious. The action genrehas a tradition of detached stories that are there just because “the game must havea story”. This perspective can be represented by a quote from the almost legendarygame programmer and designer John Carmack:

Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there,but it’s not that important.

Rather than being satisfied with this quite sad attitude towards storytelling ingames, I would like to ask: Now that we have a story, how can we use it for actuallyenhancing the gameplay experience?

1.1 Task DefinitionTwo opposing groups have been identified in the research on games as storytellingmedia: the Ludologists, who want to see the focus shift onto the mechanics of

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game play, and the Narratologists, who are interested in studying games alongsideother storytelling media.1[18] This debate seems to focus on computer games asone homogeneous group and whole games being narratives or not. I representanother point of view, choosing not to side with any of the two mentioned groups,but instead claiming their argument irrelevant. (As we will see, most researchersseem to claim this middle ground, leading to the questioning of the very existenceof this debate.[11]) Trying to define fundamental truths on narrative in interactiveentertainment (as has been done with some success in traditional storytelling media)is pointless and futile, as the games medium is infinitely more heterogeneous thancinema or literature. The di!erence in dramaturgy between an action flick and highdrama can be seen as mere nuances, while the dramaturgy employed in an RPGand a puzzle game must be fundamentally di!erent by the nature of their respectivegenres.

One example of the nonsense that emerges when the holistic approach is em-ployed is Jesper Juul’s article “Games telling stories?”. Juul’s argument is basedon the assumption that games can be handled as one homogeneous group, usingexamples like Tetris to prove his points on the discrepancies between cinema andcomputer games as narrative media.[21]

Each serious attempt at defining or discussing narrative in games has to be donewith respect to genre di!erences. This thesis discusses the Singleplayer StorydrivenAction Games genre. Well-known games in this genre are the Grand Theft Autoseries and Halo.

1.1.1 A Note on the Evolution of GamesNot only the genre must be taken into consideration when discussing narrativein games. A somewhat obvious factor is when the game was made. Using oldergames in discussions on narrative in games is not at all advisable, perhaps withthe exception of orientational sections on the evolution of games. Analysing oldgames for any other purpose is less than advisable in a medium evolving as fast ascomputer games. For example, using a game like Missile Command (released 1981),as Juul does[21], to prove anything in this field is as silly as using slapstick moviesfrom the twenties to fuel arguments of the impossibility of dialogue in cinema.

The rapid development of games in the last few years have given developersnew tools in incorporating a story into their games. Older games, on the otherhand, were forced to rely on the player-created stories, i.e. from the developer’sperspective no stories at all. More on this in chapter 2.

1.2 ThesisStories can be said to have been told in computer games since the first roundof Tennis for Two was played on an oscilloscope in the fifties. The question of

1More on this can be found in chapter 2.

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computer games as a storytelling medium on the other hand has evolved over thelast few years. As we have seen, there is even still some controversy as to computergames even being a storytelling medium. If games are narratives per se or not ismore a question of word definitions than anything else and is outside the scope ofthis thesis.

Regardless of games being narratives or not, I believe we can all agree thatstories are told in the context of computer games.2 (Thankfully, the stories aregetting better too!)

When working with storytelling in games, two separate areas can be identified.First, the storytelling in itself: the written story and the way it is told, di!erentareas being plot, characters, dramaturgy and so on. This part could be retold as,or transformed into, a written story or a film. The second area is the story’s tiesto gameplay and player actions. This includes the techniques and methods used totell the story and to forge story and gameplay together into one media experience.A simple and common way of doing this is to begin with a cutscene telling theplayer what to do, followed by a play session (with the player performing somesort of mission or task related to the story conveyed in the cutscenes) with anothercutscene displayed as a reward upon the successful completion of the mission ortask. This is then repeated a number of times until the game is completed.

When trying to create a game, both these areas are equally important. Failureto tell the story in the “right” way naturally makes it unsuccessful, just as in anymovie. On the other hand, telling the story using all the finesse available stillamounts to nothing if you do not manage to relate it to the actual gameplay. Thisis by nature an issue that emerges only in interactive media, i.e. games.

This thesis focuses on the second area discussed above: How to tie the story tothe actual gameplay. Specifically, I am looking at what techniques or methods areused to convey story in games and how to tie story to gameplay in the sub genresingleplayer free roaming action games. I do this through three steps:

1. Define in what ways the story can contribute to a game in the current genre

2. Identify the methods or tools that are used to tell stories in games

3. Investigate in what ways these methods or tools can be used to forge storyand gameplay together and to maximise the positive e!ects found in (1).

1.3 Choice of Research SubjectAs each genre has its own demands on the story component, each genre needs toutilise a set of techniques specific to that genre when tying story and gameplaytogether. There may also be some techniques that are more of a general character

2When discussing stories told, I refer not only to stories created by the game developers andtold during the playing of the game, but also the stories emerging from the gameplay itself (as inTennis for Two). This distinction is discussed further in chapter 2.

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and not specifically tied to a given genre. In this thesis, I am investigating theimplementation of story in four di!erent games: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,Gun, Fable and Just Cause, each studied for a specific reason.

There are many singleplayer story driven action games, but when looking atgames including a storyline combined with a strong or dominant portion of free-roaming gameplay, the field narrows considerably, with the GTA series and JustCause emerging as interesting representatives of the genre. Several RPGs have asimilar structure, but with one important di!erence: The story plays a much largerpart in the gaming experience. This calls for another approach when tying story togameplay, one that allows the story to interfere with the action more. (One sign ofthis lower pace in RPGs is that they often have turn-based or round-based combat.)Just Cause serves as the obvious basis for discussion, as the purpose of this thesisis to improve the story’s ties to gameplay and to maximise the positive e!ects ofstory in games like Just Cause.

With the di!erence between genres being imperative in this area, I believe thatGTA: San Andreas is a very interesting research subject, even though there are othergames more renown for their story implementations. It is also suitable as it is highlyrecommended and praised by game critics and seen as one of the best games in thegenre by the players. (The PS2 version receiving an average score of 9.5 out of 10 in152 di!erent game magazines/sites.[13]) Showing a successful combination betweena strong story and sandbox gameplay makes the game especially interesting.

I have also played the famous single player action RPG Fable designed by PeterMolyneux (lauded as one of the world’s most brilliant and inventive game devel-opers), mainly to look at its strong character development component. Fable alsoemploys an unusually large number of storytelling tools3 which makes it especiallyinteresting when looking at the usage of, and strengths and weaknesses of, the tools.

Finally, Gun has been investigated, mainly for its cinema-like storytelling. Eventhough it belongs to the same genre as Just Cause, its free roaming component isvery much in the background, with a highly linear gameplay closely tied to the storydominating most of the game. This use of another style of storytelling makes Gunan important complement to the other games played.

All four games being fairly recent is of course also a plus as we have noted thatthere is not much point in looking at old games and old problems that have alreadybeen solved or bypassed.

This work has been done at Avalanche Studios, with the gracious support of itsemployees and owners. Avalanche Studios is with 65 employees Sweden’s secondlargest game studio, located at Medborgarplatsen in central Stockholm. Foundedby Linus Blomberg and Christo!er Sundberg in 2003, the studio has now finishedits first game, the multi-platform title Just Cause.

3See chapter four for a list of the storytelling tools found in computer games

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1.4 The Structure of this ThesisThis thesis is organised into six chapters of which this introductory chapter is thefirst. There is much weight on the Background chapter, as much of the analysis isbased on existing research on the subject. This previous research covered in Chaptertwo works as a deeper introduction to the specific area investigated and outlines theconcepts important for the understanding of the following chapters. Chapter threedescribes and discusses game analysis and the method used. Findings from theinvestigation of four critically acclaimed, and more or less commercially successful,games can be found in chapter four. Here, each game and its story is presentedin a section of its own, with explanations of important features and considerationsrelevant for the analysis. The results from the first two tasks are also coveredin chapter four, laying the foundation for handling the third task in chapter five,where the background knowledge and the findings from the games played are forgedtogether in a discussion about the main question posed above. Ending this chapteris a summary and the conclusions of the entire work, together with suggestions forfuture research.

In an area developing as fast as computer games, new words and concepts springup all the time. Also, existing words are constantly re-used in new ways and getnew meanings. Therefore there is a small glossary in the appendix, explaining wordsand acronyms (like RPG and NPC) that are used in the text. Please note that themeanings I assign to them might not be the only correct ones, but are sometimesrather defining the way I am using the words here.

A last note: Throughout the text I have chosen to refer to the player as “he”instead of “he or she” for readability purposes.

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Chapter 2

Background

I have found that the available literature on the subject of this thesis is expandingrapidly to say the least. When reading up on it though, it becomes obvious thatthere really isn’t much common ground to stand on so far. Almost every articlehas a perspective of its own, with academics and industry representatives formingtwo loose groups with completely di!erent approaches. The academics struggle tomake science of this emerging field, preferably a science as exact as possible. Thiscreates very narrow papers focusing on specific aspects of storytelling, so far mainlydevoted to definitions and distinctions. Those writing from the business perspectivenaturally do not see it as a new field, but rather a craft they have developed andrefined during a course of years. This leads to a more hands-on approach withmany how-to tips. However, it is evident that there is an empty space where thetheoretical backing should have been. This is where the academic research cancontribute in a big way.1

In this chapter I have focused on describing some concepts crucial for the useand understanding of storytelling in computer games. I have not included a sectionon the history and rapid growth of the games industry and so forth, as I presumethis is more than familiar to the reader already.

2.1 Human-Computer InteractionThis work being done in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), it mightbe appropriate to start o! with a section on exactly that:

Human-computer interaction is the study of the relationships which ex-ist between human users and the computer systems they use in theperformance of their various tasks.[10]

HCI is a cross-disciplinary science field, lending knowledge from such diverseareas as cognitive psychology, computer science, design and several others. (See

1To get any respect from the developers, game researchers might just have to start actuallyplaying games though...

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figure 2.1) This, and the current pace of technical progress, makes it develop rapidlyand change constantly, as it must adjust to new findings in all of the fields it isdependent upon.

Figure 2.1. The cross-disciplinarity of HCI. Note that all of these fields also can beconsidered relevant for computer games production

The purpose of HCI is to help people using computers to perform various tasks,facilitating these tasks as much as possible. Good software makes people actuallyuse the software, as it makes their tasks easier. This seems quite obvious, butthere are far too many examples of software that even makes a task more di"cultor tedious than it was when performed manually.[10] The interface is even morecrucial in an entertainment product than in other applications, as there is no taskto be done, no work to be made, no salary paid out: the sole motivation of usingthe software is the fun it delivers.

When looking at HCI in the context of computer games design, the term im-mersion comes into focus. A well-designed interface for interaction in a game isimperative if you do not want to disturb the feeling of immersion and thereby thegameplay experience. A common goal interpretation for interface design is that “[i]fthe human-computer system is properly built, the user will actually ignore it andwill not notice that it is there. The very best systems and the very best interfaceswill be overlooked entirely by the user”.[10] In the quest for immersion, this is moretrue than ever.

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2.1.1 HCI and Computer GamesHCI and computer games development have existed for several decades and haveboth had a remarkable growth and development during this time. Despite the twofields sharing an important goal in the dedication to providing the users with whatthey want, there have been very little interaction between them.[19] In the last fewyears, this has begun to change, with some work being made on the relationshipbetween HCI and games (or the bringing of insights and knowledge from one fieldto the other). One such example is the work carried out by a play test group estab-lished by Microsoft. There is still a long way to go however, as that study pointsout: ”This relationship between theories of game design and traditional HCI evalu-ation methods has yet to be defined but definitely yields an exiting future.”[9] They(Pagulayan et al.) further point out nine important di!erences between productiveapplications (the traditional objects of HCI) and games that have to be recognisedand understood if HCI methods and theories are to be used in games.

While a large part of HCI concerns the maximising of usability through user-centered design, testing, cognition, ergonomics and more, this thesis concerns thenot so easily defined task of creating fun. One of the nine important di!erencesbetween games and applications is exactly this; an application is used to arrive ata result, while in the game there is no external goal. Instead, the process is theimportant part, and the object of the process is having fun. In Pagulayan’s words:

Thus, the goal of both design and usability when applied to games iscreating a pleasurable process. This fundamental di!erence leads usto devote more of our e!ort to collecting user evaluation of games (asopposed to strictly performance) than we would if we were workingon productivity applications, where more of our work would measureaccomplishing tasks (or productivity).

