Character development and environment design.

3. Character development and environment design. • The relationships between player motivation, progression and reward. • Non-interactive elements such as cut-scenes. • The delivery method of gameplay instruction and exposition. • Aural stimuli – story through dialogue, music and/or sound effects. • The dramatic pacing and delivery.

4.  For this player, the trouble is deciding which threat to investigate, to follow-up on, and to neutralize. Should he track down Deadshot? Should he look for "Identity Thief?" (I know who it is!) How much time should he waste on Zzasz's phone calls? Why bother helping Bane? Who was the dude who can catch Batarangs? What can Riddler's goons reveal to me? Every threat/mystery seems to be timely and critical, as if Batman needs to delegate some investigations to the Justice League, Nightwing, Robin or some other buddy.

5. Batman has a lot to cover in Arkham City - perhaps too much for one man, and too much for one night. They're intriguing. Those aren't easy tasks. Plus, they draw Batman away from his "main missions," adding layers to a rich storyline. 

6. Rocksteady worked so hard to populate their open world with interesting things that nothing seems to be a priority What's interesting is that Batman (OK, the player) can complete the mininarratives in non-linear way. That is, the Dark Knight can stop investigating the Riddler's brain games and focus on whatever a bigger threat is scheming. In fact, he can ditch all investigations for street fights with Akrham City inmates until they're brain dead. You control his journey, deciding which narratives are most interesting. 

7. Side missions can be considered distractions, or engaging threads to a non-linear storyline. For better or worse, they multiple hours of gameplay. But are they appropriate for a story centering on one hellacious night in Arkham City? • Well, I just can't see such an epically large game occurring in simply one night.

8. The Hugo Strange trailer revealed that he knows Batman is Bruce Wayne but it was just a predator event ending with a cutscene. I thought Strange was going to instigate a full on psychological attack against Batman but I am surprised that Strange was never capitalised on. While one can argue Strange was the mastermind behind everything and thus earns his top billing for this game, I do agree with you in that there was so much more potential in Strange than what was left in the game.

9. Not so good story arc for Batman • the only loose end • tragic story arc of the Joker, it could have done with a positive story arc for Batman • Such a strong beginning, and a decent middle area, but the ending with Strange tapered off quite

10. lead narrative designer Paul Crocker • Comics cinema

11. work on the story elements of the game, and I did Arkham Asylum as well. So it’s working out a story that fits into a game.

12.  main narrative that runs through the game, which is what’s going on in Arkham City, how is that tied into Joker, how is that tied into Huge Strange, and how Two-Face, Mr. Freeze and Penguin and all the other characters fit into it.

13. There is drama, there is love, there are explosions, and there are villains. It’s 10 movies strapped into one. • She enhances the story, she appears at certain points when you swap characters. She is sort of entwined in-and-out of the game.

14.  engaging storyline created around compelling characters in a beautifully realised world, all built on the bedrock of original and fun core gameplay mechanics.

15. The Side Missions in Batman: Arkham City are a good example. We have around 15 hours of story that's off the main path. It's completely down to the player when and how they want to tackle this – there's no right or wrong time. There's no other medium that can offer this kind of flexible experience where the viewer gets to tailor the experience they want themselves.In terms of narrative structure, I think games are much more analogous to an episodic TV series than a film. You have, say, 15 hourly episodes to fill, each requiring its own narrative arc but each plugging into an overarching storyline. It requires a lot of planning to make sure that every single hour is consistent with each other, is feeding and driving towards a compelling crescendo, while remaining implicitly self-explanatory so players can pick up and play at any time and know what they are doing.

16. At Rocksteady, the narrative design has always been a core driving force of our work but improvements in technology are allowing us to breathe even more life into our characters and story.For example, in Batman: Arkham City we are using full facial motion capture for the first time, which gives a full character performance, allowing the player to see even the most subtle emotional responses on the characters' faces, as well as hear them in the dialogue.

17. narrative structure that balances open-world gameplay while being anchored by a strong core narrative experience.