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Games Need More Artfully Story-Entwined Gameplay
Movie and Game writer Justin Marks has written an impassioned plea for the industry to concentrate more on artfully story-entwined gameplay, exploring what he thinks major titles are missing these days. "But for the most part, we as an industry are stuck in the same trap that GTA exemplifies. We value narratives in games, we understand their purpose and their necessity, and yet we have no idea how to parse them effectively into the game's interactive structure. As technology gets better, the weaknesses of poor story integration are more exposed."
How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories?
Think: Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Grim Fandango.
That's why I quit WOW after a month. Endless running of errands interfered with by getting ganked by maxed out campers.
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A lot of games will give you a long narrative about how important something is, how it must be achieved stealthily, how you need to go in, get something and get out again or spin a complex tail around which you play your mission.
then it finishes and you turn to your buddy and say "so it's 'wade in and kill everything' like last time then?"
OTOH, i like 'wade in and kill everything'. 'wade in and kill everything' is great.
I still think the best story lines were in the classics for the PC such as the Kings Quest (except for the last one, too cartoony for my taste), Space Quest, Police Quest, hell even Leisure suit Larry had a half decent story line. In all those series, the only down fall was that the story line was linear, once you past a specific point, you couldn't go back, so if you missed a key component in the game, then you might have to go back to a save point and look for the missing item; but the story lines were great, Kings Quest and Space Quest being my favorites. One game that came out a few years later had a great story line (with Live Actors -- Mark Hamil was in it!) -- thats right, it was Wing Commander. The choices you made in the game affected how the sotry line turned out. As of late, I havn't seen too many games that had sotry lines like that which still incorporate a fairly good problem solving skills. Today it seems its mostly run here, run back there, then go back to the start, then do it all over again. I will admit, Half-Life 1/2/EP1/EP2 (and hopefully EP3) will continue with their story lines, I find them to be a good FPS with a nice story line and graphics to boot.
It's hard enough for a human game master to keep up with his players' creativity and keep the story flowing. To truly integrate good story with open ended game play is hard. I'm not saying it will require true AI, but it will require rethinking the way stories are written.
The key, I believe, is to write generic stories, and fill in the blanks with details generated during game play. For instance, instead of specifying a specific location where a scene takes place, specify what type of location and other elements necessary to trigger the scene, then when the players meet the criteria, the scene is triggered with the specific details coming from the environment, not the author.
Same goes for characters, write them generically, and use appropriate game-generated character that meet the plot criteria instead of saying it has to be a certain person.
As for plot, multi branching plot structures aren't really that hard, people have been doing it since the 50s in romance novels. The big publishers had a flowchart outlining the accepted plot possibilities and stables full of mediocre writers to fill in the details.
The key is in understanding dramatic tension. You raise tension by posing meaningful questions and you lower it by answering them. In some sense, it doesn't matter what the questions are or how they are answered, only that they are meaningful to the reader. By using game generated specifics to ask the questions, and player choices to answer them, it becomes more likely the player will find the questions meaningful.
So in a basic sense, one can look at a plot element as consisting of entry conditions, scene, props, characters, questions, and exit conditions. You specify what has to be true for the element to become active, what types of scene, characters and props are involved, what questions are asked, and what the possible outcomes are.
But this is much harder than simply dictating what will happen in a story. And it guarantees that every player is going to miss some content. No writer likes to think they are writing something that might not even get read, but for dynamic stories to work, that is what has to happen.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If I wanted artful stories, I'd read a book. All I want to do is chainsaw zombies, preferably on a Wii.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Title fixed.
Seriously, I'm all up for well told stories in a game, but when it interferes with the game and game mechanics it has the potential to make the gameplay seriously suffer. And if the story is only so-so, then the entire game sucks that much more (and why have the story in the first place?)
If you have a story to tell that needs to be told interactively, a game is a great medium to do it in. If you have a story to tell where the audience is supposed to mainly watch and listen, make a movie. If you have an indepth story with deep characters, a huge plotline, where no interaction is really necessary - write a novel. And if you have NONE of the above, reconsider what you're making story-wise. Your medium is your message after all.
There really seems to be some sort of confusion about what medium a story should be told in.
Unfortunately, for most games and programming structures, the "fedex quest" mindset is a result of the structure of the programming.
