Guidance: Story Driven Video Game Creation

The guidance below was somewhat derived from a great book, "Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques" by Evan Skolnick. ISBN-10: 0385345828.

Story Arcs

• Story arcs should be layered. Each smaller arc should trace up to the larger parent arc.
• The majority of story arcs should contain conflict. "X wants Y but Z"
• Each story arc should follow a three act structure.
  • ACT1, beginning - setup and introduction of conflict
  • Plot point 1, end of ACT1 - where the character commits to resolve the conflict
  • ACT2, middle - confrontation of the conflict
    • the size of this act should be x2 to x3 the size of ACT1
    • this act is the payoff of ACT1
    • this act sets up the payoff of ACT3
  • Plot point 2, end of ACT2 - the character has an idea or decides on how to resolve the conflict, regardless of outcome
  • ACT3, end - resolution of the conflict, and the results of that resolution
• Each story arc should build tension, both in story and gameplay
• Ensure the players are engaged within the first few seconds of ACT1

Character Development

• Use a character design document for each character (CDD). Include things like:
  1. personality design
  2. narrative design
  3. concept art
  4. final sprites or models
  5. animation
  6. prominence

• For each story/element, assess what the charater thinks and feels about it

• Characters may go through physical changes as well as personality changes

• Be aware of Archetypes

• The main character should identify with the audience, allowing the player to relate

• Each character should start out incomplete, and grow and change throughout the game
• Each character should show and define opinions, desires, intentions
• Each character should take action, take risk, make sacrifices based on personal stakes such as
  • life
  • death
  • family
  • love
  • health
  • money and material possessions
  • power

• Use villain(s) to motivate the main conflict
• Use multiple villains
• ensure that evil and selfish actions are justified by good intentions
• ensure the villain has wants, desires, and plans

• Checklist for each action a villain takes:
  • what does the villain want?
  • what is their plan for getting it?
  • does it align with the overall plan?
  • is it believable?
  • how does it make them look?
    • smart?
    • stupid?
    • random?

• Each character needs to exist for a reason

• General character arc, top-level questions that need answers
  • Where/Who do they start as?
  • Where/Who do they become?
  • The story bridges the two endpoints mentioned above, driven by change and growth
  • Not every character needs to change/grow, but their situation does
  • Character arcs should follow a three act structure, just as a story arc does

Exposition

• For each story element, ask if exposition is needed

• Ensure the pace of delivering exposition is slow enough for the player's brain to process it

• Attempt exposition in this order
  1. have the player do it
  2. show it with music/sfx
  3. tell it through dialog or narration

• Sort exposition by importance, and deliver it at the correct time, examples
  1. need to know
  2. could wait
  3. incidental
  4. unimportant

• Use some optional manner such as NPC dialog to deliver unimportant exposition
• Ensure that the exposition at a given moment is there to keep the player entertained, not to understand the plot

• Do not deliver exposition all at once, use seeding
• Ensure the seeded exposition has a worthwhile payoff
• When seeding, introduce seed as early and briefly as possible so that it registers with the player, but allows them to forget about it until it comes up later
• Use seeding for story pace and believability
• Seed by starting with a story climax, and then work backwards seeding as you go
• If the story slows or stops for an explanation, consider seeding earlier
• Know the difference between seeding and foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is subtle, cloudy, vague, and less-than helpful

Believability

• Preserve the suspension of belief
• Be consistent with the world and characters
• Use character consistency when getting stuck writing. Ask "What would this character do?" not, "What needs to happen next?"
• When introducing a character, have them heavily display their core traits. Use dialog and action to reinforce this throughout the rest of the story.
• Define motivations and traits for each character
• Use the initial character and who they become as a direction, and for most characters ensure that this change is gradual.

Coincidence

• Identify all coincidences in the story arcs, and handle them by one of the following
  1. change the plot, extreme change
  2. retrofit it by adding subtle changes to make it less coincidental
  3. downplay, by distracting the player

• It is okay to setup a plot point with coincidence. It is not okay to resolve a conflict with coincidence
• Invoking emotions is a way to distract the player from a coincidence
• Bad coincidental examples:
  1. benefits the heros and allies
  2. hero/allies dumb luck
  3. unlikely based on what the player knows
  4. has no setup and comes with little or no warning
  5. players notice the coincidence
  6. doubted, questioned, or mocked by the player

Surprise

• The ending/payoff of a story arc must be inevitable and unexpected
• Give the audience what they want, but not in the way they expected it
• Good surprise is:
  1. Player doesn't see it coming
  2. extremely unlikely or purely coincidental
  3. it was setup beforehand
  4. it makes sense afterwards

Dialogue

• It conveys four types of exposition
  1. plot
  2. character
  3. emotion
  4. gameplay

• Character dialogue is what a character says and how they say it
• Ensure character constrast through dialog. If an unassigned piece of dialogue is traced back to more than one character, then those characters are too similar.

• What a character says may be influenced by:
  1. the current situation
  2. their current emotional state
  3. the listener's current emotional state
  4. current goals
  5. characters growth or new information

• Character dialogue is driven by emotion and what they think

• Invoke emotional exposition by indirect dialogue. example "I'm scared" vs. "Don't leave me alone"

• Dialogue should be interesting, entertaining, and natural sounding

Levels

• Use a level design document (LDD).
• Ensure the LDD contains narrative information
• Just as a story is broken up into chapters and acts, gameplay should be broken up into missions and levels
• Does each mission/level align with the overarching tone of the game? The creative aspirations? The functional goals?
• Ask what purpose does each level serve?
• The story/narrative and the mission/level design will impact each other throughout the game
• Write an emotion map for both story/narrative and the mission/level to ensure they are correct

Environment

• Use a environment design document (EDD).
• Layout and architecture should invoke
  1. history
  2. values
  3. culture

• Use aged and broken settings to show what used to exist for the setting

• The EDD should answer
  1. What kind of people lived here?
  2. What are/were their lives like?
  3. How affluent were they?
  4. What do/did they love and hate?
  5. Do/did they prefer form vs. function?
  6. Where they at peace or war when the setting was constructed
  7. How densely are/were they populated?
  8. How focused are/were they on comfort?
  9. what is/was the purpose of the setting?

• Embed writings in the environment
  1. graffiti
  2. notes
  3. letters

• Embed foreshadowing and seeding in the environment. Example: Xenogears - the spaceships turrets turn out to be Fort Jasper

• Embed secret content that isn't needed to understand the story but provides a richer story when consumed by the player

• Use abandoned and uninhabited environments to invoke a sense of mystery. Add calamity to invoke a sense of dread.

• Weave story and narrative clues into the environment