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Sam Lake on Video Game Storytelling
loladeutsch writes "What makes for a great story in a video game? Sometimes, with all the innovative development and cool graphics the actual story a game has to tell can get lost in the shuffle, or at least can seem to be an afterthought. When a game arrives on the shelves that presents one of the more engrossing stories we've seen in awhile, it's worth noting. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne has been recognized by many people with their heads screwed on straight as a benchmark in video-game storytelling. "
I see the problem with video game stories as a systemic one, and Sam Lake touches on this when he identifies novels as a singular effort, and video games as a team effort. When you have a bunch of people with different backgrounds working on a project, quite a bit of infighting can occur. Plus there is the aspects of how stories affect the gameplay, and the scaling of the combat in games. The story may call for particular systems to be in place that are impossible, so it is critical for authors to fully understand the game design process to interpret these events into a literary context.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
ok maybe not that last one...but it had a big fscking gun!
Did you know you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
games like Tomb Raider held my attention much longer than some basic arcade style game. In fact, that's what made consoles diff from the arcades back in the day, a multi-level story, not some 2d game that offers no change upon repeated plays.
super mario? thanks, but our princess is in another castle! ARRRGGG!
PCB
free ipod and free gmail!
It seems to me that it isn't always necessary for a game to have a well-written story to be enjoyable, but as technology advances, the possibilities for immersion in the world you see on screen increase also.
In A.D. 2101
....
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
spoken in the Flash animation as Someone set up us the bomb
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Cats: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Operator: Captain !!*
Captain: Take off every 'Zig'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'Zig'.
Captain: For great justice.
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IAALS.
Managing to intergrate the narration into the gameplay (as seamlessly as possible) is a huge key to effective storytelling and immersion in games. A few of the good ones would be Half-Life and MOH:AA.
Since when did a good game need one of those? Back in the good old days, all we had were little pixels that roamed the screen, and if they actually did something, we were amazed. Story, heh. Those young'ens today are spoiled, I tell ya.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
...Grand Theft Auto: Vice City doesn't qualify as a good story? Awww....
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
"Deus Ex" (NOT #2)
"System Shock 2" (Discovering Dr. Polito still sends shivers)
any of the "Thief" series.
"Half Life"
So long as it compliments gameplay. I love playing a game that I feel a part of, but at the same time, I'm not going to continue playing it just because of a cool story.
;)
One has to compliment the other, and I think most of us would prefer the games that are better to *play*, rather than those we feel a part of because of an excellent storyline.
I still play Quake 1
I think that the story is by far the most important thing in a game. I still go back and play games from '99 and before and enjoy them alot. I play the half-life single player at least once a year. Also I just recently played the first Home-world and it was the story that kept me so rivited to it. So what if the graphics aren't top notch, people are not going to pay 50 dollars for their hard earned cash for nothing more then an interactive tech demo. I also just found Multi User Dungeons online, such as nannymud, its all text, but the stoies in these gamaes are deeper then morst comercial games right now, and I'm am hooked on those.
404
The article noted that the script to this installation of "Max Payne" is four times longer than a movie script.
Now, I haven't played the game, but if that means it's an eight-hour movie with a little "Okay, move from point A to point B now" thrown in.. no thanks.
I feel that way about some of the Final Fantasy games. I remember thinking "Wow... 90 minutes in... wonder when I'll, you know, fight a battle."
That stuff was great when I was 14 and on summer vacation. At 25, I want something I can *play* in 2 hours.. not "get all set up to start playing."
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Max Payne 2's storyline was pretty good, but it got downright pretentious at moments, trying for an emotional depth that the characters just didn't deserve. And you can forget about subtlety.
No, the best storyline I've ever seen in a game is the Marathon series from Bungie. They've been out for over 9 years, and people are still discovering new depths to the story after all this time.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Huh? What about Deus Ex or System Shock 2? You want story, look to the FPS/RPG mixes... thats where its at!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Well, it depends on the genre, but Japanese games usually have much more involving stories (in terms of identifiable plot-points & a sense of evolution/progression) than American ones. Then again, one could argue that many such storylines are too linear and don't give the player enough choices. But more and more Japanese games are providing multiple endings & etc... Overall it looks like a good trend for the industry to follow.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Actually, for me, the benchmark in video-game storytelling is Leisure Suit Larry, from Sierra On Line. That d00d is my hero.