So, the usability of a game can be seen as a gatekeeper of fun: If we do not getpast these issues we never get to where the fun is.[9] This leads to an importantpoint: that the usability approach of HCI should be considered even more importantin games than in other applications. That this is, and has been, recognised asimportant in the games industry is proven by the multitude of inventive and e!ectiveinterface solutions that can be found in games. The HCI field indeed has much tolearn from the games industry.[17] On the other hand, the industry would have muchto benefit from the methods and research of the HCI academics when moving fromthe trial-and-error/ re-invent the wheel approach to a more professional method ofuser-centered development.[19]

This thesis is written entirely from an industry perspective, which lies very nearthat of HCI. The view on computer games presented here is that of entertainmentproducts that are designed and developed to bring a fun experience to a payingcustomer. What is important here is not games as cultural artefacts or games asart form, but games simply as entertainment. This does not mean a trivialisation of

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the games medium however. Creating fun is by no means an easy task, but ratheran art form and a craft in its own right.

2.2 InteractivityThe term interactivity has become a true buzz word with many definitions, someof them bordering on giving the word almost magical properties. On the otherhand (or as a consequence of this), it has been argued that the word has “lost allmeaning, and has been charged with ’strong ideological undercurrents’ that havecome to represent a new, technological, way of doing things.” [Aarseth in [28]] Oneexample of such descriptions of interactivity is the following one, by Mark Meadows:

Interactivity is a continuing increase in participation. It’s a bidirectionalcommunication conduit. It’s a response to a response. It’s “full-duplex”.Interaction is a relationship. It’s good sex. It’s bad conversation. It’sindeterminate behavior, and it’s redundant result. It’s many things,none of which can be done alone. Interactions is a process that dictatescommunications. It can also be a communication that dictates process.It provides options, necessitates a change in pace, and changes as youchange it.[25]

This vague paragraph contains no answers and much ambiguity, and gives uslittle when trying to find a usable interpretation of the word. For a spot-on andsomewhat comical analysis of it, see chapter 2 in On Interactive Storytelling byChris Crawford[4]. When choosing a definition of interactivity, Crawford’s oneseems more appropriate:

A cyclic process between two or more active agents in which each agentalternately listens, thinks and speaks.

The terms listen, think and speak in this definition must be taken metaphor-ically. A computer doesn’t listen, think or speak in the strict sense of the term,but methaphorically speaking, it listens to its keyboard and mouse inputs, thinksin terms of processing and calculating data and speaks through its screen andloudspeakers.[4] I feel that this definition represents the essence of the word well:there is no need to complicate matters further for no reason.

Naturally, interaction is at the core of the computer games medium, the inter-esting point being that it is sometimes seen as an opposite of narration.[21] Someargument can indeed be made that the forced pacifying of a player during a cutscene,for example, is a sign of this. On the other hand, cutscenes are not a core part of thecomputer games medium and could even be seen as a temporary loan from cinemathat will disappear once this new medium have found its own mode of narration.

An interesting aspect of interaction is its relation to agency.

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2.3 AgencyWhile interactivity could be considered a technical process, agency is a phenomeno-logical result of interaction.[26] A working interactive system creates a sense ofagency in the user (player). Michael Mateas (creator of the interactive dramaFaçade) writes in the group blog Grand Text Auto that agency is:

...describing what it feels like as a player/interactor to be empowered totake whatever actions you want and get a sensible response. That is, anexperience is productive of a sense of agency if it supports the interactorin forming intentions (based on what’s happening, the interactor canthink of something they want to do), taking action with respect to theseintentions (there is a way to express the action the interactor wantsto take), and interpreting the response in terms of the intention (thesystem’s response makes sense with respect to the intention).[15]

This sense of agency that a player feels when playing a game is perhaps thesingle most important di!erence in the computer games medium compared to othernarrative media.2 When it comes to story, the agency is however often lost in thatthe player is suddenly forced to passively take part of a pre-written story with nopossibility of a!ecting what happens. This is perhaps the largest problem withstorytelling in games. It could be argued that this is so due to the di"cultiesof adopting the cinematic narratology used in games to the new medium: Theimportant problem being that cinema and books have only NPCs. This meansthe using of techniques from cinema is limited to the NPCs, while games have aplayer-controlled character in focus: “These techniques are irrelevant to presentinga player character, because a first-person player character is not presented, it isexperienced. It’s not empathy that we wish to promote in the player character, butimmersive agency. No film script ever had to concern itself with such a task.”[27]

While agency is based on the player’s ability to control a character (the agent)in the game world, there are many ways of improving this sense of agency in a gameand its story. One way of minimising the loss of agency in the story part of thegame is to tie it as tightly as possible to the gameplay.

2.4 ImmersionA second phenomenological result of interaction is immersion. Immersion is alsoa word commonly used in the discussion and evaluation of computer games. Im-mersive is a positive adjective often encountered in the praising of great games inreviews, almost as popular as addictive. To immerse in this sense is explained as

To engage wholly or deeply; absorb: scholars who immerse themselvesin their subjects.[3]

2I imply that computer games is a narrative medium here, even though I have chosen not toenter that discussion. Let’s say I just mean that games can have narrative components.

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So, the sense of immersion is to be absorbed by the game and the game world,just like being emotionally submerged in a movie or a book. It is indisputable that ahigh sense of immersion in games is important and highly desirable. When pursuingthis, there has been a tendency to see technical innovations as highways to reachinga more immersive experience. Pierre Gander has described these tendencies as twowidespread myths about immersion:

1) that an audience’s experience will be more immersive the more sensoryinformation the audience is exposed to and2) an audience who is able to intervene — be active, participatory — ina medium will feel more immersed in the medium.[14]

Gander argues that there is no evidence of the truth of these two claims andconsequently dismisses them as myths. If this is true, why are billions of dollarsinvested in new graphics hardware and new graphics engines for games every year?Why are graphics, cinematics and sound constantly being treated in games mediaas being core components of games? Why is increased freedom and interactionin games regarded as something obviously positive? I believe this is because thesensory information is very important in the feeling of immersion, but in the oppositeway from the one described in the myth. Immersion is not achieved by cramming inas much sensory stimulation as possible in your game, it is achieved by eliminatingeverything that opposes or disturbs the player’s feeling of immersion. This wouldalso be true for movies and novels. While larger text or illustrations in a bookwouldn’t necessarily increase immersion, missing pages or typos definitely disturbsit, much in the same way as bugs, bad voice acting or obstacles/features not fittinginto the game world oppose the feeling of immersion in games. Only things actuallyrelevant for the experience of the game should be included. This is an old truth inclassic theater, well illustrated by the words of Anton Chekhov[5]:

If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall,in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go o!. If it’s not goingto be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.

Ergo, immersion is maximised by eliminating disturbing elements, with badparts of a game being one such element. In those game genres relying on stories(probably the least abstract game genres), the story risks being a disturbing elementin itself if it is simply too bad.

Shenmue is a good example of a game that destroys (or disturbs) immersion byhaving too many “Chekhov-rifles” in it. In Shenmue’s Hong Kong, you can enterevery restaurant, knock on every door and talk to every person, but you do not getvery much of a reaction. Gonzalo Frasca describes it like this:

I easily got tired of wandering through its streets and trying to talk topeople: I always got the same answer. The same applies for knockingon almost every single possible door in town just to realise that nobody

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was home. Why would the designer allow me to knock on doors if Icould never get in?

Lastly, there is another quality in stories not covered above: The inherent im-mersive power the story has in itself. This power is very strong indeed, as literatureshows. But remember – a game with no literature-like story at all can nonethelessbe immersive in itself.[23] The Legend of Zelda is one such example. We have twodi!erent sources of immersion, of which only one is mandatory in a game. Imaginethe immersive power of the game that finally manages to artfully combine the twocomponents though!

2.5 GameplayGameplay is a term used extremely often in all reviews, articles and discussionsabout games. It is as di"cult to define as it is common to use, however. From thesound of the word we can determine that it has to do with the actual playing of agame. A game with good gameplay is often simply considered a good game, andvice versa. One straightforward definition of gameplay is made by Andrew Rollingsand Ernest Adams in On Game Design:

One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment.[6]

If we dissect this definition in short, firstly we see that gameplay goes on ina simulated environment. This means that we are talking about what the playerhas his character do in the actual game world, excluding choices and challengesoutside of that world, for example the choice of continuing to play or turning o!the game. Secondly, we are talking about causally linked challenges. This meansthat gameplay needs to be challenging; merely strolling around in the game worldcan’t be seen as gameplay. The causal link on a high level is something that thestory can help create3 and on the lower levels it simply means that the di!erentchallenges are tied together logically.

In this thesis, finding the exact definition of gameplay or discussing what is goodversus bad gameplay is not in focus. Instead, the word gameplay is used rather todenote the actual playing of the game. This is what goes on when the player is incontrol of the main character, as opposed to when he is not actually playing, andis instead, for instance, watching a cutscene or reading on-screen texts.

2.6 StorytellingStorytelling has always been not only an important, but central part of humanculture. In the beginning, storytelling was centered around the shaman, its foremostpurpose being a way to explain nature and man’s place in the greater whole.[5] As

3This is discussed in chapter 5

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the bronze age cultures arose, this dramatic storytelling was separated from religionand state and instead manifested itself in folk tales, myths and folk songs. Throughman’s winding history, the dramatic storytelling has had its twists and turns, buthas found its firm place in popular culture. While contemporary popular culture iscentered around TV and cinema, its future might well be that of computer games.

2.6.1 Storytelling in Computer GamesSince almost the beginning of games there have been two separate but somewhatinterdependent layers of storytelling involved. The first one is the story created bythe player when he plays the game. This is the story of the player’s actions andcan be re-told in first person: “First I ran towards the right, then I jumped overa ravine and ate a mushroom.” Here, the game’s creator hasn’t created the story,but rather the world (and this world’s rule set) that the player uses to create hisgaming experience and the stories that emerge from it. Even games as simple asPacman or Tennis for Two have this kind of storytelling.

The other kind is storytelling in its more classic sense: The stories created bythe game creators. These are pre-written and completed before the game is played,merely unraveling as the player moves through the game. Already the early MUDs,created in the late 70s, had rather complex stories of this kind in them.

This dichotomy has its mirror in literature. In classic narratology the di!er-ence between the two layers is mainly of temporal character, whereas in games thisbecomes infinitely more interesting as it works on so many levels. The two lay-ers, as defined by the early 20th century Russian formalists are fabula (story) andsjuzet(plot):

• Story, denoting the events told, in the order they were described as happen[ing]in. This is called fabula in the Russian terminology.

• Discourse, denoting the telling of events, in the order in which they are told.This is the narrative as a sequence of signs, be it words or scenes in a movie.This is also called sjuzet.[20]

With this distinction in mind, I would like to apply this terminology to games.Changing the definitions somewhat to fit better with the games medium, fabulawould be the developer-created story that is finished and unchangeable as the gameships, while sjuzet would be the story created by the player as he progresses throughthe game. This story of the play session would consist of the parts of the story re-vealed as well as the player’s actions. This way, the player actions (the actualgameplay) would be a subset of sjuzet. They would also largely be determining inwhat way the story unfolds; forming the discourse. This is also the largest di!er-ence in storytelling in games versus other storytelling media – that the discourse isinfluenced to such an extent by the player and potentially di!erent in each playingof a game. In this thesis, I will call this the player-created story.

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Much has happened since the days of MUDs and Pacman (even though somegame theorists do not seem to have noticed). Nowadays, the challenge is to combinethese two storytelling layers into one single immersive experience. This can be seenfrom two perspectives: the first seeing it as the pre-made story becoming moreinteractive and the player experiencing it di!erently depending on his actions. Theother way of looking at it is to put the player-created story in focus, its tellingbeing facilitated by narrative components that strengthen and enhance the player’snarrative experience.

The Zelda series is a fine example of the movement from player-created stories todeveloper-created ones that can be seen during the last 20 years. The first games inthe series present almost no story at all to the player, merely a couple of rows of text(and only so if the player waits a rather long time at the title screen). A little more,in the form of a background-story, can be found in the manuals accompanying thegames. ”Clearly, the background story is o!ered as justification for the material ofthe game itself: it is a scene-setting rationale and the overarching motivation for theiconography and events encountered in the game.” [A. Darley in [16]] This can beseen as the only purpose of including the rudimentary developer-created story thatexists in these games. The main focus is instead the active player: the gameplaydoesn’t pause at any time and no e!ort is made to carry the story forward duringthe game. What defines the story is instead the player’s actions.

In the later games in the Zelda series, Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask(and also in a primitive form already in A link to the Past), elements of story-telling (telling the developer-made story) have been introduced into the gameplay.Now, the player isn’t any longer active and in control at all times, instead the gamepauses at times and turns the player into a passive spectator. The interactivityis halted for the sake of narrativity. This conduct can nowadays be considered astandard, with cutscenes appearing a large number of times in most games, even inthe more abstract ones with limited story components. Cutscenes are often used asrewards and are shown at critical points in the game’s story, most often after theplayer has completed a task of some sort. In Ocarina of Time these sequences cansometimes be as long as 15 minutes.[16] This raises the issue of narrativity versusinteractivity that has been frequently discussed, for instance in [21].

