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Story-Telling in the Interactive Medium

Story-telling has been a part of human existence since the beginning of time. All the way through history, we have used stories in a variety of ways, whether it be the passing of knowledge, for entertainment, or to express ideas. So it seems odd initially to attempt to apply such an ancient method of communication to one of the newest forms of entertainment: the video game.

Traditionally, and save for items such as the ‘Choose your own adventure’ line of books, story-telling outside of the interactive medium has been a strictly linear affair. Indeed this process has been applied to games; the player is lead on a sometimes interesting, but ultimately narrow road from a story’s beginning to its conclusion. Early attempts at tackling the options afforded by the medium such as Origin’s Privateer met with critical and some financial success, but for the most part, games have made little attempt at finding new ways to deliver narrative, largely because we’re still trying to figure out what exactly this medium is.

The most obvious way that games differ from traditional story-telling is that the story takes place in an interactive medium. Where books, theatre or movies have only ever had the audience watching voyeuristically and at best living vicariously through the characters on the page, stage and screen, games offer the audience (the player) the chance to affect the course of the tale. This does not necessarily mean that the game winds up with multiple plot strands, merely that the player is allowed to make interesting decisions and is perceived to be a part of something, rather than just be lead by the nose to an inevitable conclusion.

A semi-recent, and some will argue still the best example of story-telling in games is Valve Software’s Half-Life. While content-wise it was nothing new (characters talked, there were aliens and armies and guns), the way it was delivered changed the way a lot of people thought about narrative in games. Through scripted sequences and never breaking the continuity, the game never really asked that the player to believe they were Gordon Freeman, only that they come along for the ride.

A more recent example of narrative in games is Ion Storm’s Deus Ex. Where it can be argued though, that Deus Ex fell short and Half-Life excelled was in the use of cut-scenes: Valve’s title didn’t contain a single one.

In games using the first-person perspective, there is an un-spoken assumption that the player is viewing the world through their own eyes. In Deus Ex however, the player assumed the role of JC Denton while playing the game, yet viewed the character acting independently during cut-scenes, breaking the player’s suspension of disbelief. Half-Life never resorted to the use of cut-scenes and thus the player was never forced to view Gordon Freeman as anything other than their presence in the game world.

Games presented in the third-person represent an altogether different set of challenges though. While in the first-person the pretence is that the player can view the world through their own eyes, the third-person perspective makes it obvious that the player is controlling an altogether different entity in the world, a conduit for their actions rather than a direct translation.

They can for instance, see Lara and how she relates to the world around her without having to come up with their own emotional response, and cut-scenes can be used to simply further the story or give information about the character that isn’t shown through the gameplay. Recent titles such as Metal Gear Solid 2 however, are more an example of what to avoid than how to tell a story well using the medium. Where cut-scenes used to be a way of rewarding the player, MGS2 almost became a game where actually being involved in the gameplay was a reward for sitting through the tedious cinematics.

The rules for video games and more traditional story-telling medium aren’t entirely at opposites however. One of the top rules of script-writing is “Show it, don’t say it,” meaning that if a character can convey some aspect of the story through a look or an action, then they should do this rather than resorting to dialogue.

This can be applied in a number of ways and again, Half-Life is a good example. The first time the player comes across one of the soldiers sent in to kill any survivors after the accident, they see them from the top of a staircase. A scripted sequenced then plays out where a scientist runs up to the soldier and thanks them for rescuing him only to be gunned down the moment his back I turned. This is the first clue that all is not as it seems and, following the sequence, the soldier spots the player at the top of the stairs and they open fire.

An example of how this would be delivered in a film script might read something like this:

INT. BLACK MESA RESEARCH FACILITY

A SOLDIER stands near an elevator shaft, machine gun drawn. Freeman approaches from behind and stops at the top of a staircase. He is just about to call out to the soldier when he hears footsteps coming towards them and ducks back behind a corner.

He peers out and sees a SCIENTIST running towards the soldier.

SCIENTIST (desperately) : Thank you! Oh thank you for saving me!

The soldier motions towards the lift and the scientist moves toward it. Just as his back is turned however, the soldier aims and fires at the scientist, killing him.

Obviously it makes for a much more dynamic scene than having the soldier say “I’ve been sent in to make sure there are no survivors, I’m going to kill you now.” By having him gun down the scientist, the player is taught that they aren’t necessarily there to help the survivors escape, thus an important plot point is conveyed through actions rather than words.

One of the problems with scripted sequences however is the player’s ability to interrupt them. If they had run down the stairs at the solider instead of waiting for the scientist to come along, they still would have been shot, but the soldier’s actions would not have been given a context, and more importantly the player would have been punished for breaking the sequence by being unprepared for the soldier’s actions.

So many games do this: they punish the player for something they have yet to learn (ie. the soldiers have not been sent in to play nice) and so it becomes a balancing act of not holding the player’s hand, while at the same time teaching them about the game world. Finding the most appropriate way to do this however, whether it be through design or the narrative is the key.

Rules for dialogue remain largely the same in games as in movies, yet games haven’t really taken their lead from film, perhaps the one thing they should be watching more than anything else. Game dialogue is amateurish at best for the most part, save for a few instances where care has been taken on the script. Often heard in cut-scenes and other non-interactive moments that appear to service the story, game characters have a habit of repeating information that everyone, save perhaps for the player, already knows.

An example might be something like “As you are already aware Dr. Robotnik, Sonic can only defeat us if he can capture all six chaos emeralds. Since we have hidden them in your secret underground lair located on Dead Man’s Isle, the skull-shaped island off the coast of Chaoville, he’ll have no chance of ever finding them!”

Not pretty, and we can all name countless other examples where a game’s script was even worse than the above example. The “Show it, don’t say it” rule could and should be used here to great effect.

There are many other examples of how story-telling in games can differ from traditional mediums or what techniques can be applied across the board, but that could fill a book in itself. The key to telling a compelling story in a game starts in the same place that all good stories do: an interesting setting and a character that the audience can root for. Beyond this, from Joseph Campbell to Plato to Tolkien to Shakespeare, developers have a wide variety of influences to draw on. The key thing to remember is that in traditional forms of writing, there must be obstacles that the main character overcomes. Authors most often refer to it as ‘conflict and resolution’.

Developers call it ‘gameplay’.

  posted by splash · at 9:36 am · filed under Editorials