(...) Sometimes, with all the innovative development and cool graphics the actual story a game has to tell can get lost in the shuffle.
With Max Payne, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Only game where the story justified the gameplay was Half-Life, and I really can't think of any other videog that reaches its level.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
I think the greatest video story ever told was that of the lonely hungry yellow orb with eyeballs. Always running from his past, devouring the needed fuel to keep him going and learning life as he traveled the mazes of unpredictability. Chased by the undead that could never understand his ideology nor motives only to cause this lost soul to consume a secret drug like substance that multiplied his anger and made him insanely aggressive for short uncontrollable periods of time. It is a story of a journey that will never subside and never end.
Oh, and he liked to eat fruit.
On the other hand you have games like Morrowind. Great sense of freedom and that contributed to the quality of it's gameplay. As a side-effect, the storyline was easily mangled, and you could break the main quests by doing things out of order, going to where you shouldn't be too early, etc...
Until we reach a point where the hardware is powerful enough that programmers can create an adaptive enough AI, Storyline will just be a euphemism for 'railroading'.
The basic problem is that video games are a poor format for story telling. Good stories require fine control of plot, pacing, character, setting and theme. The more control is given to the player, the less control the writer has over the elements of good story telling.
That said, there are a number of ways a good writer could dramatically improve the quality of numerous video games, and help improve various genres. Most publishers now take great delight in emphasizing the total lack of literature in their products.
If video games are to truly become meaningful, then they must convey meaning.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
, Grim Fandango, damn am I spotting a trend here?
Should it be so suprising that pure action games generally have relatively weak story lines(with the exception of a few), whereas the more thought provoking ones(in terms of gameplay) tend to have a better plot?
No correlation to movies is there?
Gameplay at the moment tends to be driven by arcade desires, I sort of feel we are still in the transition from the stand up arcade machine instant gratification level of gaming to a more time consuming home leisure pursuit.
Hence I feel the storylines will slowly get better as developers learn more about what is possible for a succesful game for the home, giving alternatives to the wham, bam , thank you kind lady style of today, in favour of a slower pace, yet ultimately more rewarding experience. Which of course are far greater suited for plot and story telling.
I used to think story didn't matter much at all in games. I liked twitch games (arcade, FPS, action, etc). For these kinds of games, story isn't all that welcome unless it's integrated into your experience, say in the way Half Life did it. (That was a milestone in interactive story telling right there, without ever taking away interaction to do it).
Over time, we've seen genres of games which, if it weren't for the pretty graphics, there'd be no real reason to play them. Thankfully, it's a genre that has matured and can be enjoyable. I'm referring to games like Silent Hill 2 and 3, where the actual interaction on its own is pretty clumsy, but the story is very interesting (well, in SH2 it was... in SH3 it was too convoluted and hokey).
I personally don't like the original Max Payne way of story telling too much. I don't like being narrated to. I want to be part of the experience.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the story to Metal Gear Solid is amazing. I dont know how they thought it up but it just blows you away. I know I was completley suprised when I finished the game for the first time. I would have to say the best plot/story in a game has to be MGS. The original, for the playstation, didn't have great graphics but who cares, the game was awesome and so wasn't the story. They eventually did a remake on Gamecube and others called Twin Snakes, same game, redone. Better graphics and still a great story. Anways, MGS originally was released 1998 and I havn't seen a game with that good of a story since then.
I likd Max Payne 2, it was a fun game and I do like the graphic novel approach but the dark noir dialogue is really pretty cheesy. Good thing they don't take themselves too seriously.
But for an excellent game with a story behind it how about one that begins:
I remember dying. Not how, when or why, but the cold fact alone: dying. I look around, there are dead bodies lying around. But they certainly don't seem to remember much. Come to think of it, the dead are not suppose to remember dying. Death is the ultimate, finale fate. How come, then, that I breath? How come I feel cold, and afraid, and disoriented? And what comes next? Death is supposed to be the end, no one trains you on "what to do" while you're at it. Maybe I should just lay still, maybe...