Bethesda are great at trying to avoid this, and they spent a ton of time on it (compare the Morrowind to Oblivion engines, and see the designer commentary on all the work they had to do just to get the "watch a guy hide something" quest early in Morrowind to work right). But they still sometimes fall back on the trap.
The basic problem is, for a quest/story mechanic to work, you need triggers. Somewhere in the game, there's a bit or routine that checks for X, Y, Z completion requirements. "Is X in inventory and talking to Bob selecting Dialog Option 3" make for a really easy set of variables to code for, and then the game flips the bit so that X is removed from inventory. Even quests that are "Go talk to person X" are really fedex quests - you're "carrying" a bit that signifies that you're on the quest and person X is who you need to talk to, thus when you talk to them, the appropriate dialog box (which probably wasn't available before) is opened up... you've just handed in the "plot coupon" as it were.
The better a programmer hides the triggers - making you hide somewhere (in-game) and spy on someone, or specifically avoid encounters to get a really good item or piece of info - the better and more seamless the story will seem. The underlying programming still needs those triggers, though.
My suggestion? Stop buying crappy games like GTA, and go with games where the programmers put some thought into the storyline and making it fit better. The industry could survive just fine with a few less programmers making crappy movie-tie-in games (*coughIronmancough*) and a few more making really GOOD games like Thief or Oblivion.
Yes, they, as an industry, might value narrative and believe it is necessary, but I'm not so sure we, as the players, are all that sold on it. Sure, you have your die hard JRPG fans darting from cutscene to cutscene, but I think most of us playing a game like to write our own stories.
Most gamers like to talk about what they did in the game. Narrative fucks that up to some extent, and is nearly always at odds with the player's goals for the game thereby breaking the illusion they hope to set up.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with a Playstation 3 what games need:
More Cutscenes.
I would be easy for games to start small in this direction. If you even take very linear story driven games like the HalfLife series, you could still throw in more game driven narrative. Suppose, you have a tendency to throw things at Alex (a female NPC who joins you for some of the game), she should become less friendly because you're being 'a jerk' to her. Or if you fail to keep the enemies away from her, maybe she should become too injured or shaken-up to be much help for the next little while.
Even games like Zelda where you get a visual of time passing (day and night) and weather make a big difference. In HL, I can stand outside for ever and the sun never moves in the sky. Wasting time crow-bar-ing boxes should mean... oh crap, now I have to fight the zombies in the dark!
In GTA, you can be the biggest crime boss/bad-ass but the NPCs never react differently to you (I haven't played the more recent GTA games, if this has changed). If I have a rocket launcher in my hands, or a reputation for evil... the NPC should react to me- flee, faint, turn away, refuse to serve me, etc.
Little things like this would go a long way.
I don't think this is a problem. Story doesn't have to be entwined with gameplay at all.
As a developer, what do you want to do with a game? If your first and foremost goal is to tell a story, then do just that. Use cutscenes or other non interactive elements. Use interactive elements. Use whatever. If it best tells your story, do it. It's a fallacy to think that the story must be interactive. Interactive story presentations and non interactive ones both have strengths and weaknesses. A game that really wants to tell a story will not be afraid to use both where appropriate.
Most videogame characters are so one-dimensional it's not funny
Eh. I think the best argument against this is Portal. You the player... Are mute, uknown, and have no backstory.
In fact the only identifiable character throughout the entire game is GladOS (which I suppose counts as a character), the gun droids, and the unseen other player leaving clues about the situation. Oh and the companion cube could count as a character...
But anyways... Portal's story wasn't about the character. You hardly really knew much about what was going on which was one of the major points of the plot line and made the story interesting as it gave you subtle clues to what really was going on.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Why would game developers bother with any sort of meaningful or halfway decent stories? Their core audience believes Naruto is masterful storytelling, and they've never read a book in their entire lives. With an audience like that you just need to give them the ability to call people noobs during gameplay, and they're happy as pigs in shit. Just look at the whole Halo series.
I have nothing compelling to say
Here's the thing: a movie or a book (a story) costs $7. If you make the story the center of the game, the game is worth $7.
For it to be worth $50, you have to give me something I want to play over and over again. Story is a nice accent for a game, but keep it in its proper place. Put the game play first and make sure that when the game play conflicts with the story it's the story that loses.