The using of cinematic cutscenes is perhaps the most obvious way to tell astory in a game environment, mainly because of the technical similarities of gamesand cinema. In traditional narrativity there is no player, only an audience, whythere has been no question about whether the player should be forced into passivitywhen the story is told or not. To take the storytelling in computer games one stepfurther and resolve the issue of interactivity versus narrativity, I believe this easyway must be abandoned: computer games as a medium need to find its own mode ofnarration. One example of a small but interesting step towards this has been takenin Call of Duty where the player retains control of his character during storytellingsequences (scripted sequences).4 The game action halts during the scripted sequence

4Scripted sequences is one of the storytelling tools identified in the playing of the games, de-

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(not presenting any new enemies and challenges and so forth) but the game worlddoesn’t pause. The player can choose to stand passive and look and listen to whathappens, or he can run away, reload or fire his weapon, or do anything else he feelslike. The point is that this way, the immersion is not disturbed by a forced pacifyingof the player.5 A more inspired use of scripted sequences as storytelling componentscan be seen as a first step towards a third way of telling stories in games. Fromthe non-existent story via the all-dominating religion of The Cutscene to the futurewhere the storytelling is finally integrated in the game-world. I believe this can andwill be taken much further in the near future.

The opposite perspective of the one presented above would be to see the storyas the main part of the game and the actual game elements as being interruptionsin the storytelling flow. It has been argued that these occurences of interactivesequences of gameplay that aren’t closely tied to the story are proof of the non-narrative character of games.[20] This view is one step closer to cinema, where thestory (and thereby emotional interaction between characters) is the important partthat drives the story forward. It is even considered a rule in screenwriting that anyscene that doesn’t drive the story forward or tell important things about the maincharacters (or preferrably both) should be cut out.[12] However, movies includemany long sequences that can be compared to gameplay elements. Examples of thisare songs and dances in musicals and car chases and fighting scenes in action films.Yes, these scenes often end in a way that a!ects the story, but nothing says thatgameplay elements can’t or don’t do that too.

2.6.2 A Note on the Interactive Nature of StorytellingIn our time, film, broadcast media and books are the dominant forms in whichstorytelling is consumed, especially in the group of people that still are consideredthe most typical audience of computer games - men under the age of 35. (About60% of game players are men, and of those the majority are younger than 35.[8])These media provide pre-designed experiences with a determined sequence of eventsthat can not be influenced at all by the consumer. The definition of storytelling isthen what follows: The storyteller is the active party, he is the “transmitter” thatbroadcasts his message. The audience, on the other hand, is the passive “receiver” ofthis message.[5] This might seem natural and almost obvious, but it is completely atodds with the rules of classical dramaturgy. (The very dramaturgy that all modernstorytelling is resting upon.) According to Aristotle, dramaturgy is not the art ofwriting great plays or stories, it is the art of communicating with an audience froma stage. The relationship between the teller of the story and his audience reflects onthe storytelling itself; the storyteller can react to his audience’s reaction and modifyhis story accordingly. This relationship and interaction with the audience put great

scribed further in chapter 4.5An obvious limitation in using this technique is that pre-rendered cutscenes can’t be used.

This however, is a rapidly diminishing problem as in-game graphics quality is coming closer andcloser to that of pre-rendered cinematics.

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demands on the storyteller, but was also an important part of the classical drama;its essence being the interaction between storyteller and audience.

With computer games, we again have this opportunity of communication be-tween the storyteller (the game) and the audience (the player) as opposed to theone-sided communication of “traditional” media. The game software can react andadapt to the player’s actions and (perceived) preferences. With this perspective,computer games, interestingly, is one step closer to storytelling in its purest (clas-sical) form. Quite the opposite of what is commonly argued.

2.7 Narratology Versus LudologyThere has been some debate on whether game studies should treat games mainly asa narrative medium, using theories from narratology, or if game studies should beconsidered a field of its own. This has been called the narratology versus ludologydebate. Rather than being an argumentation between two well-established schoolsof researchers, this debate is a product of fuzzy definitions and misconceptions.The main misconceptions being that ludologists are supposed to focus on gamemechanics and reject any room in the field for analysing games as narrative andnarratologists arguing that games are closely connected to stories, if not beingstories in themselves.[11]

Gonzalo Frasca suggests that the two opposing sides do not really exist outsidethe minds of the game researchers themselves. Not surprisingly, many researchershave claimed to be in a middle position, representing a more balanced point of viewwhile none seem to have claimed to be narratologists. The other side in the conflict,the Ludologists, are eager to point out that they do not at all oppose the notionof narrative components in games.[11] In this light, Frascas proposition that thedebate never existed does not seem so far-fetched.

For the purpose of this thesis, it is su"cient to state that computer games arestructures that allow narrative elements to be included. This is also where I be-lieve most game researchers will arrive, if they haven’t already. Further, some gamegenres might allow a completely new way of telling stories, perhaps revolutionisingstorytelling as much as cinema did in the last century. The main objection to thiswould be the alleged incompatibility of interaction and storytelling. This argumentleads me to think of live role-playing: what is a live role-play if not a continu-ous process where several entities (people) through interaction create a story whiletelling it? One might think that doing this in a computer environment might not befeasible yet, but it has already been done. The games in the MMORPG genre allowexactly this kind of interaction between players, and many of the users actuallychoose to play the games this way: using the game as a platform for role-playingwith their friends, creating a story as they play. This still leaves much to the playersthough, and much more must be done if we are to make a creative and believabledungeon master out of the computer. This might seem like an insurmountable ob-stacle, but we have to remember that games and game studies are moving forward

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rapidly. The field of games studies can’t limit itself to the reflection and analysisof present and past, rather it must occupy itself with the possibilities of the future.The frames of games aren’t static like the laws of physics, they are constantly beingrevised as talented people push the medium further and further. In this sense, theyare edges rather than frames, where frames have a limiting role while edges are justa snapshot of where a moving frontier is at any given moment.

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Chapter 3

Method

Most of the discussion and analysis in this report is based on first-hand game play-ing. Focus is on the four games played and analysed during the writing of thisreport, but experiences from other games played have had their natural impact onthe work as well. When playing the games, I have mainly been looking at howtheir stories have been integrated into them, but also at the connection betweenplayer choices and written/scripted story. Another area is the level of facilitationthe game provides for the discourse layer or player-created story – the story that ismade through the playing of the game.1

A second large source of knowledge is, of course, the reading of literature on thesubject, the bulk of the reading being made in the first few weeks of the four and ahalf months dedicated to this work.

The third and last area of input for the report has been interviews and discus-sions with designers at Avalanche Studios, regarding their views on storytelling ingames and their experiences from the development of Just Cause.

3.1 Analysing GamesGame analysis has long been confined to mathematics and social sciences, and hasnot until fairly recently become a subject of humanistic study and gradually begunto form a field of its own. Computer games researcher Espen Aarseth estimatesthe age of the study of game aesthetics to be less than 20 years.[1] Earlier havingbeen considered simple toys of no aesthetic or intellectual quality, games are nowincreasingly being recognised as works of art and culture. Even with this recognitionof games as being more than primitive toys, the realisation that games are a uniqueart form demanding a unique method for analysis seems to be lagging behind.There have been many attempts to conform games to older media for the sake ofanalysis and no general approach to analysing games has been accepted yet. Afew academics have suggested methods though, one of them being Lars Konzack of

1Facilitation tools can, as we will see, be numerous: NPCs taunting/praising the player, visualcharacter feedback, other character development features, items, choices, and more.

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Aalborg University. Konzack argues that game analysis has to be made based onthe unique traits of games as a medium, rather than being derived from methodsof analysis from older media.[22] With the complete game in focus, instead of justthose parts of it fitting into an existing method of analysis, Konzack identifies noless than seven interdependent layers to be analysed:

1. Hardware: Wires, signals, hardware and components.

2. Program code: The actual source code of the game.

3. Function: The behaviour of the computer and the computer’s interface reac-tions to user input. At this layer we are not even aware we are in fact dealingwith a game – it could be any application.

4. Gameplay: At this layer the game structure also known as gameplay re-sides. Here the computer software application is recognised as a game. This isclosely related to ludology; the study of games and their di!erent game factors:positions, resources, space and time, goal (sub-goals), obstacles, knowledge,rewards or penalties.

5. Meaning: The semantic meaning of the computer game, which can be sig-nificant or near to none. This is best studied through the use of semiotics:the study of the meaning of signs.

6. Referentiality: Referentiality becomes apparent when comparing computergames with other games and other media. Here, the characteristics of the gamesetting and genre are targeted. These characteristics are signs, ornaments orgame structures that have originally been used in other media or other games,and which have been put into use in the game we are about to analyse.

7. Socio-culture: The social layer in which analysis of the culture around com-puter games takes place, thereby mostly the observing of the environmentwhere play occurs. This includes both the interaction between computer gameand player and the interrelationship between all participants of the game.

This is an interesting approach, and it has some merit because of its acknowl-edgement of the complexity of the computer game and the demands this places onthe analysis of the same. Konzacks layers are most interesting from this point ofview; coming to terms with mistakes in the past2 and recognising the uniquenessof the computer game as a medium. When looking for a practical methodologyhowever, Konzacks approach is not very useful. In discussing Konzacks method,Aarseth proposes that while it could certainly be argued that each layer should betaken into consideration for a complete analysis of a game, most of the time somelayers would be of much greater importance than others and “most games are not

2By that I mean arguing that narrativity doesn’t exist in computer games, and its opposite:trying to impose methods from literature or cinema on games.

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very interesting in all of these layers, and few present us with real innovations inmore than one or two.”[1] Aarseth further suggests using Konzacks method as anopen framework, focusing on 2-4 layers and ignoring the rest.

As mentioned in chapter two, I use an HCI-perspective in this thesis – seeing thegame firstly as an entertainment product with usability and fun-factor as its mostimportant properties. With the HCI approach, the user (player) is in focus and whatis interesting is how the game interacts with the user and what the user experienceswhen playing the game. Technical aspects (hardware, graphics, code, sound e!ectsand music) fall outside this scope and are seen merely as tools for creating anentertainment experience, rather than targets for analysis in themselves. From thisperspective and when looking at the story as a part of the gameplay experience,several of Konzacks layers can be immediately dismissed.

Hardware and program code strike me as being the least interesting, not onlyfrom my perspective, but also in any analysis of the game as entertainment. Theseinfluence the gaming experience in the same way the typography or paper of a book,or the screen size and quality of a TV influences those media experiences. Theyare important, but not so in their own right, only as tools for delivering the actualcontent. When analysing a game, its nature is important to bear in mind, but itseems overly zealous to spend time on these technical aspects. Function falls partlyinto this category too, but is closer to the gameplay experience.

The, socio-culture layer also falls outside the scope of this thesis. In multiplayergames these aspects might have a place in-game, but in singleplayer games, thislayer exists outside the game.

The remaining few layers are more in line with the questions discussed here.Gameplay, meaning and referentiality are all important aspects in the playing of agame, with meaning and referentiality emanating in large part from the story. Thepurpose of this thesis could even be seen as being an investigation of the possibilitiesof creating synergies in these three layers by minimising the distance between them.

Aarseth[1] tries a new definition of the games discussed here as “games in virtualenvironments”. This is to get rid of computerised games that don’t really belong inthe family, such as Black Jack in your browser or Who wants to be a Millionaire onCD-ROM. He then suggests three dimensions that characterise “games in virtualenvironments”:

• Gameplay (the player’s actions, strategies and motives)

• Game-structure (the rules of the game, including the simulation rules)

• Game-world (fictional content, topology/level design, textures etc.)

This model is more interesting than Konzack’s in that it focuses on the game-ness of a game – the traits and characteristics that form the actual game-playingexperience. In the list quoted above, gameplay seems to have its common meaning,but later Aarseth seems to lean towards a more social meaning of the word, sepa-rating it somewhat from the playing of a game and moving towards player-player

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interaction. The social aspect of games seems to take over the gameplay dimension.If choosing to at all include this in a model for game analysis, I would rather see itin a dimension of its own, and the very closely related game-structure and gameplaymerged together into one. In any case, this first step of categorising di!erent centralaspects of games is very interesting and surely worthy of further development.

