The Game Development Guild

1. The Game Development Guild http://groups.google.com/group/g-d-g/

2. CSE1GDT – Story Time Paul Taylor 2009

3. Chapter 1 – What makes a story?

4. Interest Curves • Inherent • Poetry • Projection

5. Story • Story is an element that can influence all three of the types of interest • The impact can be both +ve and –ve • There are many other elements to your games • Story is one of the trickier ones

6. What is a story? • A sequence of events • Hopefully interesting • Possibly so interesting that the listener will want to tell someone else My Story: There was a green frog and it died. The End

7. Does Story Integrate? • Story works VERY well in books • Story can work well in Movies • Story in games is ??

8. What’s happening? Is storytelling passive?

9. Do people listen passively or actively? • Do you wonder what is going to happen? • Does intrigue make you guess at the future? • Do you empathise with the characters?

10. Stories are NOT passive! My Story: There was a green frog and it died. The End

11. How fat does a story need to be? • Chess • Final Fantasy • Tomb Raider 1....7 • Naughts and Crosses • Tetris • Pac Man

12. Pipe Dreams A Completely Interactive Story where players have complete freedom, doing what they wish, and culminating wonderfully • The Reality • It’s not going to happen, if it did, it would mentally break people • This doesn’t mean we can’t create a great immersive experience using story!

13. The two headed snake • Game players love the freedom to choose their own paths • Stories are designed to have one ending

14. Solutions to integrating story in games • String of Pearls (Rivers and Lakes) • Performs well with interest and difficulty curves • It is linear • Almost entirely pre-scripted • The Story Machine • The Sims is a story generator • Very unscripted • Directly/Indirectly controlled by the playa

15. What about branching stories? • A branching story has many different paths that can be taken • This leaves the designer with either multiple endings, or trying to tie all of the players choices back to the one (or few) ending(s)

16. Issue #1 • Good stories have unity • Unity – ‘state of being undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting.’ • So unity means the story is resolved in ALL aspects • This conflicts with the “I can smell a sequel ending” ?cheapening the game?

17. Issue #2 Combinatorial Explosions What if you had just three choices at ten points in your game? 3^10 = 59049 Different paths!!! Fusing outcomes together is not a great solution • The story will end up with inconsistencies and contradictions

18. Issue #3 Multiple Endings Suck • Is this the real ending? • Silent Hill 5 • Do I have to play through the whole game again to see the other endings? • BioShock • Exceptions do arise • Good vs Evil • Knights of the old republic

19. Problem #4 Not Enough Verbs Verb = Action word • Videogame characters are not very expressive! • They tend to have verbs like • Run walk shoot jump throw crouch • Movie characters • Talk convince shout plead scream • Book characters • Ponder insecure angered calmed worried

20. Problem #4 Not Enough Verbs • We are left to tell the story with at least one of the main characters unable to fluently express themselves.

21. Issue #5 The Tragedy of Tragedy • The freedom you afford the player will generally remove the inevitability from the story. • When you limit the player to introduce this it can frustrate them • Having a save point removes the players worry about the death of characters

22. Ideas for story Steal from Hollywood • A character with a goal • Obstacles to keep them from reaching the goal • Rising above the conflicts to ‘win’ To this end you must relate all the challenges in your game to the story

23. Simplicity and Transcendence • Simplicity is inherent in game worlds • Grass is just grass • Climbable objects are usually more obvious • Transcendence - ‘of climbing or going beyond’ • Giving the player power • Allowing them to go beyond normal

24. Simplicity and Transcendence Typical Themes with inherent transcendance Medieval Futuristic War Modern

25. Consider the Hero’s journey A book by mythologist Joseph Campbell 1949 ‘The hero with a Thousand Faces’ The book describes the ‘monomyth’ which describes the underlying structure of almost all stories Star Wars was based on this book!

26. V2.0 ChristopehrVogler 1992. ‘The Writer’s Journey’ A practical guide to writing based on the archetypes of the monomyth This one was believed to be used by the writers of The Matrix

27. Games are usually all about a Hero • Google it, you’ll get all you need from it. Synopsis from TAOGD: The Ordinary World The Call to Adventure – Challenge the disrupts life Refusal of the Call - Excuses Meeting with the Mentor – Wise figure Crossing the Threshold – Leaving ordinary

28. Tests, Allies, Enemies – Minor challenges Approaching the Cave (as in caving-in) The Ordeal – Life / Death The Reward – Survival + Reward The Road Back – Return to the ordinary world Resurrection – Climax Returning with the Elixir – Life+1

29. Interest curves again If you look over the hero’s journey you’ll see it!

30. Use your story as a tool! • Hardware limitations • Fog • Complexity Issues • GOW AI

31. Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy ~Decomposition: If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage.

32. Keep your World Consistent and Coherent!! • It doesn’t need to be controlled by the rules of the real world, but must be internally logical • If eating pigeons is ok at the start then it should continue unless the story dictates the change and notifies the player!

33. Make the world accessible • Accessible != Realistic • Pirate ships are incredibly slow • Cars are Very Fragile • Shooting lots of people is bad

34. “I’ll be back”

35. Be careful with Clichés! • Negative • They can cheapen the game • Bore players with predictability • Positive • Familiar to the player • Comprehensible and relatable • Perhaps combine new and old?

36. When Words Fail Go back to pre-school and get drawing! The Book - Treasure Island was imagined on a small map Robert Stevenson’s stepson was painting Some ideas just look better in pictures

37. Chapter 2 – Indirect Control

38. Bob Bates – Game Designer • “Story and gameplay are like oil and vinegar. Theoretically they don’t mix, but if you put them in a bottle and shake them up real good, they’re pretty good on a salad.”

39. This lecture is about merging the story you are creating with your gameplay through indirect control. The problem we must solve is the two headed snake from before:

40. The two headed snake • Game players love the freedom to choose their own paths • Stories are designed to have one ending • The Solution: Indirect Control

41. Indirect Control • Players love their freedom, it is what makes gameplay fun • So we must give them freedom? • No!

42. The Feeling of Freedom • What colour should the next slide be? Red Blue Green Orange Purple White Black

43. It doesn’t matter! • You didn’t have freedom of choice, but all the same you felt like you had choice • I used a constraint to ‘help’ you choose within the scope of freedom provided

44. The Biggest Indirect Control Goals

45. The Biggest Indirect Control Goals

46. Goals • The Goals you have set in the players mind will largely guide their behaviour through the game • If players believe they need to hide, they will search for a place • If they believe the building is collapsing they will run

47. Interface • Remember your juicy interface? • It should be transparent to the immersed player • Physical Interface Limitations • Guitar Hero • Rock Band • Wii-Zappers

48. Interface • Virtual Interface Limitations • The type of avatar (persona) • The way the interface does (or doesn’t) react to game objects

49. Visual Design • To make life simple we can look at some different artwork and photos

50. www.artsjournal.com/dewey21c/LatteArtWeb.jpg