Advanced Game Design - Writing and Narrative Strategies

Advanced Game Design Lesson 1: Introduction to the Course and Writing for Games

What are we doing here? You already took intro to Game Design. Why are you taking another Game Design course? This course is NOT intended to be just more games. While concepts of original mechanics and meaningful player choice will continue to be important in this course, this is an opportunity to cover advanced topics that were out of scope in the introductory class. The two main areas of study in this course are Game Narrative (how to make stories and build worlds for narrative-driven games) and Multi-Device Games (design considerations for multi-player games who cannot necessarily see or hear each other). Both of these are significant topics at the core of some of the biggest and most successful games ever created, including MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. They also drive emotionally rich and powerful experiences like those found in Journey, Celeste, and Spy Party.

What are we doing here? There are two main projects for this course: 1. A solo narrative game project using the free Twine text-and-image engine which will be a chance to explore branching narrative, world building, and player stat tracking. 2. A team-based story-rich, multi-device 2d or 3d game using Unity in which you will have the chance to explore original player communication design, interface, and interactions in the context of a design that allows for the limitations of multi- device communication. This latter can be a completely new design or a continuation of a game you have previously started.

Story Brainstorming: Why A Game? What makes an idea worth being made into a game? If your story can be just created as a novel, why go through the enormous effort to code and animate it? Key Concepts of Writing for Games: 1. Build your story on Meaningful Choice: Player choice must not be just cosmetic: it should determine the course of their game experience. While it is true game narratives tend to branch and then taper to common gate experiences in order to manage development resources and maintain some continuity in experience, players need to know that their choices are what defines their opportunities and determines their outcomes. Consider open worlds where the player can do anything, but their actions cause certain stats to be adjusted, changing the ways in which groups of NPCs react to them and offer opportunities. Or consider failure-rich environments like the classic Choose-Your-Own- Adventure game books, where most paths ended in player death and an early end to the story, and the challenge was to find the longest path to read the most and end more happily.

Story Brainstorming: Why A Game? Key Concepts of Writing for Games (Cont d): 2. Strive For Weird: Consider weird characters whose strangeness can inform player choices and abilities. Consider weird situations that can presents regular human concerns and conflicts in extra high contrast by separating them from ordinary life, thus offering a distilled, deeper understanding. This is the common power of Science Fiction and Fantasy: to create a metaphor for regular human experience. 3. Connect with Others, Out In The World: While inward-focused stories about solitude and survival can work, most players are interested in connecting with others, and character is revealed in choices made out in the world. Consider the player choices and emotional experiences defined by the companions in Ico, Portal, Dad of War, and the Walking Dead.

Story Brainstorming: Story Verbs What are the VERBS of your Game Story?: To identify with the character of your game, the player needs to quickly encounter goals (desire) obstacles (conflict) and opportunities for meaningful choice. Therefore, try going quickly to a core action of your game as related to your story, and pay close attention to the main Verbs (abilities) you are planning to introduce: For most of your game (not necessarily all), avoid much time performing static verbs like sitting, walking, eating, driving, standing, leaning. Instead, consider Action Story Verbs: Jumping, pushing, falling, running, dodging, dancing, stumbling, fighting, climbing, flirting, lifting, throwing, dropping, sliding, grabbing, riding. EXERCISE: Review the next page of story element prompts. Choose a few combinations or generate them randomly with a d20: https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm 5 minutes: write down a few ideas for a character and a story. 10 minutes: Turn to a partner, discuss at least one idea you wrote, and brainstorm others.

STORY IDEA GENERATOR 9000 Feeling stuck? Choose (or roll a d20) from each column to create strange story seeds! Note that any of these can be meaningfully anthropomorphized, made scifi or fantasy, or just a little weird. CHARACTER Housewife Jogger Chef Alien in Disguise Janitor Florist Traffic Cop Kite Flyer Bounty Hunter 10. Salesperson 11. Child 12. Mechanic 13. Musician 14. Assembly Line Worker 15. Surgeon 16. Inventor 17. Painter 18. Clown 19. Thief 20. Street Cleaner SETTING City Street Farm Flower Shop Treehouse Kitchen Dungeon Space Station Boiler Room Jungle 10. A Bar 11. Water Fountain 12. Truck Rally 13. Restaurant 14. Alien Planet 15. Castle Battlement 16. Air Ducts 17. Super Science lab 18. A Cliff or Building Ledge 19. Elevator 20. Park Bench DESIRE THEME 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. To Get Out 11. To Not Fall / Die 12. To Cross a Space 13. To Reach Something High 14. To Reach Something Low 15. Money (coin or bill) 16. Coffee 17. Baby in a Carriage 18. Umbrella 19. Eyeglasses 20. Cake Sandwich Treasure Chest Flower/s A Date A Job Missing Shoe Drink Doll To Get In 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Perseverance 11. Racism Blinds 12. Kindness 13. Loss is Not the End 14. Sacrifice Brings Reward 15. Good Triumphs Over Evil 16. Revenge is Poison 17. We Are In Our Own Way 18. Children Need to Learn on Their Own 19. Technology Dehumanizes 20. Everyone has Value Loneliness Life Finds a Way Compassion Death is a Part of Life Greed Destroys Gratitude Uplifts Friendship Takes Sacrifice Power Corrupts Person vs Nature