As there are no established or fully satisfactory methods for game analysis yet,non-theoretical analysis based on actual playing of games seems to be the premiermethod. Even though game analysis in itself is not the purpose of this thesis, I havechosen to play and analyse the story parts of four games to get material and ideason storytelling methods, and to get a practical real-world base for my theoreticaldiscussion.

So, if using Aarseths three dimensions, my game playing focuses on the gameworld dimension and specifically the fictional content, looking at how this has beenplaced in the game and in what ways the fictional content is conveyed to the player.

3.2 Playing the GamesWhen playing the games, I chose to play them through from start to finish, spendingmost of the time on following the main story missions. When presented with choicesor interesting branch points, I have replayed those parts of the game to be able toexplore the consequences of following another branch.

During play, notes were taken on the development of the story and on thingsthat drew attention in either a positive or negative way. Notes were also taken onthe perceived quality of the story told and the ways in which it was presented. Theuse of di!erent storytelling tools were looked at in particular; the object being tofind and identify every tool that can be used to convey story in games. Lookingat the methods and tools used successfully in these massively successful games isan e!ective way of getting a feeling for where the development is right now andhow far we have come in storytelling in games. On the other hand, succeedingin identifying problems and mistakes is even more rewarding when we are lookingto improve something. Therefore, places where specific storytelling tools were notemployed but could have been were looked for in particular, as well as areas andfeatures not working so well in these games. The hits of today is where the basis fortomorrow’s development is found and, for the purpose of this paper, the foundationfor further discussion and analysis of future possibilities.

This method of investigation could be seen as a participatory observation, a termborrowed from ethnography. This means that the researcher participates in theenvironment, culture or activities that are investigated, instead of being a passiveobserver looking on from the sideline. Even though this method is comparativelyshallow, it felt perfectly adequate for the purpose of this thesis. Going into a deeperor complete analysis of the large and complex games in question would require avast amount of time, especially as we have seen that there is no fully satisfactorymethod for analysing games. With the main objective of play being to find the

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modes or tools of telling story and looking at particularly inspiring mistakes andsuccesses in the using of the tools, a thorough play through of each game wouldseem su"cient.

The actual hours spent playing the games are as follows (e!ective game time):

Just Cause: 10hrs (+approx. 300hrs prior to the work of this thesis beingdone)

Gun: 14hrs

GTA: San Andreas: 40hrs (+approx. 80hrs playing the GTA series priorto this work)

Fable: 36hrs

3.3 Literature StudiesA major part of the input for writing this report has come from the studying of rele-vant literature. The preparation for the work consisted mainly of a five-week readingperiod to tune in on the particulars, although I have kept on reading continuouslyduring the whole twenty weeks. Much of the articles and theses read ended upworking mainly as inspiration, not being cited in the report and not making it intothe bibliography. A couple of these (as well as a couple that are in the bibliography)that I feel are particularly interesting are mentioned in the last chapter.

3.4 Interviews with DevelopersThe interviews conducted with employees at Avalanche Studios were unstructuredinterviews. In these the researcher has a number of predetermined topics to coverbut the precise questions and the order in which they are presented are not fixed.This way, the questions are allowed to develop during the interview, and interestingtopics or answers from the interviewee can be explored further. The intervieweehas the freedom to say as much, or as little as he or she chooses to. With this formof questionnaire the comparability aspect between interviews is sacrificed but thedata acquired is potentially richer and with deeper qualities.

The goal of the interviews was mainly to get other perspectives on storytellingand to explore the developers’ feelings about Just Cause and what can be madebetter in the genre. With this objective, rather than aiming to get quantifiabledata on developers’ opinions in general, this choice of questionnaire seemed fairlyobvious. Naturally, the developers views on the story parts of game design in generalwere discussed as well. In the next section follows a list of the main questions asked.

In addition to interviews and informal chatting about game design, two round-table discussions were held. In the first of these, the advantages of story in gamesand the definitions of the storytelling tools were discussed. The second discussionfocused on the usage of the tools and their strengths and weaknesses in several

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areas, for instance in the telling of developer-created story and the facilitation ofplayer-created story.

Notes were taken on all occasions.

3.4.1 Interview QuestionsThe following questions were used as a basis of discussion in the unstructured in-terviews.

What do you believe are the biggest advantages of including a story in a game?

How big is the importance of game genre when designing the story component?

How important for the gameplay experience is it to have a story at all? Howimportant is its quality? Is the answer di!erent depending on genre?

Name an example of a game with a great story. What made it good?

Name an example of a game with a bad story. Why was it bad?

Is story necessary or even preferable in an action game like Just Cause?

In Just Cause, how was the story integrated into the design work?

What is the main purpose of the story in Just Cause? (Has this been dis-cussed?)

What would you do di!erently if you were to redo the story implementationof Just Cause?

3.5 Method CritiqueThis work is based very much on my own subjective thoughts on and analysis ofthe games medium and a few games in particular. The work consisting mainly ona discussion about the concepts and problems in question and not being the resultof a quantifiable method naturally has its implications. The conclusions drawn andarguments made do rest firmly on the success of the games used as examples and alsoprior research on the subject. On several occasion I disagree with earlier researchhowever, and instead present my own thoughts. This makes this thesis more aboutpresenting a believable analysis with a reasonable conclusion than presenting a truthproven by numbers from empirical experiments.

The subjectiveness is further limited by the input from discussions and inter-views with lead designers at Avalanche Studios. It should however be noted thatthis input, even though it is from seasoned game design professionals, could bedeemed subjective as well and is not always representing the “truth” of game de-sign. The consulted game development professionals being from one single company

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is of course also a negative factor. This produces situated results, meaning that they,strictly speaking, are not valid outside the context they have been found in.

One thing that might have been a mistake is that the developer interviews anddiscussions were scheduled rather late in the work process. They were also pushedto even later dates because of the high work load that the lead designers experiencedduring the time of writing of this thesis. This led to the main ideas and classifica-tions already having been formed when the discussions were held. Therefore, thedevelopers’ opinions didn’t have a chance to a!ect the direction and structure of thethesis project. Once the discussions were held I found that the developers largelyagreed with my main classifications however. The discussions could then be basedon the ideas I had already outlined and thus became very focused on, and relevantfor, the central issues of the thesis.

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Chapter 4

Results

In this chapter, the games played and the immediate conclusions and results fromthe game-playing are presented. Each game’s section is divided in two smaller ones:one about the game as such and one recounting the most significant parts of thestory in short. An important result from the playing of the games is the list of thetools used for storytelling in games. A section on them can be found at the end ofthe chapter.

Working with the storytelling tools presupposes that we have chosen to have astory at all, however. Therefore, we will first take a close look at the purposes andadvantages of having stories in games. This section is more a result of analysis thana direct result of the games played, but is included here rather than in the analysischapter to serve as a background for the game sections.

Note: Results of interviews and discussions with game developers do not have a sec-tion in this chapter. Instead, quotations from the interviews can be found adjacentto the arguments they support where applicable.

4.1 The Benefits of Storytelling in GamesIn the beginning, the sole purpose of stories in games was to put the gameplayinto some sort of context: to transform coloured quads into mythical monsters andheroes or spaceships. The games medium didn’t permit storytelling in-game, so theplayer would have to resort to the manual when looking for story. Even in theseprimitive cases, the story can be said to have added a degree of immersion, as crudegraphics, in the mind of the player, were suddenly transformed into epic strugglesbetween good and evil or something like that. This important role of stories ingames has remained virtually unchanged since then. In today’s games, the storiesstill bring context to the gameplay elements and life to the game’s characters andworld. (But now, hopefully, to a much greater extent.)

Immersion is not all story brings, however. Provided the story and the sto-

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rytelling medium is capable1 enough, the story can also bring a certain degree ofmotivation. With a gripping story arc and sympathetic or detestable characters(preferably both), the story creates an urge to bring it forward through playingthe game. This can be divided into two related areas: First, the motivation toplay further because the player wants to see what happens next. And secondly, themotivation to play further because the player is emotionally touched, entangled, oreven enthralled in the story and feels an urge to play the main character’s part inthe game’s universe. Another way of saying this is that the story helps turning ex-trinsic motivators into intrinsic ones[9]. The extrinsic motivators are, as the wordimplies, motivators that come from outside – the getting of rewards or the pleasingof other people. One example of this is mission objectives stated in the game. Theplayer will carry out an objective simply because he is told to and understands thatit is a requirement to advance in the game. When a player internalises the objectiveand makes it his own, feeling that he wants to carry out the objective because he isemotionally inclined to do so, it has shifted into being an intrinsic motivator. Thisshift is exactly what a good story can create.

This motivation can be made great use of, as it incites players to play througheven the dullest of missions as long as the story is good enough. In that sense, thestory can be used to render mistakes in game design and lulls in gameplay harmless.A safety net, if you will.

Another advantage of story that can be considered motivational is the feelingof closure, or the “sense of narrative satisfaction, the "ahhh" feeling that you getwhen you come to the end of a good book or movie.”[2] In a sandbox game, the trueending might be when the player has earned all the cash, driven all the cars, foundall the secrets or killed all the bad bosses. The satisfaction and feeling of closurewhen reaching this goal is not at all as immense as the one a narrative ending canbring however.

So, the immersive qualities of stories have been a driving force for their inclusionin games from the beginning and the motivational qualities came into the picturelater. Then the newest, and still most undeveloped, quality of stories in games isthe experiencing of storytelling for its own sake. I call it undeveloped because most(almost all) stories in games are still primitive and of considerably lower quality thanthose of cinema, for instance. The joy of viewing, listening to or even participatingin a story can be great, but so far the computer games medium has had little too!er here. The last few years’ developments in this area are promising though, withgames such as Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, the Max Payne series and Fahrenheit(called Indigo Prophecy in the USA) often being named in this context. There isreason to believe that we will see a rapid development in this area because of themerging of the film and games businesses, if for no other reason.2

1By capable in this case I mean having such a high level of quality that a significant sense ofimmersion in story and game world is created.

2There is not only the obvious connection that most large film IPs become games (and some-times vice versa). Another example of work in this direction is the huge film and video gamecrossover conference Hollywood and Games Summit held in Beverly Hills 2006.

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The fourth thing a story brings to a game is cohesiveness. Many players couldprobably agree when Freeman says: “I’ve experienced more than one game wherethe various missions seemed very disjointed, and the world they took place withinfelt fragmented.”[12] These games have probably failed in the story component,or failed to include one altogether. However, like in learning and education, anarrative structure can bring meaning to otherwise seemingly disconnected parts ofknowledge or gameplay. As Odd Ahlgren, Content Director at Avalanche Studiossays: “Story is what prevents a game from just being a series of disconnected eventslined up one after the other.”3 You can even go as far as saying that the “cognitiveprocess of assimilating information can be characterised as the telling of a talethat incorporates both what is already known and what is to be added, assigninga plausible combination of cause and e!ect.”[24] This cohesiveness is every bit asimportant in a game as in a learning situation, and bringing cohesiveness is perhapsthe most important of these four advantages. This is because the use of narrativeis the premier way of tying the disparate gameplay elements a game often includestogether into one cohesive experience.

So, the four main benefits of stories in games are:

• Immersion

• Motivation

• Cohesiveness

• Storytelling in itself

Of these, mainly the first three are relevant for this thesis. The fourth, story-telling in itself, is an important motivation for having story in games, but is notintertwined with and a!ecting gameplay in the same sense as the others. While theother three concern ways that story contributes to other parts of the game and thestory’s ties to gameplay, the fourth is an area of its own and has a purpose in itself.

Also, when looking at genres and games focusing on fast-paced action/arcadegameplay in particular, there is less room for story and the objective to tell an emo-tionally compelling story becomes a challenge that is not always worth prioritising.The amount of development resources and player attention during play needed toreach a satisfying level in this area perhaps makes it more suitable for RPGs andother games where a larger story component is expected.

With this distinction in mind, I am concentrating on immersion, motivation andcohesiveness, while I consider the fourth benefit of story in games, storytelling initself, to be separate from the discussion of forging gameplay and story together.

Now on to the playing of the games.3From a personal interview at Avalanche Studios.

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4.2 FableFable (see figure 4.1), being created by the famous Peter Molyneux, is an actionRPG mainly recognised for its character development qualities. Following his tra-dition, Molyneux created an enormous hype around the game before its release –giving the impression of Fable being a totally unique new game introducing a playerfreedom that until then could only be dreamt about. Also following the traditionhowever, Fable proved not to be what was expected. Despite many of the featurespromised not making it into the released product, it is still a very nice game though.Most parts of Fable work just like in any action RPG, with characters having threemain skill areas, one each for ranged weapons, melee weapons and spells, gainingexperience in each for using the skills of that area.

