Narrative in Video Games

This week's topic will be about narrative in video games. Specifically, the do's and don't's and the effects it can have on both video games and players.

First of all, don't develop a game entirely around a detailed epic story that you've come up with. This is a rookie mistake some aspiring designers do. The reason being is that as you develop the game, you'll be heavily constrained by the details of the story you've invented. This can cause your game to be a mess and ruin the player's experience.

Instead, come up with an overall narrative that you wish for players to experience. Then, without getting into the details just yet, design mechanics that will reinforce that experience. For example, in Suikoden II, the developers wanted players to experience the story of a young boy who is caught up in the middle of a war who ends up becoming the leader of the liberation army. Therefore, for players to experience this kind of story, the developers created mechanics which reinforced both the narrative and the experience. One such mechanic is their 'map battles' which involves the player controlling groups of units on a grid-based map. This is similar to strategy rooms where you see high officers planning their strategy on a map using toys to represents unit types for both sides.

Just remember that narrative is very flexible and can be warped and shaped to fit into any part of the game.

Second, narrative, when used correctly, can be a very powerful ally in your quest to develop a game. It gives the player context, reason, justification, rationalization and can even be used to manipulate the player as well. So be careful when you insert narrative into a game. If used incorrectly, it can spell doom!

I'll give you an example. Take the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxy and the adventure game Bioshock. Both games have a re-spawn mechanic which works the same way. However, each game gave a different narrative behind the mechanic. In Star Wars Galaxy, it's explained that when a player dies, they are brought back to life through cloning technology whereas in Bioshock, the player is brought back by being 'revitalized' in a vita-chamber. The results? Well, despite the mechanic working exactly the same in both games, some of the players in Star Wars Galaxy became angry because they wanted to play the characters that they've made, rather than clone versions of them. It may sound crazy, but that's the power of narrative.

Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading and see you all next week!