The other thing is this: as a brilliant software architect, you are neither a brilliant writer nor a brilliant producer. Play it smart: play to your strengths.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Maybe, I like these games for their nostalgic value, Mario, Punch-Out, etc, but they did happen to hit the nail on the head. They did't have elaborate stories with 20 minute cut scenes, and if I played them today, I'd still find them highly enjoyable (infact I sometimes do). Regardless, what I want as gamer is more gameplay and less stories. Especially less cut scenes.
What the original article and many people seem to be discussing mostly here is Narrative gameplay - where a storyline is created and more or less followed by the player one step at a time. It may be branching so that decisions made by the player - or failure to achieve specific goals - result in different outcomes, but at its core its still a railroad. You still follow one of the paths chosen by the developer who wrote the storyline in the end
Emerging Gameplay is where the game sets conditions and possible actions, but leaves the path up to the player, and what happens emerges from the results of those actions. Most people don't see this as a "storyline" per se, but really what your character does becomes their story in the end. This style of game design is immensely complex to implement but is the only one that will result in truly dynamic and evolving gameplay. In most modern MMOs, the character is free to do whatever they want (subject to level restrictions for access to a zone etc) and thats all emerging gameplay, but when they take a quest or a mission, its essentially a mini-narrative in a lot of cases (say City of Heroes/Villains). As such the quests all start to look alike pretty quickly.
Narrative gameplay will always be limited by the time and imagination of the developer/level designer/whatever and thus players will always be able to burn through the content pretty quickly, certainly far far faster than it can be developed
Emerging gameplay has more potential. If a game could be developed with sufficient AI on the part of the NPC characters in the game such that they react to the conditions of the world, then we can see the potential for Emerging gameplay come into its own. If for instance in some fantasy world, kiling off all the mobs around a town made it easier for the NPC Bandit King to invade and conquer the town, and the AI for that entity was sufficient for it to recognize the condiditions under which that would be an advantageous action, then player actions collectively might result in a change to the game environment, even if its the unintentional result of many players individually hunting the mobs around that town because the pelts are worth selling. If each NPC could be imbued with defining characteristics to their character then perhaps the timid Bandit King might act less aggressively than the Driven Bandit King and killing the latter off might result in the former inheriting and not being able to keep control of the village etc. Then the quest to free the town is open to whichever group discovers the problem and decides they must fight their way to the Bandit Camp and defeat the leader there to break his hold on the bandits and thus their hold on the town etc. None of this would be scripted, it would all emerge from the conditions and characteristics inherent in the game design. This would happen when the conditions made it the viable choice for the NPCs involved. Beefing up the guard at the township might mean the whole bandit camp moves to some other area entirely etc.
Thats what the next generation of MMOs needs to offer - or at least treat as their Holy Grail I think.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Not perfect, but they've got a much better direction than the US.
Here's how I would describe it: The US is OBSESSED with unique complex plots with twists and turns everywhere, cliches are completely taboo. However, the storytelling is dry and purposefully attempts to extingish the idea of a creator. It's very post-modern in that respect, games really attempting to put the world into the hands of the player, and not give any emotional opportunity for the artist.
Japan, on the flipside, has no problem with a distinct separation of powers between creator and audience. Games are played from a more traditional artistic/entertainment standpoing: there is a creator who shares his/her thoughts and stories with an audience that genuinely engaged with them. Japenese storytelling may relly very heavily on architypes and cliches, but the details are all very original, with the creator's individuality coming through very strongly.
I truly feel that the USs post-modernist approach to game storytelling (ie: GTA, Mass Effect, Oblivion, ect.) will be shortlived and is doomed to inevitable extiction, for the same reason folks don't sit around the camp fire and listen to John Cage. This is a phase we're going through due to our current socio-political climate and fascination with the gadgetry of a new medium. It's sort of like the German expressionist film period. Eventually people will settle into video games being just another narrative medium like any other, with a distinct separation of powers between creator and audience. Obviously games will always provide a little more interaction than other mediums, but eventually that will be relegated to things like time frame (when and how you chose to interact with the story), and not in the actual creation of a story itself.
