Game writing interactive narrative interactive storytelling

1. Gamewritinginteractivenarrativeinteractivestorytelling marcin.sarnek@us.edu.pl http://prac.us.edu.pl/~marcin.sarnek

2. What we’ll do? LECTURES / semester ONE • Intro: Immersion and gamewriting • Defining ‘gamewriting’ • Purposes of gamenarrative • Gamewritingprocess – discussion • Player ingamewriting / Player agency/ Player experience CLASSES / semester TWO • Pragmatics of gamewriting • Gamewritingprocess – workshops / writing and thegraphic department • Gameworld / story • Structuringthe story • Characters • Artifacts / assets • Cutscenes and scriptedevents: Hollywood format vs. what’sneeded for games • Dialogueengines / dialogueeditors

3. References • Rafael Chandler, ed. Game Writing Handbook. Boston, MA: Charles River, 2007. • Chris Bateman, ed. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames. Boston, MA: Charles River, 2007.

4. Immersion, interactivestorytelling and gamewritinga loosecollection of remarks marcin.sarnek@us.edu.pl http://prac.us.edu.pl/~marcin.sarnek

5. Immersion • Somesayit’s a myth • Somesayit’swhat’sinyourhead • solipsism and virtual reality and videogames • Somesayit’swhatyoufeel • Somesayit’swhatyouexperience • Most gamerssay, nonetheless, it’swhatreallymattersinvideogames • Howdoesimmersionhappen, anyway?

6. Immersion and Virtual Reality • Virtuality • Simulation • Interaction / Interactivity • Artificiality or / and Fictionality (how about ‘reality’ then?) • Convention? Is willing suspension of disbeliefnecessary? • Does suspension of disbelief actually require ‘believing’ in what’s being shown to the immersant / audience? • Multisensensory illusion • Telepresence • IMMERSION

7. Telepresence Allows a user / immersant / person • to feel as if they were present • to give the appearance of being present • or to have an effect at a place other than their true location • Transparency of telepresence • Dillemmassurroundingtransparency • mimesisordiegesis? Howaboutvideogames? Aretheymimeticordiegetic? • Non-diegeticinterface. Why? • Telepresence ≠ immersion!

8. Reality and realism. Not the same thing. • Simulated reality • Virtualworlds • Simulatedenvironments • Mediated environment • Projected environment • Fullimmersion environment • Realistic and real… • Cantelepresence and immersion(in ANY MEDIUM) sufferdue to too much realism?

9. VR and philosophy • solipsism • platonism and neo-platonism • reality as a construct • Subject and the construction of reality (Descartes) • consensus reality

10. Real uses of VR • Simulation • Telemedicine • Military technology • Science • Interactive entertainment?

11. Yet, immersionininteractive entertainment… … is often thought to be kind of different.

12. Immersion and video games • Immersion – one of the attributes of games that create high playability • Is immersion about a realistic experience? • Multi-sensory engagement • Evolving controllers, photorealistic graphics, ecology of sound • Game ecology: • Coherent gameworld • Sound environment • Solid characters and NPC’s • Convincing AI • etc. • In short – everything that hinders the experience destroys immersion, while everything that makes the experience more ‘fluid’ enhances immersion

13. How? Gameplay is immersive • What the game is… rules of the game/ how things are done / how things happen in the game • ‘A series of interesting choices.’ - Sid Meier. • ‘The structures of player interaction with the game system and with other players in the game.’ • ‘One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment.’ • ‘The experience of gameplay is one of interacting with a game design in the performance of cognitive tasks, with a variety of emotions arising from or associated with different elements of motivation, task performance and completion.’ • ‘the interactive gaming process of the player with the game.’ (industry figures, quoted after Wikipedia)

14. How? Game design is immersive • Immersive experience requires coherent game design and level design. E.g. players know what to do in the game and when they don’t game and level design offer rational and coherent solutions. Otherwise, frustration grows, the magic’s gone… • Performance-optimized game design makes the experience as flawless and fluent as possible. • Interface design often makes games unplayable or ‘unimmersive.’ • Etc.

15. How? Graphic Art is immersive • Coherent high quality graphics make the game world immersive. • Graphic assets need to fit the gameplay, and need to be optimized for performance. • etc.

16. How? Sound design is immersive • Wellresearched and designedecology of soundmakesthegameworldmoreimmersive • Soundeffects and soundtrackneed to be optimized for performance • An interactivemovie? Not quite… Yetbothdiegeticsoundsand non-diegeticsoundsmake theexperiencemoreimmersive – likeinmovies, althoughondifferentlevels – soundcommunicates action and itscontext to theactive player, not to a passiveaudience. • Flawless, communicative, wellwritten, wellplayed, and richdialoguesneed to be consistentwithgameplay and level design. E.g. dialoguecuesneed to be triggeredwhenthe player has a chance to hearthem (so, not inthemiddle of an explosion – so much for realism… : )) – yet – stichomythia / dichomythia. • Anotherexample: dialoguesneed to be optimized for performance and platform capabilities (e.g. againstthenumber of possiblesoundsamples / tracksbeingplayedsimultaneously), yetatthe same time theycannot be overrepetitive. • Etc.

17. Yet… … ifthesedefinitionsaregood, theyshouldworkwitheveryimmersivegame… … isitlikelythat a gamethatwouldfeatureall of theseelementswouldstill do poorly to engageplayersin an immersiveexperience?

19. Canyouthink of immersionin PONG? • Afterall – thesearejustsomepoorlyrenderedsquares and rectangles… • No sound. No realgameworld (really?) No reallevel design. • Context? Whatcontext? • Gameplayiswhatmatters! For real? • FOR REAL  ! • Yet, contextestablished by the story / writingmakesthegame ‘moreimmersive’ • (well, what’sthe story in PONG…?)

20. Games are done together! • Producers • Programmers / coders • Graphic artists • Game designers • Level designers • Sound designers • Marketing department • Last but not least… Writers

21. What do writers do? • Help thegame! Thegame (and hencegameplay) comes first • Establishcontext: • developbackstory • help design gameworld • developgame and levelstorylines and story arcs • developcharacters and characterarcs • design gameassets (artefacts, buildings, vehicles, creatures, etc.) • Writedialoguesand often monitor voiceshoots • Writecut-scenes for story drivengames and often monitor cut-scenesproduction • Influence immersivegameplay by designingpossiblechoiceswithinthe story, whichrelateboth to thenarrative and to thegameplay and game design, e.g. moraldillemas, choicespertaining to sidekickcharacters, etc. • Workwithother team membersthroughouttheproductionprocess to ‘defendthe story’ inthegame and keep a coherentnarrativewithinthegame.