Figure 4.1. Screenshot from Fable. A typical warrior-character that is not wearinghis armor or clothes because of Fable’s boasting system: the player can get extramoney by boasting that he will complete a quest with some special conditions met.In this case, completing it without armor.

The main feature separating Fable from the basic RPG is the improved characterdevelopment, letting player choices actually reflect visibly on the main character(building muscle, aging and scarring, tattoos and haircuts and more) and having

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the world’s inhabitants react to the player character accordingly. The main choiceconcerning the character’s development is whether the player wants him to be bador nice. Many deeds that can be performed are considered evil or good and give theplayer points a!ecting his alignment. NPC reactions and visual attributes are theninfluenced accordingly: a good player might get butterflies circling him, while theevil one gets to sport a couple of fancy horns. Many sub-quests and minor tasksor mini-games that are not tied to the storyline or the character alignment are alsoincluded in the game however, adding to the experience of building a characterand his life in the world of Fable. Examples of this are gambling, fishing, flirting,chicken-kicking and marriage.

Fable has received some criticism for delivering a playing experience that is tooshort (i e to few hours of gameplay before the end of the storyline is reached). Fansof the game answer this humorously, saying that bragging about how fast you cancomplete Fable is like bragging about how fast you can finish when having sex.This tells us that the fun and value of the sub-quests and mini-games of Fable areregarded quite highly. The game receiving critique for being too short could alsobe seen as a high motivational quality of the story making players focus more onadvancing the storyline and turning away from actions unrelated to it.4

4.2.1 Fable’s StoryThe story begins in an idyllic setting, with the player controlling a little boy livingin a village with his parents and sister. After a few introductory minutes of kickingchicken and either getting into mischief or doing good deeds to please the boys’father, the player is presented with the inciting event of the game: Bandits attackthe village, slaughter its inhabitants and the boy’s family, and burns it to the ground.As the boy gets out of hiding and is faced with the destruction, a mysterious andseemingly powerful man appears. This is Maze, the leader of the Hero’s Guild whois to become the boy’s caretaker after his family is gone. Soon, the player finds theboy being an apprentice in training at the Guild a few years later. It becomes clearto the player that the boy, who is now a young man, is some kind of “chosen one”,who has special powers running in his family, although the main quest so far seemsto limit itself to avenging the boy’s family. After a few minor training tasks havebeen completed and a few NPCs have been introduced, the main character (MC) isreleased into the game world and the actual game begins.

After a while, it is revealed that the MC’s sister and mother are still alive andafter a couple of twists and turns, the evil villain of the game is presented: Jackof Blades. It becomes clear that he is not only the mastermind behind the MC’sfamily’s woe, but is also plotting to take over the world. Much like most supervillains. A couple of interesting incentives are produced to motivate the player topursue and kill Jack of Blades: The MC is imprisoned and tortured before managingto escape, and later, the MC’s mother has her throat slit by Jack of Blades just

4It should be noted though, that every game with not so many hours of story-related gameplayreceive criticism for being too short no matter how much other content there is.

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before the final fight. Fable not being very gory or overly violent up until thatmoment, the killing of the mother becomes quite an unpleasant surprise to theplayer. This certainly has its desired e!ect of alarming the player and inciting afeeling of anger and disgust toward the villain – adding motivation.

At the end of the game, after having defeated Jack of Blades in battle, theplayer gets the choice of cutting down his blind sister to get the ultimate powerfrom the villain’s magical sword and her blood combined, or destroying the sword.This choice is open no matter if the player has chosen to play an evil or a goodcharacter throughout the game.

Although I don’t find the actual story of Fable to be of a particularly highquality, its implementation and integration into the game is done very well. Manytools are used, making the story fit naturally into the game world and making itfeel present not only in cutscenes and such, but also during play. This allows a notso great story to add much to the playing experience.

4.3 GTA: San AndreasGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas(see figure 4.2) is the fifth, and arguably the best,installment in the famous GTA series. Building on the free gameplay from theearlier games, GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas takes the conceptfurther in many respects. Increasing the size and scope of the game world fromone city to three cities and the countryside in between is one. Another importantpositive change is the inclusion of a strong story, brought to life by the voices ofmany well-known actors, including Samuel L Jackson and Peter Fonda. This isinteresting, as it shows that a strong and serious story can be included successfullyin a fast-paced action game without slowing down the game or inhibiting gameplay.

Worth noting is that story-wise, the player has no choices in GTA: San Andreas.At every given point in the game, the player can choose from a few di!erent missionsto accomplish, but the results of a completed mission is always the same. A failedmission does not have an impact on the story, as the player is simply allowed to tryit again. Although each storyline (connected to a specific NPC) is clearly linear, thischoice in which NPC to approach for the next mission adds a feeling of non-linearity.

4.3.1 GTA: San Andreas’ StoryAs the game begins, Carl Johnson (CJ) has just returned to San Andreas, a fictionalversion of Los Angeles in the early nineties, to visit his mother’s funeral. He hasbeen living in Liberty City, the game world’s version of New York, for 5 years, as aresult of his brother Brian’s murder making him want to leave the thug life behind.

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Figure 4.2. Screenshot from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The player is runningon foot carrying an automatic rifle. All cars in the game can be h!acked, providedthat they are moving slowly enough for CJ to rip open one of their doors.

But when CJ returns, the gang life of the Los Santos district in San Andreas pullshim back in as he is reacquainted with his brother Sweet and his gangster friendsRyder and Big Smoke. Together forming the center of The Orange Grove Familiesgang, they have to take back the streets from a tough and determined enemy – arivaling gang called The Ballas.

Early in the game, the story struggles with providing the player with motivationto be a gangster. This is quite important, as the game is largely about committingcrimes and killing people. To achieve this, the good-hearted main character isharassed by corrupt police o"cers and the player is informed about the wrongdoingsof the evil Ballas. This is to give the player the motivation and sense of immersionin the character necessary to take on the role of a criminal.

As the story unfolds, several other factions come into play, including the mafia,and the plot thickens. A large host of characters is introduced and every-day gang-ster business, girlfriends and car chases are mixed with more spectacular events inCJ’s life. The game boasting nearly a hundred missions and each one of them con-tributing to the story of San Andreas makes the game rich with narrative contentand the story too long to fully recount here. Worth noting is that the story of GTA:

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San Andreas is widely considered to be the best of the GTA series so far and also aprime example of an extraordinarily complex, well-written and engaging story fora computer game.

4.4 GunGun(see figure 4.3) is a third-person free-roaming action adventure set in the wildwest of the nineteenth century. The player takes on a number of missions, closelyfollowing the twists and turns of the storyline created by a rather famous Hollywoodwriter – a fact that has been used to some extent in the marketing of the game.Just as in GTA: San Andreas, Hollywood talent has also been used for the voiceacting.

Figure 4.3. Screenshot from Gun. A getaway on horseback. The horseback ridingsystem in Gun is well-designed and the controls work very well.

Using many cutscenes and quite short and narrow gameplay sequences betweenthem, the game’s story is ever present during play and the free-roaming elementstake a minor part. This makes Gun the game (of the four games played) that ismost controlled by and dependent upon its story. Only minor side missions andactivities exist outside the main story missions. This has led to a fair amount ofcriticism, especially as the main story missions can be beaten in only six to eighthours of play. In Neversoft’s (creators of Gun) defense however, the story missionsare well-designed and exhibit a remarkable diversity in gameplay, ranging frombu!alo hunting to assaulting a frontier fort, ambushing a train and chasing banditson horseback.

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The close relation between gameplay and story also provides a good foundationfor a high sense of immersion in the storyline, as the current state of the story andthe last cutscene seen are always in recent memory.

4.4.1 Gun’s StoryAs the game begins the main character, Colton White, is out hunting bu!alo with hisfather. This fairly easy hunting mission is used cleverly as a story-related tutorial,introducing the most important moves and controls as well as providing a ratheridyllic picture of Colton’s life before he is dragged into the schemes of bandits.Following a bear attack where Colton has to save his father, the story continues onboard a steamboat on the nearby river. In a sudden attack set in motion by an evilpreacher and his henchmen, the father is killed and Colton narrowly escapes death.

Waking up on the river bank much later, Colton is faced with the fact that heis the only survivor from the attack on the steamboat and that the man he thoughtwas his father was in fact just a close friend of his real father. Ripped from hisprevious life, Colton embarks on a journey to get revenge for the deaths on thesteamboat and to seek his roots.

To provide further motivation for the player to seek revenge and hunt down thebandits (i.e. play on), the same method as in Fable is used – the villains commitseveral acts of excessive violence to innocents. In one scene for example, the playersees one of the bandit bosses using a pair of pliers to pull out a man’s teeth in aspray of blood.

As in most games, the main character’s personal misery is proven to be a sidee!ect of a larger scheme set in motion by an evil super-villain (albeit the super-villaindoes not have superpowers in this game, thankfully). Moving up the food-chain andkilling o! the deputies of the big boss one by one, the player is finally faced withone final epic fight against the man behind it all – the evil Magruder.

4.5 Just CauseJust Cause is described like this in a press release:

In Just Cause (see Figure 4.4), you take on the role of the flamboyantRico Rodriguez — an undercover CIA operative specialising in regimechange – as he tries to overthrow the corrupt government of San Es-perito. This rogue South American island is suspected of stockpilingWMDs and it’s your job to negate the threat to world peace. It couldbe to your advantage that this tropical paradise is about to implode asvarious factions vie for power – it just needs a gentle nudge in the rightdirection.Just Cause o!ers the freedom to tackle your assignment however youwant: play the island’s factions o! against one another; incite a rebellionamong the masses; or build alliances with rebel forces and drug cartels.

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The incredibly detailed game world consists of 1,225 square miles ofmountains, jungles, beaches, cities and villages which can be exploredby land, sea and air. And you will have at your disposal one of the mostvaried and exciting array of vehicles, planes and watercraft ever seen ina video game.

Figure 4.4. Screenshot from Just Cause. Flying a plane in the tropical sunset ofSan Esperito. This plane is one of almost a hundred vehicles available to the player.

The game has 20 main missions organised linearly with most of them startingand/or ending with an FMV. As the game begins, the player is immediately tossedinto the first one, but for the rest of the game the player can choose when to go onto the next story mission, much like in the other games played. In between the mainmissions, the player can choose to do side missions, take over parts of San Esperito,or just run or drive around causing random harm to those unfortunate enough tobe in the way. This works very much like GTA: San Andreas, except that there areoften several story mission to choose from at any given moment there.

The story in Just Cause mainly brings cohesiveness, explaining the connectionbetween missions. As the story (or even the atmosphere of the game) doesn’t striveto be emotionally gripping or profound, the motivational and immersive qualitiesare at a minimum. This style fits well with the tropical playground of explosionsand vehicles that San Esperito is, but it is quite clear that more advantages fromthe story component could have been gained with a comparatively small investmentin time.

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4.5.1 Just Cause’s StoryThe story of Just Cause is perhaps best described by its creators. The followingtext is from the concept documents of the Just Cause production:

San Esperito, a tropical paradise turned hell. The power balance be-tween the military, drug barons, police, and oppositional guerillas isvery delicate, maintained only by a very fragile bond of fear and inse-curity. Things are about to blow up soon. They just need a small pushin the right direction. That is where you come in.You are Rico Rodriguez; longtime cloak and dagger field man and CIAoperative. It is your mission to overthrow the corrupt presidente of thissmall-time banana republic and help the CIA gain control of the powerand the drug trade. By playing all the powerful groups of the islandagainst each other this might be done. But only a maniac would everconsider trying it. A maniac or Rico Rodriguez.Two ranking agents are already on the spot; the battle-hardened cynicSheldon and the stunningly beautiful female operative Kane. They aretwo most sinister dandies traveling around the island in a luxuriousmobile home, always in touch with what is going on. They will distributeyour missions and fill you in on details as the game unravels.Sheldon and Kane fill you in on what must be done to topple the powerof the president and the cartels. You are a one man army against a wholenation of heavily armed, drug crazed and power hungry desperados. Thejungles are filled with bandits, soldiers, corrupt militiamen and coked-up cartel pistoleros. It takes a special breed to remain alive in thistropical hell. You will encounter a vast gallery of colorful and dangerouscharacters, some of whom you must befriend and make your allies. Yourmissions will include freeing a guerilla leader from prison and romancinghis beautiful sister, assassinating a drug kingpin and assume his identitywhile flirting with the cartel boss’s wife, and blowing up a corrupt policechief’s luxury yacht. There is plenty of action to go around as you kill awhore-mongering general, napalm bomb coca fields and set o! a smallnuclear bomb, wiping out an entire island. And you are only just gettingstarted.The jungle heat is turned up another couple of notches as you mustassassinate El presidentes two sons at an international arms conventionand thus start a revolution. Amid the chaos erupting on the street,continue pursuing the missions dealt to you by the ever partying Kaneand Sheldon. [...]All this work to finally attack El Presidente himself on his private islandIsla Montalban. Here a minor war is raging between cartel henchmen,guerillas, military and El presidentes private militia “the black hand”.

