A post about narratives in games.

Over the last week, I have read (too) many blog posts, studies, opinion pieces et cetera about narratives in video games. I figured that it would be nice if I actually wrote down my thoughts on the matter before a couple of days pass and I forget everything.

First off, what is the purpose of storytelling in video games? Some games, mostly arcade or casual games such as Tetris or Bejeweled, seem to manage just fine without them. I believe the main reason most larger games have a narrative is that it is easier to relate to human beings than to falling blocks. That does not mean an abstract game can’t convey a message or perhaps even emotions purely through mechanics. The pawns in Chess can be seen as the common man in a war, being sacrificed so that the officers can make the moves that will actually win the day. Their plight is of course ignored by most chess players since the soldier that meets his grim fate on the battlefield is in fact a piece of wood. Still, Chess would have been hard to interpret as a battle at all if the pieces were not named after important members of medieval society. By renaming of the pieces, Chess could represent almost any struggle between two sides where the majority is doomed to die for the greater good. The naming of the pieces in chess does give the game a rudimentary story, but this story is not there to evoke emotions in the players, it is there to tell the player that the King is darn important and the little horse-shaped thing can jump over other pieces. Thanks to the narrative (or rather the scenario/back story), objectives that would be overly complex if abstracted can be easier to understand and remembered. Imagine playing a game where you have to move A to B in order for C to defeat A so that D can be retrieved to E.

Even though the back story and naming (scenario) can help teaching the game to the player, the reason for more fleshed out narratives in games is to make the player relate to the world and believe in its characters and rules. A game that is light on narrative might have problems convincing the players that their playing time is valuable. Attaining a high numerical score when no one is around to congratulate or compete with you is often not seen as a worthwhile time investment (see Jason Rohrer’s Passage http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/). Another example is the difference between Façade and The Marriage (http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html). While both deal with overcoming the challenges of marriage and are mostly non-linear, Façade does a better job at creating an involving story because it deals with human beings who are properly voice-acted. The player is more likely to care for the marriage of Trip and Grace rather than that of Mr and Mrs Coloured Square. It can however be worthy to note that players naturally construct stories about what they think will happen in the future, since thinking “narratively” comes naturally to them.

I will shamelessly mention Passage whenever there is the slightest reason to.

Now, a game with a fleshed-out narrative can be seen as progressing because of two things: Player action (Gameplay), or Narrator action (Narrative). Many games alternate back and forth by injecting cut scenes or dialogue in between gameplay sequences. If not done properly, the back-and-forth may frustrate the player, especially if the cut scene seems to have all the fun, deciding the outcome of all the defining events in the game. Another problem arises when the player’s actions and the narrative pull in different directions, and the narrator chooses “for” the player. These conflicts may prompt a designer to remove one of either parts to make the game progress fluidly. Removing gameplay is hard to do while retaining any common definition for what a game is, but the narrative could very well be cut. As long as the mechanics are engrossing enough, with ability to explore and understand the complex system of the design, the player will most likely enjoy herself. The problem of actually motivating the player to continue still remains though. Visual or other reward might urge the player on, but I think what really keeps players engaged in a non-narrative game is other people. Comparing scores and competing in a fighting or sports game can arouse intense emotions in a player. Sadly, the possibility to create more subtle and varied emotional response than fear or exhilaration is often much harder without a story.

If we choose to keep the narrative in the game, in order to achieve some kind of artistic ambition by triggering an emotional response to our game’s underlying message, we pretty much have to introduce a back story, and believable characters that are affected by the player’s actions or by the events of the narrative. This is much more tricky, but the end result can be much more rewarding than even the most adrenaline-inducing fighting game, and can perhaps be deemed more than entertainment and move into the realm of artsy-fartsy-ness.

Sometimes this game is more fun to analyse than to play.

The first problem to surmount is to make the story and gameplay pull in the same direction. This can be done in two ways: Either the story must influence the player’s actions, or the gameplay must affect the direction the narrative takes. The first option is the most common since it is significantly less complex. However, writing and pacing a linear story so that the player always feels like he does what he wants requires a lot of skill. Even though all decisions already has been made for the player, a good story will have to keep the player in the “now”, and not worry that the future has already been determined. I therefore consider it worse to spoil the ending of a game rather than a film, since the game relies on the illusion that the end is set by the player. HOW to write an immersive story, I will leave to someone more educated (or pretend I am, and write a later post about it).

When the player realises he is being lead through the game, she might want his actions to directly influence the story, and crave a game with a dynamic narrative. The poor scriptwriter for this game now has no control over the player’s choices, and must cover for every eventuality. The characters of a non-linear game are therefore often flatter that their linear counterparts, since they often do not know every decision the player has made in the past. Constructing dialogue from bits of variables is also very tricky. The solution is often then marrying non-linear with linear storytelling, by giving the player some control over how the story plays out, while keeping defining events out of the unpredictable player’s hands. This solution has a potential flaw however; suddenly the player has a multitude of choices sometimes, but when it really matters, he is utterly powerless. A recent example of this is Far Cry 2. Some important decisions are up to the player to make , but no matter how you choose the outcome is the same. If the goal is to portray the individuals lack of influence in a larger context, then I guess the players lack of power is justifiable. The player will however only be fooled a few of times, and then will know many of the choices presented to him are utterly meaningless.

The fact that there is a choice, no matter if it might be pointless, can still be useful in affecting the player. Evaluating the decision, and seeing all the possible outcomes as stories themselves can be quite powerful. Even if you cannot join the evil dude when he asks you, or leave your friend to die, you will still consider the results of this hypothetical decision, as long as you do not become frustrated because you realise the choice is irrelevant.

Half-Life 2 does an good job seguing between action and story.

The other problem that arises when you put a story into your game (or perhaps “with” your game, which would be better) is the jarring action of moving from no player control with events that truly change the way the story plays out to sequences with player control that are seemingly unimportant and forgettable to the story characters. If there was a book adaptation of your typical game, many action made by the player would be cut because they are not interesting enough, and most action films have more calm “story” parts and less action sequences than your average game. Inserting pieces of story into the gameplay/”action” portions of a game, akin to the phone calls in GTA4, does not make the gameplay more important to the overall story, but do make the transition between cut scene and gameplay less bumpy. Half-Life 2 does this the other way round: the player is allowed to move freely while the other characters converse. I could mention Quick Time Events, but I won’t.

Unless the player can influence the outcome of the narrative, it is hard to create a portion of a game that mixes gameplay and narrative. At best, the action sequences can serve as display of the emotions and thought of the character, by showing how they react to gameplay-like circumstances (usually stressful, but depends on genre). One solution that I would like to propose for this is to actually take time to construct a message or theme for your game, and let it be reflected in all parts of the game, gameplay as well as story. Great literature or film was not created so the audience or reader cared really much about the characters and cried when they died, but so that they actually would learn something or change them as human beings. I know it is pretentious to think like this, but I hope I will not be faulted for at least hoping that games can be engaging beyond primal emotions. I’d like to speak more in depth on this topic, but I seriously doubt any sane person has made it this far, so I better stop before we find out who would read even further.