Game storytelling

well, i think it depends on how the game is made.

most modern games are made with entertainment as the ultimate goal. the story it tells is secondary, if that. money rules, and entertainment is money.

lucas art''s ''the dig'' did a good job of making a game that kept true to the story (based on alan dean foster''s book of the same name) but was entertaining.

i think it would be great to see more games that focused on the story side of the deal. it might not appeal to any but ''real'' gamers (or gamedevers) and writers, but i think it would be an interesting undertaking.

and yes, i think that games can tell a story just as well as any book or movie. its just different, thats all: the player controls the direction of the story, creating a need for a dynamic book, basically, but to a massive degree.

[500 error x1]

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There''s nothing so tragic as seeing a family ripped apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves. - Jack Handy''s Deep Thoughts

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Planescape Torment was indeed the best attempt ever - in fact, to me it was more than an attempt, it was a success that ranks among my favorite books and easily makes it my favorite game ever for that reason alone. Betrayal at Krondor, based on and written by Raymond Feist, comes a close second - the game was constructed as a fantasy novel with chapters focusing on different POV''s and well-written text pages in between chapters to relate the story. Third for me has to be Wing Commander IV. The story was so well crafted - and the three or four last missions made such a great finale - complete with the "facing overwhelming odds while running out of time" situation, the "big bad cavalry mothership coming to the rescue" situation, and finally, a climax which, surprisingly, wasn''t a space flight mission like the entire game had been, but a duel with words against the villain in front of the entire Galactic Senate where you had to expose him even though everyone considered him a hero.

Ahem. Getting carried away here. *goes off to reinstall Wing Commander IV.*

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My opinion is that games can tell a story as well as a book or movie, if not better. Have they yet? Maybe in one or two circumstances. Just remember, that this is a very young medium. In 50, 100 years, who knows what we''ll have figured out?

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Planescape Torment was indeed the best attempt ever...

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What made it the best attempt ever? What seperated it from other games? For me it was, that Planescape took something I didn''t think would be interesting and made it interesting, and the fact that your choices mattered rather than being put apon the path, multiple endings, ect...
But still something was missing... Planescape was almost perfect...

-Drugs are bad. Especially if they look like machines. Serial Experiments Lain

-Small girls with a single braid in their hair are all-powerful God''''s. Accept it. (Phar)

I think they can.

Strike Commander for instance was in my opinion the only flightsim ever, that had a really good story you were eager to continue. Top Gun - Fire at will had one as well, but had to stick to the movie of some sort... Operation Flashpoint has a really great story... look at all the old adventures

I believe it really has to do with the type of game, and the company''s decision on the target audience.
An Adventure surely is made to have a great story. A 1st person shooter does not necessarily require a good story to be bought by heaps of people if "it looks good".
I found that for a few years the companies only required a good 3d engine and thought it made a good game, and people were fascinated by those and bought it. I''m glad most companies realised that it''s boring and sucks quite a lot if the story is missing. I really like well worked out story lines, no matter what game

Planescape: Torment? I must admit I never finished it (and now I cant find all the cd''s for it), but I wouldn''t say it was all that successful in telling a story. It did better than many other games, but that''s not exactly a difficult feat. (if we''re talking about the storytelling aspect only), but perfect? Far from it. It was too slow and draggged out, in my opinion. Yes, the story was unusually good (or the part of it I played through, at least), but the way it delivered that story was far from ideal. You needed more patience than most gamers have, to get into the game, and you tended to lose the thread, not least because of the large amount of text.

Still, the actual story seemed good. But why do people always focus on rpg''s when talking about storytelling?

How about games like Halflife, which tell a rather simple, cliche''d and predictable story, but manages to do it in a way that''s far more accessible, exciting and dramatic than anything in Planescape Torment? Deus Ex tells a really good story too, but it isn''t exactly an rpg...

Games can of course tell a story just as well as a novel or movie... but with more limitations to the interactivity.

I wrote a huge analysis a minute ago trying to explain how this works by using many games as a comparison but have simplified it down to this:

More interactivity directly into the story and characters means less focus/control over the story (and vice versa).

This basically means that if you allow for players to change the way a story is told in any way you undoubtedly allow them to alter the way the story was intended to be told. If you can get the story to seamlessly stay out of the way of gameplay yet always remain "there" and binding to the actions you want to happen you'll have found the ultimate prize.

As was mentioned above the story doesn't have to be complex... it just has to be done in an interesting way. ^_^

So lastly, if you want a game to compare to a novel/movie you have to surrender more and more of the interactivity that separates it from novels/movies. Easy!

So when you noticed that Torment missed "something" from the story department I think your referring to the feeling that even though you relate to "the nameless one" you don't feel his character is solid enough (because of player actions) to keep continuity through all the events that happen.