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In the midst of all this, the corrupt Presidente decides to try to coverhis tracks by launching several nuclear missiles. [...] Kill all the blackhand guards, find El Presidente and kill him, then get the hell out ofthere [...] Another day, another dollar. Another pissant regime that hasto be toppled.

This story is conveyed chiefly through the pre-rendered videos that are shownbefore and/or after many of the 20 story missions. The few other tools used mainlyconcern vital information for the player to get the job done, e g mission objectives,and have limited narrative content.

4.6 The Telling of Story in the Games PlayedAll four games played make a distinction between story missions and side missions,with this distinction being more or less outspoken. This allows the advantages of alinear story together with the gameplay and freedom of sandbox gameplay. Thereis also a choice for the player when to accept the next mission to bring the storyfurther, allowing the player to experience any amount of free gameplay he likesbefore going on with the less interactive and less free story missions. This is mostlydone through having the player go to a specific location to get the next mission.

In other terms, the developer-created story is not forced upon the player (apartfrom the first mission (or first few missions), designed to teach the player the basiccontrols and draw him into the plot and the game world). Instead, it can beexperienced in small chunks at the player’s own discretion, with free gameplay (richwith player-created story) in between. Through this clear division of gameplay, theproblem of the complexity and development costs of true interactive storytellingcan be avoided, yet some of its advantages are retained. This is however a stepaway from the holy grail of true interactive storytelling: where player-created anddeveloper-created story meets.

This free gameplay allows intricate storylines to be included even in the mostaction-oriented games – because of the free roaming, a player only looking for quickaction can play and not choose to do story missions even though they are there. Amore limited/linear game forces the player to experience and take part in the storyand play within its constraints every single play session. In GTA: San Andreas andother games like it, you can play story missions and follow the rather serious storyone day and just go around blowing things up another day.

With this said, we come to the most concrete finding from the playing of thegames: the di!erent methods or tools for telling story present in them. I haveidentified eleven tools used to tell story in games. I choose to call them toolsinstead of ways, because the term tools comes closer to the truth as it implies thatone can (and should) use many tools together. The opposite of this would be way;this term suggests that one must choose one way of storytelling and stick with it.Also, there is nothing in a tool itself that guarantees success – it can be used foreither great or disastrous e!ect.

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Many games use a few of these tools and some use most of them (Fable is onesuch game, using all but one). The eleven tools in the list below cover all ways ofconveying story in the computer games of today.5

• Pre-rendered video: (Often called FMVs, Full Motion Videos) Pre-renderedcinematic scenes, pausing the game and locking user input. Example: In JustCause, the player is treated to a pre-rendered video clip at the beginning andend of every main mission.

• In-game cutscenes: Cinematic scenes that are played out within the gameengine, (i.e. using the same models and environments that are used for theactual game) pausing gameplay and locking user input. Example: In-gamecutscenes with high cinematic quality are used extensively in Gun, often in-cluding quite a bit of violence to induce dislike for the game’s villains.

• Scripted sequences: The same as cutscenes, but without locking user input:the player retains full control of his character during the scripted sequenceand the gameplay is not halted. Many missions and tasks are implementedas scripted sequences without them conveying any story. The distinctionhere is that the sequence must mediate some kind of narrative content to beconsidered a storytelling tool. Example: As mentioned above, Call of Dutyuses scripted sequences in a great way, never taking away control of the maincharacter and allowing the player to lose the feeling of agency.

• Voice-over: Voice over during play – a narrator’s, the main character’s oranother character’s voice conveying story. The distinction here being that thisdoes not pause or inhibit gameplay in any way. Technically this is a scriptedsequence, but to the player there is a di!erence in that the voice-over doesn’tintrude in the gameplay. Although voice-over could be considered a subsetof scripted sequences, this distinction is important: the voice-over is a moresubtle tool with its own areas of use. Example: Voice-over is used cleverlyin GTA: San Andreas when the main character and supporting NPCs aretraveling by car to (or from) mission hotspots. These lulls in gameplay arethus used to convey story in an unintrusive manner.

• Ambient actions: NPC reactions to the player not directed directly at theplayer and/or not directly a!ecting gameplay, for example cheers and rants aswell as visible NPC-NPC interaction. This too could be interpreted as scriptedsequences, but is quite di!erent in its implementation. Ambient actions arerather implemented as an AI system governing NPC actions and reactions.Example: In Just Cause, firefights erupt between the guerilla and the armywhen troops from these warring factions come too close to each other.

5As the computer games medium matures, we will perhaps see more narrative tools emerge.

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• Character development: The aging, growth, changed looks and improvedskills of the main character, preferably dependent on player choices. Admit-tedly, the distinction of what is character development in this sense is blurredsomewhat; picking up a weapon could be seen as improving a skill (killing),but has very limited narrative potential. An interesting implementation ofcharacter development is to let narrative sequences carry over into the game-play by showing consequences of the sequence on the main character (e gletting an FMV showing the main character su!er a head injury result inhim carrying an eye patch for the rest of the game). Example: Eating toomuch fast food in GTA: San Andreas makes the main character gain weight,eventually becoming obese.

• Location evolvement: The changing and evolvement of visited locationsand environments returned to, meaning a changing of the looks (and possiblyalso the gameplay possibilities) of parts of the game arena. Example: Theidyllic village that Fable starts in. A little further into the game the playerreturns to the same village, but it now looks completely di!erent as it isburning and under attack by bandits.

• Interactive dialogue: Text and/or voice dialogue, traditionally where theplayer chooses from a set number of di!erent text lines to interact vocallywith NPCs. This makes an interesting combination of narrative text fromthe NPC and player choice in what to reply. Example: A simple type ofinteractive dialogue is present in Fable, where the player can answer “yes” or“no” to NPC questions by pressing a button.

• Storytelling items: Journals, notes, books, TVs and other items bearingnarrative content that can be found in the game world (and often picked up)by the main character and read, viewed or listened to by the player, at theplayer’s own discretion. Example: In Fable, there are a number of books thatcan be found and read (or sold) by the player. These contain much informationthat helps in bringing the game world to life and providing back story.

• Player journal: An automatic player journal that is recording the eventsas they happen in the game. The journal often includes notes on the maincharacter’s feelings and thoughts as well, making it unique. The journal alsotakes a unique position on the edge between game and real world, being anitem carried by the main character in the game world as well as an interface aidfor the player. Example: In Fable, there is an in-game menu mainly featuringgameplay tips and information about how the game world works. Under theheadline “story” there is an integrated journal telling the story so far in shortsegments in first person, as if told by the main character.

• Plain text: Storytelling through the displaying of pure narrative text, oftendisplayed in a text-box overlaying the gameplay area on screen. Since a fewyears ago, plain narrative text is seldomly displayed without being read aloud

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to the player. Example: Plain text is used sparsely in Gun to great e!ect. Ona few occasions, text screens lending design from the old silent movies appear,containing only a couple of key sentences rich with narrative content.

This list is the answer to the first task of this thesis; identifying the methods ortools that are used to tell stories in games. When looking at the four games played,significant di!erences in the number of tools used can be seen, with the RPG gameFable using all of them but one and the more arcade-like action game Just Causeutilising only four. (See table 4.1) This is explored further in the next chapter.

Tool Fable GTA:SA Gun Just CausePre-rendered video Yes No No YesIn-game cutscenes Yes Yes Yes YesScripted sequences Yes Yes Yes NoVoice-over Yes Yes Yes YesAmbient actions Yes Yes No YesCharacter development Yes Yes No NoLocation evolvement Yes No No NoInteractive dialogue Yes Yes No NoStory-telling items Yes No No NoPlayer journal Yes No No NoPlain text No No Yes No

Table 4.1. The utilisation of narrative tools in the games played.

This chapter has covered the first two tasks presented in chapter one. First,determining in what ways story can contribute to games generally, finding fouradvantages of storytelling in games. Secondly, defining the tools available for im-plementing stories in games.

Now that the advantages of stories in games have been determined and the toolsavailable to reach them have been defined, we have the means necessary to attackthe final, hardest and most interesting task: To investigate in what ways the toolscan be used to forge story and gameplay together and to maximise the positivee!ects of story. I will go about this by first taking a more in-depth look at theeleven tools, discussing the capabilities and disadvantages of each. I then go on todiscussing their use together and the special considerations that the current genrebrings.

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Chapter 5

Analysis

Game developers and game researchers seem to agree that a story well-tied togameplay is not only desirable – it is rather considered mandatory. For exam-ple, Eladhari[7] writes: “In a really good story driven game one cannot, as I seeit, separate story and gameplay.” Freeman[12] has a similar point of view: “Dothe mechanics and gameplay in your game feel like they’re an extension of yourcharacters or story? Do they echo the theme or themes of your story? That’s theideal.” As both Eladhari’s and Freeman’s words suggest, tying story and gameplaytogether is a great challenge. In this chapter, some ideas on how to do this betterare presented.

First we will go on to a more in-depth look at the eleven tools identified previ-ously and present some more examples and considerations on their use. Finally, Iwill investigate how the tools can work to create a strong bond between gameplayand story in the current genre and try to come to some conclusions on how theycan be used together in a Just Cause-like game.

5.1 The Eleven ToolsTo achieve the advantages listed in the previous chapter, game developers haveeleven tools at their disposal. (First listed and defined in chapter four.) Here, wetake a look at the strengths and weaknesses of each tool and further discuss andanalyse them.

Before we go into details about each tool, it should be mentioned that toolsor game features that can not bring developer-created story forward might still beconsidered having storytelling capabilities. This is because they facilitate the tellingof player-created story. These do change the way the story of the playing of thegame unfolds, but they do not a!ect the developer-created story. Therefore theyfall outside this listing, as they can’t create ties between story and gameplay if theycan’t in some way relate to the actual developer-created story. Examples of suchfeatures in games are character customisation and choices in how to accomplish amission (this last kind of choices is abundant in Just Cause).

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5.1.1 Pre-Rendered VideoPre-rendered video pauses gameplay and, as it is recorded prior to the play session,cannot display play session-specific things, such as the main characters clothes orlooks, or even the correct time of day.1 This makes this tool virtually useless in theenhancing of player-created story, while all the dramaturgical tools of cinema areavailable to tell developer-created story. As the video is not made inside the gameengine, there is also a large measure of freedom in what to show and how to showit.

With no way of allowing the player to influence the scene and no means of con-veying accurate (play session-specific) details, the only way in which pre-renderedvideo can be said to help in the tying of story and gameplay together is in thechoice of when the scene is to be played. For example, a well-made FMV showingthe positive outcome of a mission just finished (the villain’s bunker going up inflames for instance) can add a pleasant feeling of accomplishment and adds to thesense of meaning of the mission. This aspect of timing the use of the tool appliesto all the tools however, making it the minimum level of connection.

Finally, the pre-rendered video is the most resource-heavy of all the tools, aseach graphical sequence has to be made virtually from scratch.

5.1.2 In-Game CutscenesThe in-game cutscene mirrors the pre-rendered video in many respects. The im-portant di!erence is that the in-game cutscene is made entirely in the game engine,providing some advantages and disadvantages. The most important advantage isthat play-specific details can be shown. The actual main character chosen, outfittedor developed by the player, locations blown up or altered in some other way and theweather and time of day can all be displayed correctly, adding coherence betweenthe developer-created story told and the actual play session.

On the other hand, we are limited by the game engine’s constraints and cannotshow things that haven’t been included as assets in the game. Another disadvantage(that is rapidly disappearing as the hardware gets better and better) is the di!erencein quality – game engines generally provide a much lower graphical quality than pre-rendered video. It should be added that the in game cutscene requires much lesswork than pre-rendered video, however.

One risk with in-game cutscenes and pre-rendered videos is that the player’ssense of agency is contested or, in the worst case, lost altogether. Taking awaythe very means of which the player can act in the game world (the controlling ofthe character) is not all – the actual showing of the main character in the scenerepresents a drastic shift in point of view, especially in first-person games. This shiftin views is a familiar problem among writers and an error that is common amongbeginners.[27] The same goes for games: being forced to look on from the sideline

1With a smartly limited number of choices, several FMVs could be recorded and the one mostappropriate shown to the player. However, this is quite obviously a less than ideal method.