Most of the pleasure of a plot comes from not knowing what's going on, learning about the characters involved, and exploring the world that the creators have created for you. Something is very lost when the creator says things, "you create the characeters as you see fit", and "you create the structure as you see fit". and "the plot is yours to make". The enjoyment of LEARNING about the game-world is subtley but inexpicably lost.
This is a wholey american phinominon that is little more than a decade-or-so long passing phase. I think GTA IV or GTA V will see this come to a close. Things like Bioshock will probably be closer to what we'll see in the future, with set paths but subtle choices along the way.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The difference between games and TV/books is that they're interactive. If your actions don't change how the story plays out, or if there is only one thing to DO, then you've basically got gameplay that's separate from the story. Sure, the story may make you want to keep playing, but then the gameplay is just a means to watch a movie (and considering how badly some games are voice acted and animated, not a particularly good on).
However, not until games can actually make your actions have actual, non-scripted consequences (or lots and lots and lots of scripted ones), games will have to be linear to tell a decent story. I don't think we have the technology to be able to do that yet (wait for AI).
True, however be carefull about putting cliches down. Many wonderful characters have been created out of architypes and cliches. Most everyone you will meet in the world falls into one of about 5 different character architypes. Really, what's lacking is SUBTLETY in characters, not originality.
The very best, most memorable characters throughout history, are ones that are built off of traditional architypes, but which the creators then used to mould a very complex persona. Games that strive for completely ORIGINAL character personalities usually lack subtlety and elloquance. Think about it, most of the greatest litterary minds of all times create very simple stories with relatively architypical characters, but then spend all their time on really making those characters come to life in ways that really make us think and feel.
Hamlet, at his core, is simply just another angsty broken young man like a thousand others that have appearned in litterature, film, and games... but through him, Shakespear makes us think and feel about our world and our lives, and about his life, more vividly than hardly any other. Game makers could learn a lot from the great bard.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
- Funcom's (Norway) The Longuest Journey and DreamFall are nice example of a very well written narrative (by Ragnar Tornquist), and are considered as the major work which brought back the genre into interest.
- Another prominent example is Benoit Sokal (France), who after doing the Syberia duology, founded his own game company White Bird Production which works on either adapting graphic novels from renown European artists or helping them create new worlds for the medium.
- Pendolino Software (Spain) is another example with the two volumes of Runaway in their sleeves.
- House of Tales' (Germany) The moment of Silence.
Meanwhile, the USA industry is working hard of producing yearly crops of hockey/soccer/whatever sport game and doesn't understand while player are complaining about lack of stories...
No actually I'm exaggerating : USA is also represented with Telltale Games which have made marvel in the episodic adventure game genres. And they are mostly composed of former LucasArt employee before that brand was turned into a giant lemon press for StarWars franchise.
The only main problem those modern game tend to suffer is that they are very linear. This is mostly due to them being the work of writers (which make really great stories, but then the stories are just made word by word into games).
As opposed to classical games - like Monkey Island and Space Quest - which are mostly designed from the ground up as series of puzzles and jokes assembled together (Space Quest 3 is notorious for completely lacking an over all story until very late into the development cycle). Those games aren't much linear for the simple reason that they didn't have a story to strictly follow, but instead are a string of separate events which could be completed in an almost random order.
Currently we DO have great writers in the video game circles (Dreamfall almost made me cry).
What we need is good game designer which could translate those wonderful stories into great games. (Otherwise there's a risk that the adventure games start to look like really well acted movie, but with as much interactivity as... well... interactive movie during the early FMV age). If they want to get out of it, they need to go give Ken and Roberta Williams a few millions dollars and bring back the adventure game. In addition of all runaways from LucasArt at Telltale :
TranSolar Games (the team at Sierra responsible for the Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory frnachise) is still around and still interested to revisit the franchise.
Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island's fame) is working at Hothead (Norway) and has contributed to Penny Arcade's game.
Al Lowe is still around too.
I'm sure that there are some terrific games to be made once you marry the perfect skill (good writing and good game design).
Specially now that platform like the Wii and the DS are widespread and have perfect input interface for adventure games.
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The problem is that there aren't too many of them to choose from, and what's available is mostly meh.
What's worse is that a LOT of the critically acclaimed games which had excellent stories ended up flopping which is really really sad (eg Anachronox, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Psychonauts, etc) and has made story less of a priority for publishers.
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