*shrugs* Another theory...??

I was thinking that my favourite story games have all had extremely linear storylines but good ones: Metal Gear Solid, Soul Reaver, Half-Life.... Descent Freespace....

[edited by - bigjon on February 17, 2003 10:15:30 AM]

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So when you noticed that Torment missed "something" from the story department I think your referring to the feeling that even though you relate to "the nameless one" you don''t feel his character is solid enough (because of player actions) to keep continuity through all the events that happen.

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Yes, because even though the game was "dynamic" in terms of storyline... it was still static...


-Drugs are bad. Especially if they look like machines. Serial Experiments Lain

-Small girls with a single braid in their hair are all-powerful God''''s. Accept it. (Phar)

>>Yes, because even though the game was "dynamic" in terms of storyline... it was still static...

^_^

And if you keep pushing along this idea, as I have, you''ll find that the best stories don''t have player-definable dynamics at all and are rather "truely linear". When a game starts to use the idea of encompassing and allowing more than one/two possibilities it becomes more simulator-ish... and as a result the story becomes an after-thought to the player.

This isn''t saying that Torment was bad... its just that its truely original story could have been presented better if the player had next to no involvement in how the story evolved & resolved.

Its a lot more subtle then I think I present it as... it''s really just a balance thing.

I started writing the dialogue choices for the dating sim/ren''ai game yesterday, and I really don''t think interactivity and solid, satisfying plot are mutually exclusive, but trying for both does make the writing a lot more difficult.

>>I started writing the dialogue choices for the dating sim/ren''ai game yesterday, and I really don''t think interactivity and solid, satisfying plot are mutually exclusive, but trying for both does make the writing a lot more difficult.

sunandshadow I think you''ve forgotten a couple of things.

If you make a game where the player decides the how the plot evolves, and all you give them are the possibilities they can work with, a starting point and the characters they can interact with... where does the actual plot originate? Is it in the writer''s ideas or in the player''s actions? I would lean more towards the later... because they are the ones deciding how it flows.

If you make a game that encourages players to choose you are no longer really making a "storyline"... your making a "sim" with a "setting". Your story becomes a setting rather than a narrative...

So you gotta ask is this game more of a simulator or a story?

^_^ Well I know you can say that these ren-ai games have a story (even though I haven''t played one)... but the focus is no longer on the original intentions of the storywriter but on the player''s decisions (even if their choices don''t change much at all).

Getting a bit off track here though... remember we are talking about whether or not a game can tell a story as well as a moive/novel. My point was that you can... but you have to surrender some of the player-decisions in order to ensure the story follows the original plan.

To me, the wrong kind of game would be a LotR game that lets the player decided what kind of person Frodo is... and also lets the player decide which way they want to get to Mordor. You have a start and a finish... but the guts is strewn all over the place..

Blah blah blah... I think I could defend this point until I die

Games can be everything, I love a game with a good plot. For a good example see Metal Gear Solid 2 for PS2. A brilliant plot, cinematic direction and yet the gameplay was still brilliant! Go MGS2!!!
Game can even be more than a movie given the interactivity. The nerds in the arcade playing Space Invaders are long gone. Games have evolved to become highly sophisticated, entertainment at heart, but so much more.
More than a movie, more than a game - MGS2, Ae

Cypher[Ae] - Define reality...

The essential difference between storytelling in games and other media is that games are interactive. Core narrative techniques such as dialogue often serve to remove the players sense of immersion rather than enhance it, for the simple reason that they aren''t interactive. This is very much the case for cutscenes - the most annoying part about MGS2 was the constant cutscenes, and was the reason I never got into it.

Another major difference is the fact that games are a spatial medium. Where traditional narrative is about the unfolding of time, games are about the unfolding and contesting of space. There are a few exceptions to this (what I would call a 4D game), such as Shenmue and possibly Majora''s Mask, but I think they will always remain in the minority.

I don''t see why even you make distinctions, story I think is integral to design even if it is as simple as, "destroy all aliens and save the planet." That is a story, it has character action, conflict and resolution.

The fact it gets short shrift sometime as to how much attention and work that aspect of the design has may make it seem like a separate process, but it is integral.

As far as it telling a story as good or a book or movie, of course it can. It just has to be a good story. I think games are somewhat relieved of the obligation to story well in design because other aspects of the entertainment and interaction seem to have priority.

Also, it is arguable that in twitch games at least, there isn''t a lot of necessity for reliance on dramatic technique, but as games get more sophisitcated (that is not to say a simple game cannot be completely compelling, fun and addictive; we know they can) and the gaming population ages, they will want more and more.

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