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Ragnar Tornquist On Video Game Storytelling

Posted by Soulskill on from the once-upon-a-time dept.

Ragnar Tornquist is respected as one of the best storytellers in today's game industry. He's done work on Anarchy: Online, Dreamfall, and upcoming MMO The Secret World. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a lengthy three-part interview with Tornquist about how good stories are crafted, how they interact with other aspects of the games, and what his preferences are for building a compelling character. "We had all these characters who were on a journey of faith, and we said how can we ensure that this theme is carried through, and have a clear view of how their journeys happen. So we said, every single major character had to fit into this model. Everybody starts out at the top. Faith can be anything — it can be religion, it can be a belief in yourself, in your abilities, in the work you do. As we face challenge, there's a process where we have loss of faith. It can be a minor thing: thinking one day, 'God, I suck at what I do. I can't do this.' And a lot of people after that point turn themselves around, face those problems, challenge them and they conquer them, and they say, 'Screw that, I am good at what I do.' I think most happy people live in this loop."

1 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Hey, Ragnar by roystgnr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know what's an important part of storytelling?

    FINISHING THE FREAKING STORY

    Like, when you've gotten through the backstory and the character development, and you get to the first big climax, the cliffhanger where you have the audience wondering which of their heroes will live and which will die?

    That is NOT the right time to roll the credits. And if there are a half dozen important subplots that haven't even reached their climax yet? Then it is DEFINITELY NOT the right time to roll the credits.

    Oh, who am I kidding. I could turn this rant into a treatise, but I know I'm still going to buy The Longest Journey 3 (or Dreamfall: Chapters, or whatever it gets called), even if it doesn't come out for another five years. And he knows people like me are still going to buy it, even if it's only sold for two hundred dollars with an uncrackable installer EULA which can only be accepted by submitting a video recording of the prospective customer saying "Please, Mr. Tornquist, I humbly beg for permission to play your sequel."