"Come on chief, get up, hurry!" It's an annoying voice, which startles me. More so, the fact that it comes from a floating, whirling skull doesn't help. "What?" and my own voice seems rasp, and strange to me. "What are you waiting for? get UP! we hafta get outta here!" again, the floating skull urges me to do something the dead are not supposed to do.
I comply, if for nothing else, because it makes as much sense as any other action. The dead, you know, are definitely not supposed to get up. "Boy, they sure tore you up good this time, you look even uglier than before" says the skull. They? this time? Before? Inside of me, ignorance and darkness are no longer fueling fear. There is another sentiment, a not so new one that grows within: rage.
It is right there, right then, in that dark, foul and creepy place, that I make a decision. I will do another thing that the dead are not supposed to: I will fight to remember my life.
Many modern implementations of computer-generated narrative -- video games being no exception -- are built from large, preset blocks of text constructed by the author, with either a set path for the plot to follow, or a significant amount of pure randomization to prompt variance in the experience. These approaches require skillful craftsmanship by the author and explicit identification of numerous story paths to an interactive and immersive experience.
Our work seeks to provide interactive narrative dynamically by using narrative theories to continuously adapt to the user's interactions while preserving dramatic content. We're investigating an architecture provides a dynamic run-time narrative, as opposed to a strict path that the user must follow to interact with the story. The main challenge of building a system like this is to preserve the story designer's dramatic vision while providing interactivity to the user. At one end of the spectrum we allow the users complete freedom to do whatever they please in their environment, without clear goals or limitations. This is much like online communities such as The Realm [Codemasters], where the users' goals consist of survival (or death if it interests them) and wandering the countryside while doing as they like to the environment and the other users. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the archetypical "good story": immersive, extremely detailed and well thought out. The reader is more or less constrained to experience the story exactly as the author intended, without deviation or variance. This is comparable to the epic film or engrossing book. We hope to straddle these two traditionally exclusive forms of narrative and provide an engaging hybrid.
In a nutshell, our system is composed of a story clip database that models the components of narratives and a set of algorithms that prescribe the combination of these components to build a story. The story clips are implemented as brief snippets of action or observation, with as little dependency on one another as possible. Each clip contains explicit pre- and postconditions that define limitations on when it can be added to the story and how the story is changed. A set of state vectors, called the story snapshot, is defined at runtime to permit fast verification of preconditions and simple accounting of postconditions. The algorithms that combine the clips form a narrative engine, which coordinates the concatenation of clips into a story that adheres to Branigan's model. In this system, we pay particular attention to the temporal relationships between story clips and define four dimensions of time that must be obeyed.
The narrative engine is the core for production of interactive stories. The run-time character, world, and narrative state vectors are compared to the precondition constraints of the clips stored in the database to extract the most appropriate story clip candidates. This comparison is accomplished by computing the vector difference between each story clip's preconditions and the current story snapshot. The difference vector is scaled by a proportional weighting vector to emphasize particular state vector components. The candidate clips specify potentially divergent plot options and some differences may rule out a clip completely, such as narrative and temporal cohesion. But variance is allowed and expected in the character states, as they describe one moment of time where each of the individuals in the story had one of many emotional combinations. The narrative engine orders the clips according to the quality of their match with the current story state.
The narrative engine uses the evaluated story cl
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
I have two kids and work to contend with, so I rarely get a chance to play games these days. I often ignore story-based games for this reason: no time to finish the story. Zelda: The Wind Waker fell victim to this, Resident Evil, Prince of Persia...lots that are considered to be good by most people's standards (though I had other reasons for dumping Resident Evil too - let me know when they've got a reasonable save system and controls that don't involve walking into every wall, would you?).
But The Getaway passed the test with flying colours. A good plot, great soundtrack, good graphics and lots of tension. Can't knock it - I thoroughly recommend this game to anyone. Very much looking forward to The Getaway 2 which has been announced.
Cheers,
Ian
A movie storyline... Jeez... I wish they'd get a clue and stop trying to rip movies directly-to-game. Movies are designed to tell a story, Games are designed to put you in a story...
If anything they should be going the other way!
