Gameplay and Narrative
Because games are interactive forms of entertainment, the goals of telling a story in the traditional sense of the phrase can seem at odds with the goals of empowering game-design. Most simply, games are designed to be played, whereas stories are designed merely to be "listened to."
And in light of this apparent disconnect, it's not surprising that the narrative of an archetypical computer-game is most often presented before and after actual gameplay occurs, in the form of cut-scenes and rolling text. These narrative mechanics are often employed as rewards for a successful gameplay experience, but they also carry the risk of alienating the player from his character. Rollings and Adams, for example, observe that they can make the game feel linear and non-interactive, sublimating the player's personal feelings for his character beneath the designer's idea of the way the character should be. Their suggestion is to limit the narrative for the sake of game-play.
But if you've ever played any of the Half-life, Final Fantasy or Zelda series games, you should have an intuition that such a trade-off is not inevitable. In subtle ways, creative game designers routinely manipulate their gameplay mechanics so as to interact with and advance a compelling narrative.
In the last assignment, we touched upon one simple way of accomplishing this effect: varying details of a story based on character-psychology. In RPGs, this might translate into changing the relationships between characters based upon dialog choices of the player. In action/adventure games, making a certain sort of decision in early parts of the game might have sweeping gameplay effects on character-ability and the challenges he/she faces (in Star Wars Jedi-Knight, whether or not you kill friendly characters in the beginning of the game affects whether you gain light-side or dark-side special powers in later levels). Of course, this narrative mechanic is only one of infinitely many, and even this one can be employed in infinitely many ways.
Writing Lab 2: Integrated Narrative Mechanics
Objective:
This lab demands that the writer be able to conceive of narrative-design and
gameplay-design as a singular coherent whole in order to accommodate the goals
of each simultaneously.
Premise:
In this assignment, the writer will start with a simplified game-concept, and
graft onto it mechanics that add to the experience of narrative with the most
positive possible impact on gameplay.
Assignment:
(1) Begin with the game-concept of a 2D side-scrolling platform-jumping action
game.
Example: A stripped down Super Mario Bros
(2) Expand upon this concept by conceiving of a basic narrative.
Example: Mario is searching for Princess Toadstool so as to rescue her
from Bowser.
(3) Conceive of a series of mechanics that advance or expand upon the
narrative elements of the game-concept while also accommodating compelling
gameplay.
Bad Example: "A dialogue occurs before Level 1 wherein Mario
explains how he misses the Princess to Luigi" is not a creative answer to
this problem.
Good Example: "At the end of every third stage Mario will be shown
walking into a castle, in which he thinks the Princess is being hidden" is
better.
Good Example: "The fourth stage will take place in a castle, in
which booby traps are set for Mario and fire-balls will shoot at Mario as he
tries to progress to face Bowser" is interesting.
Good Example: "At the end of each castle stage, Mario will learn
that the Princess is in another castle, and so he'll begin his search again in
a new Level, which will retain different gameplay elements than the previous
Level (e.g. one will be under-water and Mario will face fish, one will be in
the sky and Mario will hop around on clouds, etc.)" is even better.
NOTE: These mechanics, although translated onto paper as gameplay ideas, also expand upon the basic narrative. Of course, the point here (and of the exercise) is that gameplay and narrative are coterminous.
(4) Write a paper of between 2 - 5 pages (single-spaced), the first short
section of which will introduce the basic narrative of your game-concept, and
the second longer section of which will explain a series of mechanics. This
explanation can take place in any mode you feel most comfortable. You could,
for example,
- Explain the mechanic as I have above (although you should probably be more
explicit and specific than my very short descriptions).
- Type out a snippet of your fictional game-script to illustrate a mechanic in
action.
NOTE: In crafting these mechanics and putting them to paper, be careful to not only make sure that each is considering the story and gameplay, but also that they are all internally consistent. The ultimate purpose is to create an elegantly designed game, and so you should keep that goal in mind.
(5) Write a short design rationale of less than 1 page explaining some challenges you faced in thinking of game-design in this way.
If you're stuck or confused about the nature of this assignment, email me bws23@cornell.edu and I'd be glad to answer any questions.
Please submit through CMS.