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as the character you have been used to be in control of acts and speaks beyondyour control can ruin much of the immersion and sense of agency. This problemand suggested solutions are discussed in Je! Noyle’s article Techniques of WrittenStorytelling Applied to Game Design.[27]

5.1.3 Scripted SequencesThe scripted sequence represents yet another step away from pre-rendered video.My distinction between scripted sequences and in-game cutscenes is that the playerretains control over his character in the scripted sequence. This would also meanthat the game GUI remains visible during a scripted sequence. The most importantconsequence of this is that the gameflow and the immersion it brings are not inter-rupted in the same way as in an in-game cutscene or FMV. This makes the scriptedsequence optimal in tying story and gameplay together as it allows gameplay to goon at the same time as storytelling. It is not optimal for telling vital bits of theplot however, as the freedom for players to act makes it unlikely that they manageto catch everything. This is also a reason for not having too much going on in thebackground when a scripted sequence with narrative content is played.

5.1.4 Voice-overThe voice-over tool is somewhat adjacent to the scripted sequence. As far as de-velopers are concerned, the playing of a voice clip as the player reaches a certainlocation or time is in fact a scripted sequence. For the purpose of this thesis, andalso in the eyes of the player, a distinction can be made though. The voice-overtool is then defined as a voice-over conveying narrative content not a!ecting or in-hibiting gameplay. This tool is even weaker than the scripted sequence in ensuringthat the narrative content actually reaches the player and is therefore best used totell non-vital content. This could be atmosphere-enhancing things like the views,comments and thoughts of important NPC characters accompanying the player orvoices from before that echoes in the main character’s mind as he approaches a newchallenge.

In short, the voice-over tool is a comparatively cheap and easy way of enhancingthe atmosphere or mood of a game and to add richness and depth to characters andstory.

5.1.5 Ambient ActionsAmbient actions are used to some extent in Fable and Just Cause. They could bedivided into two domains: interaction occurring between factions or people (NPCs)regardless of the main character and interaction occurring between NPCs as a reac-tion to the main character or his actions, with the former mainly occurring in JustCause and the latter in Fable.

Actions in the first sphere are used to bring life to the game world. In JustCause, this is experienced as firefights erupting between guerillas and government

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troops, sometimes with the player finding himself in the middle. This kind ofinteraction going on between NPCs can be built on infinitely. One extreme is theNPC interaction in the interactive storytelling system (the “Storytron”, formerlyknown as the “Erasmatron”) being developed by Chris Crawford. Here, the NPCsall have individual attributes and attitudes toward each other, allowing complexinteraction without involvement from the player. Spreading of rumors, news andlies, fights starting and alliances and friendships formed are all potentially possiblein this complex system.[4] Even with less resources, much can be done in this areato bring more life to the game world.

In the second sphere, ambient actions take the role of the third part, that of thechorus in the ancient drama. The task of the chorus is to be the backdrop againstwhich the actions of the drama occurs, and also to be the audience’s emotional agenton the scene.[5] In cinema, shots of bystanders’ or supporting characters’ faces andtheir reactions to an event fill this role. For example, if the hero does somethingastonishing, such as defeating the evil baron, we would see shots of surprised andhappy villagers witnessing the event. This reaction is a very strong tool for elicitingaudience emotion. Translated to the games medium, this can be done throughallowing less important NPCs (bystanders, villagers etc) to react to the player’sactions directed at his antagonists. (Or the antagonists’ actions against the maincharacter.) For example, when walking past peasants in Fable, the player can oftenhear them talk about him using his current hero title (which is “Chicken-chaser” inthe beginning of the game, making players want to gain a new title as quickly aspossible).

Because of their nature of not directly involving the player, ambient actionsaren’t suitable for advancing plot or conveying important information. On theother hand they are extremely useful for bringing life and credibility to the gameworld and story and especially its ties to gameplay and player actions.

5.1.6 Character DevelopmentCharacter development is first and foremost seen as a gameplay feature rather thana storytelling tool, and rightly so. The training of vital skills and increasing ofattributes belongs in any RPG, and appears with increased frequency also in gamesbelonging more to the adventure and action genres. An interesting example of thisin the action genre is the large amount of ways in which players can train andimprove their skills in GTA: San Andreas. What seems to be less obvious is thatcharacter development can also be tied to the game’s story, thereby creating aninteresting connection between player-created story and gameplay on one hand anddeveloper-created story on the other. This is done by letting important events andturning points in the story reflect on the main character. (For example an accidentdismembering the main character, or, as seen in Fable, visual scarring appearing ashe lives through combat.)

I am reluctant to include pure aestethic character customisation here as it can’tactually bring a story forward, even though it does add to the immersion in the

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game world and the player-character bond.

5.1.7 Location EvolvementLocation evolvement is a surprisingly potent tool. The immersive power of locationevolvement in sandbox gameplay is taken advantage of to some extent in a few recentgames and more so in many of the coming generation of games. It is being recognisedthat a destructible environment allows deeper gameplay than just fighting a fewselected enemies in pre-determined surroundings.2

Also in story-driven gameplay, location evolvement has an important role. Onedirect way of using it to bring a story forward has an example in Fable. As mentionedabove, early in the game, the player returns to a picturesque village that is nowgoing up in flames. This shows that things are actually happening with the world,rather than it being just a stage on which the game is played. This creates a strongsense of agency because you, as a player, get the feeling that you are not just avisitor in an unchanging environment, you are an actor in a changeable world thatis responding to your actions. Manipulating the environment is thus a powerfulway of conveying story without inhibiting gameplay or forcing player attention. Itsusefulness becomes even larger in that it creates a bond between the game arenathat the gameplay takes place in and the developer-story and game world.

5.1.8 Interactive DialogueInteractive dialogue is one of the oldest and most primitive concepts of interactivestorytelling and also a well-used feature in games. One of its main flaws is that itmakes the branching points of the story tree painfully obvious, allowing the playerto see the exact structure of the choice tree as he goes along. It does howeverrepresent an easy and straightforward tool for presenting players with clear andunambiguous choices. As an example, this is seen in Fable, where the player choicesare limited to simple “yes” or “no” answers but are o!ering a quick and easy wayto accept or turn down missions and o!ers made by NPCs.

Traditionally, interactive dialogue has had the form of NPC lines being presentedas text with two or more text replies for the player to choose from. There are alsoother, more modern variations in interactive dialogue, one example being the systemused in Kingpin. Here, no text alternatives to choose from are displayed. Instead,the player chooses a more or less aggressive mode of interaction with a button press,eliciting more or less friendly reactions from the targeted NPC.

In coming games, we see further development in interactive dialogue, using fullaudio conversation with nature-like NPC facial expressions reacting to the conver-sation as it goes along. Even with these cosmetic developments the underlyingstructure of interactive dialogue stays the same though, with the same strengthsand limitations as before.

2I have never heard the term constructible environment on the other hand, perhaps telling ussomething about the destructive nature of current games.

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5.1.9 Storytelling ItemsStorytelling items are a good way of enhancing the mood and atmosphere in a game,tying the environment to the storyline. Another advantage is the freedom of choicethey bring. Instead of forcing the player to watch or read the developer-createdstory, storytelling items can be read or viewed at any time, several times or not at all.This makes them ideal in supplying back story and deeper non-critical knowledgeabout the game world. The player more interested in story and atmosphere canchoose to access the items, while those more interested in action-oriented gameplaycan choose not do get bogged down in storytelling. As with other tools which areoptional for the player to use, those parts critical to the story’s advancement or forthe player to understand what happens should be avoided here. Storytelling itemscould on the other hand be used as important tools in gameplay challenges. Becauseof them being part of the game world and also being optional to use, they are goodplaces to hide clues to puzzles and secrets in the game, making them somewhatuseful in the tying together of story and gameplay.

The fact that the storytelling items exist inside the game world rather thanbeing external sources relating information about the game world from outside of itgive them a special position in the area of immersion. For example, a wooden signby the road saying “Danger! Here be wolves!” does more for the immersion than atext popup saying “Entering wolf level”.

5.1.10 Player JournalThe player journal is not only a storytelling tool, but can also be an important aidto the player, recording events as they happen and working as a reference where theplayer can look up mission objectives and the history of his instance of the game.As a logical limitation, player journals can’t hold information that drives the storyforward. They are after all journals, being records of events already happened.What they often are used for on the other hand is to convey the main character’semotions and his reflections and thoughts about the events as they happen in thegame. This brings another dimension of storytelling that is omnipresent in literaturebut is harder to convey in film (and thereby in in-game cutscenes and FMVs).

The player journal could be seen as a special instance of storytelling items –being an item which contents are created by the main character. One importantdi!erence apart from the player journal’s special position as a record of the maincharacter’s emotions is its capability to contain out-of game world information. Thiscan be mission objectives or other game-related information that lies on the borderbetween gameplay mechanics and game world.

5.1.11 Plain TextPlain text is the oldest tool, familiar already in the old MUDs of the seventies andeighties, although nowadays it is more often than not combined with a voice-overreading the text aloud. This combination of voice-over and text are powerful to

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get a point across, but they quickly grow tedious if the text volume gets too large.Reading long texts on-screen is strenuous to the eyes, and the voice-over readingof long texts demands much time. Players also tend to expect more than a textscreen when they have accomplished a mission or enter a new part of the game. Anexample of where text screens work is the silent film-inspired screens used in Gun.The creators of the game have the voice of the main character read the text andhave also made an e!ort to make it short – in most cases there is only a couple ofsentences.

Instead of interrupting gameplay like in many older games, narrative text can bepresented where is doesn’t interference with ongoing events. One obvious such placeis loading screens of di!erent kinds. These are often used for displaying gameplaytips, and in some games (such as Rome: Total War) they show famous quotes.Displaying short paragraphs of narrative text is a however a viable option here.

5.2 Using the Tools TogetherWe saw in chapter four (see table 4.1) that the games played utilise quite di!erentcombinations of the tools. Fable uses most of them and GTA: San Andreas a littlefewer. Gun relies mainly on a cinematic storytelling with scripted sequences andin-game cutscenes and uses even fewer. Finally, Just Cause is the game with theleast significant story component, which is indicated by the game utilising only fourtools.

The number of tools used is of course not all that matters. As Magnus Nedfors,lead designer at Avalanche Studios points out: “It’s the quality that’s important –even if we manage to include all of the tools it’s worth nothing if we don’t do itwell.”3 This is in line with the main point of immersion: That it is not how muchgood stu! you successfully include that matters, it is that you avoid the mistakesand errors disturbing the immersive experience. An example of this is the commentsfrom bystanders that the player hears when passing through villages in Fable. Itis at first enhancing the feeling of a living world and also helps establishing thatthe main character is an aspiring hero struggling to become renown. As the gameprogresses the comments quickly become repetitive and instead serve as a disturbingelement detrimental to the sense of immersion. GTA: San Andreas, unlike Fable, isnot called an RPG but still has much of the same gameplay components and playsmuch in the same way. Here, the tools are however used better and aren’t allowed todisturb the experience in the same way. The high quality and large scope of GTA:San Andreas’ story shows that an action game’s story component can now actuallycompete with traditionally story-heavier games. Consequently, GTA: San Andreashas received higher scores and better press, both for the game as a whole and for thestory. This is interesting as Fable, being an RPG, traditionally would be expectedto have more development time dedicated to the story and its implementation, andmore weight on it in the game.

3From a round-table discussion at Avalanche Studios.

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As the tools are radically di!erent, they form a highly complex system. Witheach tool having its distinct advantages and disadvantages, it is not simply a matterof including as many tools as possible, or even which tools to use. It is about howto use them and, more importantly, how to combine them for greatest possiblee!ect. One example of a combination of tools is using pre-rendered videos, in-gamecutscenes or even recorded gameplay events in the player journal. Letting the playerrevisit cutscenes ensures that no important information has been missed, and doingit from within the player journal makes it more connected to other events recordedin the journal and lets it happen inside the game and game world. Another example,that has been mentioned earlier, is letting the main character be a!ected by eventsconveyed in a cutscene. (A character development/in-game cutscene or characterdevelopment/pre-rendered video combination.)

Forming rules about how to combine the tools is perhaps not impossible, butit would be far too complex to investigate in depth here. However, being aware ofeach tool’s limitations and strengths is vital for making informed choices in how touse the story for maximum advantage. An important consideration in this respectis how strong the tools are in conveying developer-created story versus facilitatingplayer-created story. A graphical representation of this, somewhat summarising theabove sections, can be found in figure 5.1, though the positions here aren’t exact andalso somewhat subjective by nature. In the top left we see pre-rendered video andin-game cutscenes. In essence being movie clips, they are very strong in advancinga plot, but have a weakness in the areas of player involvement and connectionto gameplay. Scoring high on both axes are scripted sequences and interactivedialogue, being strong in conveying developer-created story as well as having a highlevel of interactivity – forming gameplay elements in themselves. Ambient actionsand character development are weakest in conveying developer-created story andare in the bottom right of the figure. The rest of the tools occupy middle positions,with voice-over and plain text being weakest in player-created story, as they are notas closely tied to, or a!ected by, player actions.

