Telling Stories with Systems | Video Game Story Design
Game developers will give players a feeling that their choices in a game have an impact on how the story is told by having dialogue options and changing npc's actions to assess a players actions throughout the game but in general the game is not altered all that much by the players inputs.
A good developer will be able to adapt the story to facilitate all the players choices without it ruining the storyline, for example if a player says they want to do something, so they do it or if a player says they don;t want to do something but an npc takes more control and forces the player to do whatever it is anyways. The story continues as planned but with minor tweaks depending on the players inputs.
These kinds of stories may having branching story lines but ultimately will converge again at some point, essentially a developer count create a game with near infinite possible inputs but have the games story play out almost identical for every player.
Other games can be made to be less story focused but allow a player to have much more control over the games overall story, games like civilization for example give the player a starting point and then allow the player to have free reign over what happens next and how the game ends.
games are also capable of creating stories by allowing different mechanics bounce off one another and interact in unscripted ways, this allows the games story to be wildly varied between players.
What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about Story
Early films were essentially recorded plays which made it hard for them to keep or grow an audience as their audience would become bored. Essentially the camera would be like an un-moving audience member in a theater meaning people could not keep focused.
Camera angles and shot types were discovered to enhance film stories and the same idea must now be taken in games in our modern world.
Story is conflict
a story is created by taking a protagonist out of their comfort zone and throwing them into unfamiliar territory, where their goal is to get back to the comfort they once had.
in a 3 act story a player begins in comfort, moves into an obstacle and finally over comes that obstacle.
a story can have more than 3 acts, each new act will bring a new obstacle into the story for the protagonist to overcome.
Characterization is the basic information about a character but it is usually under developed and lacks importance in most cases , character on the other hand is the protagonists actions, feelings and morality, it affects how they react to their story, if you place 2 different characters in the exact same scenario, it is unlikely the story will play out the same way.
The principle of antagonism is a concept in story telling meaning that whatever problem the protagonist faces should bring out their character traits to a viewer, reader, etc.
"a good hero is only as good as the villain", batman would not have any purpose as a character and we would not learn about how he reacts to situations without the joker taking him out of his comfort zone and making him make important, reactive decisions.
Mass Effect 2: A Case Study in the design of Game Narrative
The character, story world and emotion are all important factors in the narrative texture, meaning that these things each add defined details to a story allowing it to become much more immersive for a reader, viewer, etc.
There is debate between whether a players interactions with a game should take precedent over story, because of both technical limitations, as developers would not be able to create and record every possible slight variation that each player might make in a game, and also because it is unclear whether it is more fun to see a story play out for players if they have less control over it , or if the story should be controlled almost entirely by the player.
Not all games need narrative but it does tend to enhance enjoyment of games.
Game narrative can range between giving the player a fully crafted story to play through or giving players a toolbox or narrative tools to craft their own story.
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