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
CowboyAlex: The answer is:
Geek: What are the two Stupidest Possible Things a web server can be programmed to do during a Slashdotting?
CowboyAlex: Correct for $100, go again, geek!
...unfortunately, I'm not sure it was all positive. I'm quite certain that one of the hospital scenes in MP2 was the first time I thought to myself, "Enough of the fucking back story already. I want to play!"
The Max Payne team, and Sam Lake in particular, should be commended for bringing a level of depth to the story that most games in the genre have never even attempted. But there are a lot of people who believe that all that great story came at the price of disrupting the balance between exposition and gameplay. Plus, there are plenty of people who thought that the story just sucked.
On a side note: anyone else notice the resemblance between Max Payne story author Sam Lake, and Mr. Needs a Maalox himself?
Not all of them need awesome storylines to have great playability:
Zelda: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl.
Mario: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl.
Gauntlet: Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Archer needs food. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff.
What about games with ridiculous "stories" like:
Pac-Man: What story is there here? Yellow dot eats little dots, runs away from colored ghosts.
Asteroid: White triangle shoots at lined objects with a line.
Not all great games need amazing storylines, although they can certainly help matters (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Max Payne).
Sig for GotSpider threatens to invade. France Surrenders.
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Poor tech staff. Let's see here, I've tried to reload the page three times, so that's four emails from me alone...multiply that by maybe 100,000 slashdot users...
Man, I know that the web server takes a bad enough beating, but I never knew we could slashdot the mailserver also!
Deus Ex, absolutely. Deus Ex was one of those games I bought expecting a standard Unreal-tech shooter of the time.
Spoilers. It even started out boring. You're just an agent. The only hint of a unique focus on backstory is the conversation with the NSF leader in the statue, who rattles on with historical taxation statistics.
But once you finish the statue mission and enter UNATCO HQ, you start meeting the characters, start getting hints of something greater. By the time you're out of New York and Paul has turned to the side of the NSF, you've tapped into these greater realities woven into the game, and eventually you're flying to Hong Kong, infiltrating VersaLife, destroying a nanotech constructor, and so forth.
The game starts out as a standard "agent" game with some interesting takes on aiming and skill systems, and ends up as a vast conspiracy game with Illuminati, Knights Templar churches, and weird alien laboratories. Not to mention Area 51.
One of those games that "feels" completely different by the time you reach the end, like it's a whole new game instead of what it was when you bought it. I really enjoy games like that.
I am a game programmer right now, and some of the game designers I've worked with were obsessed with the frikin' story. So much so that they were terrified by any kind of freeplay, they wanted to control every event and sequence of events in the game. In other words they didn't have a clue about game design. Many game designere aspire to be film producers or do something cinematic, they should get the hell off of game teams and go do it instead of inflicting their ego on game buyers and game companies. It's not about the story stupid, it's about the game. Story is fine so long as it isn't rigid and doesn't get in the way of making a great game.
The storyline starts out simply enough: As one of the descendents of a lost human expedition, marooned on a distant planet for generations, your return home is a shock for both sides. Earth along with dozens of other planets has been enslaved by an advancing alien empire bent on galactic domination. They're clever, powerful, and allied with all the right (or wrong) folks.
Thrown into the mix is a third player, the subjugated workers of the master alien race, who spun off and are now committed to simple extermination. Their story is compelling, a tragic tale of conquest, psychic enslavement, triumph, and resolution: Races other than their own cannot be trusted, and must be 'cleansed'.
Some of the other races are positively fascinating, particularly the pyrophilic fungus with the capability to consciously modify its genetic makeup.
As the story progresses, you learn of the interdimensional meddlings of a mysterious race that has apparently had occasional contact with humans for thousands of years. They are aloof but benevolent, referring to themselves as being from "above", and warn you about dealing with the other interdimensionals from "below". But guess whose participation is necessary to win the game!
There are even occasional encounters with space probes, misprogrammed so that they identify every object as a potential source of raw material for replication. This includes you and your ship, so prepare to be broken down into your component elements. Combat is fast-paced and easy to learn, but every ship has its strengths and weaknesses.