How Do Stories Work in Other Media? In novels and films we often talk about narratives as following a 3-Act Structure ACT 1: Establish a Status Quo for the heroes and society. An Inciting Incident sends the heroes in a new direction to attempt to restore the status quo. ACT 2: Rising Action: the heroes make increasingly more difficult or desperate choices to solve the disruption in their world. They encounter the main enemy and are badly defeated. ACT3: The Heroes regroup, make a better plan, engage the enemy and definitively defeat them (or definitively lose), establishing a new Status Quo.

How Do Stories Work in Other Media? Here is an example of 3-Act structure in Pixar s Monsters Inc: ACT1: Status Quo: Mike and Sully are Monster energy-miners (of human child fear/screams) striving for a workplace record while there is a national energy crisis. Monsters are taught that human children are toxic and must never be touched. Inciting Incident: Mike is late for a date so Sully stays to do his paperwork, finding an open station through which a human child has invaded the monster world. Sully brings the child to Mike, disrupting his date and starting a national panic. ACT2: Rising Action:the heroes try to contain the human child at Mike s place, then try to sneak her into their facility to return her to her home. She gets lost and captured by Sully s rival Scare-er Randall, then saved. Mike and Sully fight over what to do with the child, as Sully wants to protect her and Mike just wants their old lives back. They show her to the head of the company, Waternoose, who is revealed to be the top bad guy and exiles Mike and Sully to the human world. ACT3: The heroes make it back to the Monster world, save the child, and trick Waternoose into revealing his evil plans to the authorities. The corporate lies about child toxicity are debunked, child laughter is revealed to be a more powerful energy source, Mike s comedy is the new top talent and Sully runs the company.

How Do Stories Work in Games? Stories generally require character arcs: a sense that characters start with desires, hopes, fears, and limited abilities, and through a series of challenges they grow and change to new understandings and abilities. How do we do this in a game? Non-story games typically define their arc as a difficulty curve: the games get harder and harder as players grow in skill mastery until we reach a final boss battle where the player is tested and reaps final rewards. A story arc should typically run parallel to this difficulty curve, but will assign meaning to failure, success, growth, new compatriots, gaining and losing abilities, etc. A way to guarantee a story arc is with Pinch Points: Give the player lots of choices in how they interact with others, what paths to follow to decide how they gain in wealth/ status/ weapons/ friends/ etc that can be different for each player. Then create an event/scene that everyone encounters, regardless of previous choices, so that the next significant emotional beat can be felt by everyone (though perhaps it is reframed based on previous choices). Then open up possibilities again until the next pinch point, and the next. Many narrative games use pinch points because they are easier to budget everyone is getting to the same place in the end.

How Do Stories Work in Games? Another system for managing a sense of player progress is to create a set of encounters designed for multiple skill levels of player ability, combined with a reputation system where NPCs recognize player accomplishments and defeats. The player is told by NPCs what is best for them at their current skill state, but the player can choose to explore any of these spaces at any time. If a player tries a more difficult encounter before they have reached the appropriate skill state, they can experience defeat, and get both mechanics-driven and story driven in- game consequences, with resources needing to be re-built up and with the NPCs to whom the player has to return, acknowledging their failure. If the player manages to beat an extra hard space before they are at the skill state expected to beat it, they get beneficial rewards to help them faster beat the spaces at their skill state, and acknowledgement from the NPCs. By giving the player significant freedom to fail and then making the world recognize the player s successes and failures, the player may experience a sense of their own story in the game as unique and meaningful. Another system is a Hero s/Villain s Journey, as seen in the Fable series: define player traits that can grow into good or evil states and define how the world responds to the player, as the player feels themselves gaining in positive or negative influence, especially with dynamic world systems.

How Do Stories Work in Games? EXERCISE: What are some of the games that have touched you the most? Let s list them: Choose one game from this list, and answer these questions: How did that game introduce your starting situation? What choices did it offer related to an inciting incident? How did those initial choices shape what you encountered next? What choices felt most memorable (emotionally resonant) or important (player outcome) in your playing this game? When did you notice pinch-points in the story, if ever? How did you feel your character changed or grew in the game? How were interactions with NPCs made meaningful: dialogue choices, other interaction choices? Did their treatment of you change based on your choices? Did they recur and remember you and your choices? How did your choices influence the ending or outcomes? Did you feel that this ending was based on the sequence of choices you made throughout the game, or only on the final choice or few choices?