Introduction to Game Narrative

1. Introduction to GameNarrative Narrative is the method by which the story materials are communicated to the audience. Ultimately, narrative comes down to one simple question: What happens? That is the heart of game narrative—what happens in the game? What story do the players create through their actions?

2. Game Writing Good writing is invisible. Bad writing draws attention to itself and instantly destroys the players sense of immersion.Every game uses words somewhere. The player might see them as text on a screen or as spoken dialogue. The writing can be confined to cutscenes between levels, or it can be an integral part of the gameplay.

3. DEFINITION OF TERMS • Story - The story is what happens, the flow of the game that can be separated from the game mechanics and retold as a narrative. • Character - Characters are the actors (or in the case of player characters, avatars) who exist in the game world and perform the in-game actions.

4. Setting The setting defines the world that the action of the game takes place in, including character races, languages, laws of physics and metaphysics (do you have spells, blasters, or both?), and pretty much everything else necessary to define the game world.

5. Backstory • Backstory is the history leading up to the events of the game, the explanation of what has produced the situation that will be played through. Related to setting, it can be defined as “who did what to whom, and what does the player have to do in order to fix it?” None of these are things that the player will interact with directly in the game, but they frame the game’s narrative and action, giving the player the information he needs to immerse himself in the fiction and move forward with the action.

6. Cut Scenes Cut scenes refer to in-game movies—sections of noninteractive footage that the player watches. Some are prerendered for a high level of visual polish, whereas others are produced with the in-game engine to provide visual continuity. Either way, cut scenes refer to events or conversations that the player sits back and watches with (usually) no interaction. When many cut scenes are collected together, the result is a noninteractive sequence known as a cinematic. Game introductory sequences are generally cinematics

7. Scripted Events A scripted event is a part of the game where control of some aspect is taken away from the player. A single scripted event can be as simple as quickly pulling the camera angle around to show a looming surveillance camera (also known as a camera case) or as complicated as setting up a sequence of events involving multiple NPCs to illustrate a game point.

8. In-Game Artifacts In-game artifacts are objects in the game world that serve to advance the narrative. They can roughly be defined as narrative that the character, not the player, finds. Frequently, in-game artifacts take the form of documents of one sort or another—diaries, letters, books, and the like. By reading these, the player gains valuable information about what’s going on and the world the player’s moving through.

9. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GAME NARRATIVE? On the most basic level, narrative strings together the events of the game, providing a framework and what can alternately be called a justification, a reason, or an excuse for the gameplay encounters. • Immersion • Reward • Identification

10. Immersion Immersion refers to the state of mind where a person is completely absorbed in what they are doing. It has been related to the psychological state of “flow” [Csikszentmihalyi91] and also to the notion of suspension of disbelief. The important thing is, when players are immersed in a game, the real world ceases to exist, and the game world becomes their reality.

11. Reward Narrative can also serve as a reward to the player. The narrative events can be revealed gradually, delivered as rewards for achieving in-game goals. When this has been done frequently enough inside the same game, the player will expect to receive another chunk of narrative after winning a boss fight or overcoming a particularly tough challenge.

12. Identification The third major role that narrative serves is that of identification. It lays everything out for the player, telling him what’s what, who’s who, and what the state of the world around him is. By doing so, it gives the players context for their actions, and this in turn provides justification for game actions. The narrative provides identification in another sense as well, namely the sense of kinship and desire to become the central character. Players are invited to identify directly with a game protagonist.

13. WHAT MAKES GAME WRITING UNIQUE? Game writing has very real expectations, limitations, and codes that are unique to the medium. Screenplays, novels, and short stories all present a single path through the material; all are media that are received passively by the reader. Videogames, on the other hand, are all about player choice and action. This is extremely rare in other media. In a videogame, the narrative experience must be completely defined in advance. This means a videogame script must be both flexible enough to cover the player’s likely actions and sufficiently constrained to be less than infinite in scope.

14. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames Games are not the writers’ story; they are the players’ stories. Writers are producing something for the players to inhabit and call their own, which is sometimes difficult to implement. The temptation is always there to take the narrative by the horns and ride it in the direction the writer thinks it should go. The expectation in game writing is that the player will firstly be the center of the experience and secondly have a good time.

15. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Continued) With all these points in mind—the similarities and differences from other media, the unique requirements of a narrative that is both flexible and constrained, and the central role of the player—the pragmatics of game writing are that it often involves writing many consecutive variations on the same theme.

16. WHAT ARE THE BASICS OF GAME WRITING? • Ensuring that the writing relates to the gameplay • Properly using the narrative tools the game provides • Keeping Gameplay in the Writing When writing for games, it’s absolutely essential that the gameplay and the writing remain closely tied to one another. What is important, then, is continually asking: “how does this support the game?” Does it reward the player, advance the action, provide depth without slowing the pace or otherwise move the player forward?

17. Using the Tools the Game Provides Different game types support different techniques for advancing the narrative. Dialogue with NPCs, in-game artifact texts, character advancement, and cut scenes, just to name a few. The narrative interacts with the central thrust of the game, taking its shape from and reinforcing the game.

18. WHAT ARE THE TASKS INVOLVED? There is no single thing that can be described as game writing. A videogame, after all, is a wildly complex combination of code, art, sound, and myriad other elements, all of which combine to make a game. As such, writing is used in plenty of ways to help produce the game, in tasks ranging from the big-picture creative to detailed and technical.

19. Story The most glamorous part of game writing is creating the story. Coming up with what happens is what many people view as the core of the writers’ art and task, and in many cases, story gets inextricably intertwined with core design.

20. Dialogue Dialogue is what’s said in the game. Superficially similar to a film script, dialogue lists the lines that are played in-game. These are generally created in conjunction with the game designer, who outlines what dialogue is needed, and the sound engineer, who establishes the technical constraints.

21. Supporting Texts The game writer’s task can extend outside of the game itself. World bibles, character descriptions, teaser fiction, and other similar texts are all potentially important. They’re useful as reference to the team .

22. Cut Scenes and Scripted Events The scripts for cut scenes and scripted events need to be created by writers in conjunction with the rest of the team. Contrary to popular belief, there are limits to what can be created with CGI, and those limits are frequently found in the schedule and the budget.

23. CREATING STORY The act of story creation is the most important creative task game writers face, as the story simultaneously makes up the bulk of the narrative and arranges all the game elements. The story describes what happens, when it happens, what order it happens in, and what results. The story, then, must be created with more than its artistic component in mind. It also needs to serve as a framework for gameplay to be hung upon, and a road map to reward and catharsis. No game writer can afford to lose sight of this.

24. Story Arc The story arc is essentially the curve described by the intensity of the action. In story terms, the action rises, growing more and more intense, until the climax, at which point it starts to drop off and the reader gets rewarded with the denouement. In gaming, the challenges, fights, and puzzles get more and more intense until the climax, which is often rendered as a boss fight. After this, the player is rewarded with denouement and, possibly, power ups. Crafting the story arc maps the narrative to the design and the level of challenge to the player contained within.

25. Pacing Pacing is the art of spreading out the action to appropriate moments, saving it for when the player is ready, and pulling back when the player is likely to have had enough. In story terms, this means introducing enemies or obstacles when the player is ready for them and not before, and providing revelations and rewards sufficient to keep the player encouraged.

26. Climax The climax is the big showdown. In general terms, everything in the game story needs to lead to this moment, when the player must use everything he has learned through the course of the game in order to triumph. Often, a game story climax offers few opportunities for actual writing. The player is too busy playing. The trick can be letting the player make the final leap to what must happen, sliding effortlessly into the desired outcome and borne forward on the story’s momentum.