5.2.1 Tying Story to GameplayWhen looking to tie story and gameplay together to form one coherent experiencerather than focusing on the actual telling of the story, another set of tools comeinto focus. Some are strong means of forging the di!erent parts of a game together,while others almost work in the opposite direction. These di!erences somewhatresemble those of player-created versus developer-created story brought up in theprevious section, with pre-rendered video being the weakest tool here. Pre-renderedvideos are (as the name suggests) completed before the release of the game, makingit impossible to adapt to a specific play session or incorporate any player choicesmade. Locking user input and reducing the active player to a spectator, the pre-rendered videos show pre-determined scenes uncapable of relating to player choices

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Figure 5.1. The strength of the storytelling tools in telling developer-created vsplayer-created story. A high rating in both (i.e. a position in the top right corner)means that the tool is strong in tying story to gameplay.

or the state of the game world.Second weakest are the in-game cutscenes and plain text. Identical to the pre-

rendered video in most respects, in-game cutscenes have one important advantageand an (increasingly insignificant) disadvantage. The advantage is that it is possibleto get many details right, for example those mentioned above, bringing at least somemeasure of coherence between story and gameplay. The same is true for plain text,where player-specific information can easily be pasted into the text, somewhat tyingit to the current play session. These tools are however also working negatively here,as they (as well as pre-rendered video) lock user input and put the player in thebackseat. The disadvantage of in-game cutscenes is the graphics quality. The pre-rendered videos have virtually no upper limit in how high the quality can be, whilethe in-game cutscenes are dependent on the game engine and are limited by itscapabilities. With the increasing power of the hardware, this problem is howeverrapidly diminishing.

Then comes a few tools that can better be used to help shaping a coherentexperience. Storytelling items, ambient actions, player journal, voice-over, characterdevelopment and location evolvement are all narrative tools that exist within thegame world. These might not be the most important as they more often than notrequire little or no input from the player, and merely coexist with the main characterin the game world. Used together they do have potential to form a strong bond

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between story and gameplay, bringing story references into every corner of the gameworld.

What I consider best are scripted sequences and interactive dialogue, becausethey form actual gameplay elements in themselves. This allows the player to actuallyplay the story forward and is the closest we get to pure interactive storytelling. Theversatility of the scripted sequence makes it particularly interesting. A moderninteractive dialogue system that works really well is on the other hand yet to beseen, although some titles of the 2006 edition of E3 look promising.

To summarise the above section, the usefulness of the tools when tying story togameplay is shown in figure 5.2. As we can see here, the scripted sequences andinteractive dialogue tools are in the top. This is because they allow gameplay andnarrative simultaneously, which (as one can imagine) is the best possible positionin tying gameplay and story together. Then follows a group of tools that are weakin advancing plot but add much to the atmosphere and play area of a game. Thesehelp in making the play area feel like a living world where the game’s story is anintegrated part. In the lowest positions are the tools that halt gameplay and disruptthe feeling of agency. The tool getting the bottom position here is pre-renderedvideo, as it can’t be a!ected by how the game has been played at all.

Figure 5.2. The tools’ suitability for tying story to gameplay. The tools that get ahigh rating here are those that are positioned in the top right corner of figure 5.1.

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5.3 Implementing Story in the Action-Arcade GenreAs we have discussed in chapter one, di!erent game genres demand radically dif-ferent approaches to storytelling. Looking at a game in the action-arcade genre(like Just Cause) some considerations come to mind. Firstly, one could assume thatplayers don’t expect very much weight on story in this genre. The story componentgetting a minor amount of player time and attention for the sake of action-orientedgameplay gives us a certain base layout to work with.

While the ideal of course is a great story giving us as much as possible inall four areas mentioned – immersion, cohesiveness, motivation and storytellingin itself – limitations in development time force prioritising of resources. Withthese limitations in mind, we can speculate that it is less attractive to go for the“immersion”4 and “storytelling for its own sake” benefits, while we can still achieveplenty in the cohesiveness area, as well as increasing motivation. With a minimumof narrative sequences we can still put the main character and his or her objectivesin a context and provide the player with reasons for performing the tasks given.Creating a strong sense of immersion and a strong story that is an experience initself is a true challenge with these constraints, why it is more sensible to try toreach these objectives using the player-created story.

So what we have in this genre is a situation where we want to focus on workingwith facilitating the player-created story to create immersion and motivation, andlet our (less heavy) developer-created story go for cohesiveness and also increasingmotivation.

We don’t want to disrupt gameplay and force players away from controlling theircharacter, thus we need to avoid too many long cutscenes or other non-interactivenarrative sequences. As the two tools that are easiest for telling story (pre-renderedvideo and in-game cutscenes) do exactly this, we have a situation where we havelittle tools to convey a developer-created story. This makes the tools strong intying together story and gameplay more important, as well as those tools makingit optional to take part of the narrative content. Thus, for the action-game, thescripted sequence is optimal for telling story as the game goes along, while we canstill use pre-rendered video or in-game cutscenes for intro and outro and perhapsalso when the player starts and finishes major chapters and we actually seek theslump in pace they bring.

To bring more depth to the storyline and characters, the tools that don’t forceaway players from the action are most useful. This lets people play the games in themanner they want, whether they want to follow every detail in the story or chooseto focus on the actual playing. These tools are player journal and storytelling items.One should notice that the work on these might be wasted as many action-orientedplayers won’t bother much with them.

In conclusion, very much can be done even with a less than perfect story if it is4Immersion is of course extremely important. In this genre, resources are however perhaps

better spent on creating a sense of immersion from the game world and the gameplay itself ratherthan relying too much on the story here.

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told using each tool to its maximum advantage. Rather than looking at the storyof games in the same way as John Carmack – that it has the same (non-existent)role as story in porn movies – I would argue that stories in action games have therole of those in horror movies. In these, nobody expects the high quality stories ofdrama movies having immensely gripping storylines and vivid character portraits.The generic horror story does however add coherence between the horror scenes anda measure of sympathy for the characters. Here, a rather simple story with not toomuch work on it adds some vital qualities to the experience, just like it can in anyaction game.

5.4 Conclusions and Future WorkIn the thesis section of the first chapter, three tasks were defined:

1. Define in what ways the story can contribute to a game in the current genre

2. Identify the methods or tools that are used to tell stories in games

3. Investigate in what ways these methods or tools can be used to forge storyand gameplay together and to maximise the positive e!ects found in (1).

The first task above was presented as a foundation for the sections on the gamesplayed. Here, the four benefits of storytelling in games were outlined, and three ofthem were identified as being relevant for the relationship between gameplay andstory: cohesiveness, immersion and motivation.

The second task was then addressed. Here, four AAA action games that includeboth a significant story component and sandbox gameplay were played thoroughly.The storytelling in these games acted as the source for defining eleven storytellingtools used in the games medium. These eleven tools are not entirely separate, butare sometimes adjacent and even overlapping. In addition to defining the set oftools, I have also discussed the advantages, disadvantages and complications thateach tool brings.

These two sets of results form a logical foundation for discussing storytellingin games further. I have argued that they are not the only things to considerhowever: the genre is highly important as well. In the choice of how to tell storyand what storytelling tools to utilise and in what manner, one must bear in mindwhat expectations and limitations the genre brings. (With genre boundaries beingvague and cross-genre games frequently being developed, the phrasing “type ofgame” is perhaps more appropriate than “genre”.)

Finally, I have discussed how one can use the tools together to maximise thepositive e!ects of story. I have here tried to forge the results and previous analysistogether into a coherent discussion. The topic of what e!ect di!erent combinationsof tools can have has proven to be almost a science in itself, so my discussion on thisis limited to merely being a few short suggestions. The large number of storytellingtools available and the number of di!erent advantages to be gained from them makes

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storytelling in the computer games medium extremely complex. This is a large andcomplex area to say the least, and could be expanded upon considerably. Formingsystems and rules for it will prove to be extremely di"cult, but the advantages ofa methodological approach to storytelling in games could be tremendous. In short,much more can be done in the researching of how to best use the tools in di!erentgenres, to di!erent e!ects and in di!erent combinations. Further thought could alsobe put into the delimitation between the tools as they overlap each other somewhatwith my distinctions. (Scripted sequences could for example be designed to notdirectly a!ect the player and thus be perceived as ambient actions.)

Where future developments really get interesting is when we can successfullyabandon the now dominant method of combining story-free sandbox gameplay withlinear story-driven missions. The next step is to combine the two into sandboxgameplay that has impact on a multi-linear or (in the ideal world) a non-linearstory. This is the largest and most promising challenge in the future of the gamesmedium – to combine player-created story with developer-created story and giverise to real interactive storytelling.

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[24] A. Light. Narrative vs control in the online story world. URL http://www.uigarden.net/english/narrative-vs-control-in-the-online-story-world. Date of ac-cess: Apr 5th, 2006.

[25] M. S. Meadows. Pause & E!ect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. New Riders, 2002.ISBN 0735711712.

[26] J. Murray. Hamlet on the Holodeck - The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. MITPress, 1998. ISBN 0262631873.

[27] J. Noyle. Techniques of written storytelling applied to game design. URL http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060426/noyle_01.shtml. Date of access: May15th, 2006.

[28] J. A. Ward. Interactive narrative theory and practice. James Madison University,2004.

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Appendices

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Appendix A

Ludography

Call of Duty Activision Publishing Inc., Infinity Ward Inc., 2003Fable Microsoft Game Studios, Lionhead Studios Ltd., 2004Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) Atari Europe S.A.S.U, Quantic Dream, 2005Grand Theft Auto III Rockstar Games Inc., Rockstar North Ltd., 2002Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Rockstar Games Inc., Rockstar North Ltd., 2004Gun Activision Publishing Inc., Neversoft Entertainment, 2005Halo: Combat Evolved Microsoft Game Studios, Bungie Software Products Corpora-

tion, 2001Ico Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., 2001Just Cause Eidos, Avalanche Studios, 2006Kingpin: Life of Crime Interplay Entertainment Corp., Xatrix Entertainment, Inc., 1999Max Payne Rockstar Games Inc., Remedy Entertainment Ltd., 2001Missile Command Midway Games West Inc., Midway Games West Inc., 1981Pac-Man Atari, Namco Ltd., 1981Rome: Total War Activision Publishing Inc., The Creative Assembly, 2004Shadow of the Colossus Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Ltd., Sony Computer

Entertainment Inc., 2006Shenmue SEGA Corp., SEGA-AM2 Co. Ltd., 1999The Legend of Zelda Nintendo Co. Ltd., Nintendo Co. Ltd., 1986

Game information taken from http://www.mobygames.com

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Appendix B

Glossary

AAA: Triple-A rating. Originally used as a credit rating, AAA is also used in theentertainment business to denote a top-notch game with a substantial budget(as opposed to budget, value or B-titles).

E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo. The world’s largest computer games venue,that was held in Los Angeles in May each year. Here, the game companiesspent countless dollars in their struggle to outperform their competition inpresenting their coming (always next-gen) titles. Currently, the future of E3is uncertain.

FMV: Full-Motion Video. A short video clip often shown at important momentsand turning points in a game. Used to piece out bits of story. Here, it is usedinterchangeably with pre-rendered video.

FPS: First-person shooter. An action game where the player sees the game worldas if through the main character’s eyes.

GUI: Graphical User Interface. This is the button and information panels overlaidon the game area, showing vital information to the player, such as weaponsused, items carried, available maps and the state of the main character.

main character (MC): The game character that has the main role in the storyand is controlled by the player.

MUD: Multi-User Dungeon. Exclusively text-based multiplayer adventure gamescreating strong communities in the early days of computer gaming. The pre-decessor to todays graphical-interface massively multiplayer RPGs.

NPC: Non-Playable Character, all the characters in a game that are not controlledby a human player.

RPG: Role-playing game. In this thesis this means computer RPGs, sometimescalled CRPGs. These lend from the traditional, non-computerised, role-

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playing games, and are largely about evolving a character while exploringsome kind of fantasy world.

ship a game: Delivering the finished game (code and assets) to the distributorfor the manufacturing of the actual game discs/cartridges.

sandbox gameplay: A free mode of gameplay letting the player roam freely andengage in whatever activities he wants. The opposite of linear gameplay, wherethe player has to complete a linear series of developer-defined tasks often tiedclosely to the game’s story. Well-known titles including a large component ofsandbox gameplay are the GTA series and Just Cause.

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