The music in the game plays a part in making it so enjoyable, too. While most games of the time were using cheesy FM synthesized music with occasional wave effects, Star Control 2's soundtrack is 4-channel MOD files, written by a variety of composers from around the world. This bloated the game onto a massive 4 floppies, but anyone who's played it will tell you the few minutes spent copying the files to the hard drive was well worth the effort. Each race has its own music that comes up during a conversation, and the pieces are incredibly well chosen. Trusty allies sound noble, despicable foes sound menacing. The weird fungus music is eerie but pleasant to listen to, and downright funky in parts.
There are moments of hilarity, sex, confusion, negotiation, sympathy, and plenty of downright evil. All in all, Star Control 2 has far and away the most engaging and moving storyline of any game I've played. I think that might be because it was designed by two incredibly dedicated guys who wouldn't settle for anything less than excellence. When management wanted to release the game as a shootemup with a bit of storyline, Fred and Paul took an unauthorized jaunt to Alaska and returned with a nearly finished version of the game we now know and love.
The best part is that while the name "star control" is s
I still don't think your argument holds water.
Many books have been written then adapted to screen without the author giving thought to the limitations of the movie effects at the time. It's up to the director to figure out how to best represent the story using the story as a guide.
In a game if it is too difficult to do real time you make it a cut scene. The REAL problem is game-developers and lead designers not figuring out creative ways to incorporate the player more and rely less on cut scenes.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Let us not forget our roots; the battle of @ against &.
An epic story of the struggle between good and evil.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any story in a game, far from it, I like stories in games, but the most memorable story is the one that you create by yourself while playing the game.
For example, in Deus Ex, which had its own great story, I created my own story by the way I played it. The first time I played through, I would knock out UNATCO agents, until it became more difficult and I started killing them. Then, in France, you actually meet the parents of a UNATCO agent, and the father gives you info you can use against them. If you keep bugging him he says something like: "I've helped you kill my own son, isn't that enough for you?" For the rest of that level I only used tranquilizer darts on the agents. Sometimes, I play through killing everybody, or only harming those who actually attack me.
This can be applied to other games in other ways, like when you grow attached to characters besides the main ones and use them all the time (RPG, strategy games), and even your style in a fighting game (say if you performed a particularly cool combo in a certain situation, or if you can use moves no one else does effectively). The more actions that a game allows you to use to overcome its obstacles, the more you can tell your own story in the game. Thus while there's a larger more linear story going one, you define your own little story by the way you play. The more (effective) actions you have at your disposal, the more "nuanced" the player-created "story" is.
Story is great, but great gameplay allows those who don't like the story (because it's bad or just not to their taste) to enjoy themselves anyway. Focussing on gameplay before story will still result in beter sales.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
I gave that an honest try, believe me. Even though it seemed little more than an attempt to suck unspecting web-surfers into 80+ minutes of oral wandering, I listened to most of it. And I think I've gleaned some good pointers on how to withhold information, while claiming to be providing it:
How to obfuscate the fact you have almost nothing to say:
I actually have great respect for the people who do projects along these lines (I admire Powerkill for example)- I simply have no belief that you are actually doing one! You post about DFC in the present tense, which is premature at best. This seems to be an attempt to give your public opinions more credibility, by creating the illusion of some firsthand experience.
Ideas are a "dime a dozen". Many, many people have had oddball game ideas that'll never come to anything. But much of them have the decency not to pretend do have accomplished something until they actually do . Id software has a philosophy: "When its done"- think about it sometime.
I've been in the mod-scene too... and I've seen many over-ambitious projects that had such grand ideas that they obviously were never going to get off the ground. DFC ranks up there with the very least plausible of them.
I'll leave with a few quotes from the audio file, as an aid to anyone else who might read this and wonder what's in the "seminar":
The goth class, maybe I can give them special powers for all the tattoos they get.... mystics and sorcerors are going to use real magic behind the scenes to make things happen.
Lets face it- the consequences to Columbine were not available before Columbine... there were no videogames about it... and I think if people had the opportunity to learn what these kids go through, cuz we're gonna show it, we're gonna show this
The premise in Doom For Columbine is the idea that demons or some evil force are preying on our students in... these demons communicating back and forth on how they're gonna corrupt souls, and that figures a lot into this game