Video Games and Stories

1. Video Games and Stories Building a better union An observation by Jonathan Brewer

2. We play video games and follow stories for similar reasons • An escape from reality • A chance to connect with new places and new people • A chance to experience painless thrill and drama

3. When a person reads a book or watches a movie, they are a passive entity; their actions have no impact on what happens in the story When a person plays a game, their actions are what make the game progress. The player is an active entity. There is a key difference

4. Are the mediums incompatible? • When a person plays a video game, they expect everything that happens to be a reflection of the actions they take. • Having a story that doesn’t reflect the player’s actions can be frustrating. • Branching the game for every conceivable decision is impossible.

5. The key components of a story • The setting • The characters • The event • The development • The climax • The ending

6. How to familiarize the player with the setting and characters • Pre-game techniques • Opening scroll • All in the manual • In-game techniques • Information dumping • Diaries • A mix of both • Tutorials • Audio recordings. Having the PC be amnesiac, or a stranger in a distant land makes the in-game process a lot less awkward.

7. The development can be linear • Easier to design • Easier to integrate a story • Less replay value • Less flexibility

8. The development can be semi-linear • Harder to design • Harder to make a plausible story • Gives the player more freedom, feels less contrived

9. Developing with the player • As video games get more sophisticated, players expect to play a bigger role in shaping the story. • Good stories often make observers wish that they could be a participant, video games can take advantage of this. • Taking control away during a crucial moment is a guaranteed way to ruin any sense of immersion the player might have been feeling.

10. Example: Chrono Trigger Why are my characters just standing around while this happens?

11. The ending • Above all, the ending should reflect the time and the effort that the player put into the game. • Nowadays, players expect more than a simple “You won!” screen.

12. Multiple Endings • Two advantages of having multiple endings are: • Making the player explore the game to its fullest extent to ensure that their first ending is the best one. • Extra replay value as the player can explore the different outcomes of his/her decisions. • The disadvantages? Anticipating all possible branches and canonical sequels.

13. Bad endings • Detailed bad endings can be more powerful than good endings for multiple reasons: • Most gamers expect a happy ending when they complete the game. • Usually a bad end simply involves your character lying dead, and your connection with the setting terminated. This can promote apathy, especially when death occurs often. • Tragedy is not usually an everyday component of our lives. • Bad endings give the player a fate to avoid in addition to the normal goals of the game.

14. Bad ending: IHNMAIMSI Have No Mouth And I Must Scream • Adventure game where you control five humans who are being kept alive indefinitely for the amusement of an insane global computer. • The good ending results in you saving the world. Huzzah. • The bad ending involves the human you’re controlling suffering a fate worse than death. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR8wYSdkx0o

15. Bad ending: Chrono Trigger • Popular RPG made on the SNES. • Time travel is a central theme. • Most of the time, a game over involves your party members lying on the ground dead while sad music is played. • If you fail at the final boss, you get an extra cinematic that shows just how badly you failed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OxMNRB89Fo

16. The conflict between tragedy and player control • Stories often add tragedy to engage the player on an emotional level. Unfortunately, this can be hard to translate into video games. • If the tragedy is perceived as avoidable, then the player may feel like they should have been able to do something. • If the tragedy is perceived as unavoidable, the player may simply not care. • Having a tragic end be the main ending can make the player feel cheated, unless it’s a setup for a sequel. • How can we include tragedy in our games and ensure optimal player engagement as well?

17. Detailed example: Tsukihime • Bestselling visual novel released in 2000. • Has 9 endings overall, with at least one per heroine. • You cannot reach all endings initially, some endings must be done before others.

18. Tsukihime: Basic Info • You play as Tohno Shiki. You were sent away from the Tohno mansion long ago by your father, TohnoMakihisa. • Makihisa has just recently died, and your sister Akiha has summoned you back to the mansion. • [Spoilers] You real name is Nanaya Shiki. The real Tohno Shiki (called SHIKI in game) went insane long ago and is now on the streets killing people and sucking their blood due to his heritage. You were hypnotized to forget all of this by Makihisa. • The first two paths you can take have you team up with vampire hunters to kill SHIKI. • The latter three paths remain centered around the Tohno mansion, its dark past, and the horrible curse the Tohno family suffers from. You have to deal with SHIKI in these path too.

19. Tsukihime: Arcueid True ending: After an intense battle where both of you were almost killed, Arcueid informs you that she no longer has the power to resist her desire for blood, and that she must never see you again. After seeing her True ending, you are allowed to go back and make a choice that leads to her… Good ending: She gets better! And you both live happily ever after!

20. Tsukihime That girl gave you a ribbon, and asked you to return it to her when you came back to the mansion -> We have a match! Let’s give back that ribbon! Oops… …but there’s no time for this, we must go and help Akiha fight SHIKI!

21. Tsukihime Oh dear…

22. Tsukihime It gets worse.

23. Tsukihime So much worse.

24. Tsukihime Then it points out that this is really all your fault.

25. Tsukihime After suffering through that ending, you are allowed to make a choice near the beginning that will let you… Discover her tragic past early on, Keep your promise, And see her true smile.

26. Evaluation • Tsukihime makes you go through the more tragic endings before you can experience the happy ones. • This “tragedy before triumph” method makes the happy endings even happier. • Unfortunately, the effect is diminished by the fact that you cannot reach the happy endings first, and thus they don’t feel as genuine. • Can we combine this technique with the triumphant nature of reaching a happy ending first?

27. Sources • http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/07/02/big-ideas-the-role-of-story-in-video-games/ • http://www.lingualgamers.com/thesis/story_video_games.html • http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/smith/ • http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_%28literary_technique%29 • http://www.letsplayarchive.com (images)