UNIT 74 Report Title: Storytelling Essentials Author: William Hughes I certify that work contained in this assessment was researched and prepared by me.
Learner Signature: William Hughes 1.1 Introduction In this report, I will be discussing how to create an interesting and high quality story for video games. I will cover how to tell a story, how game genres interact with stories, how to design a story, how to represent the story, emotional themes, how to have the player interact with the story and writing strategies. 1.2 Forms of Storytelling Stories can be told in many different ways in video games. For example, stories can be told using cutscenes. Cutscenes are short videos that are played in the game which display dialogue and actions. Cutscenes can be pre-rendered to save performance at a cost of disk space and visual quality. Cutscenes are used to tell stories without the player needing to input any commands. This however can cause a disconnection with the game where the player becomes bored as they feel they are just watching a movie, with select input at some points. Therefore, it is important to keep cutscenes interesting so the player remains invested in the game. It is wise to make cutscenes skippable so people who do repeat playthroughs of the game don’t have to watch them again, and so people who are not interested in the story can focus on the gameplay. Games that heavily use cutscenes include Metal Gear Solid, Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted. Stories can be told using secrets and descriptions. For example, the Dark Souls series of games communicate lore and story in a subtle way by displaying them in optional conversations with non-player characters, side quests and item descriptions. This is good for games without an emphasis on story, but allows for fans of the game to piece together the story from paying attention and finding everything in the game. This ensures the story does not invade the gameplay since all story can be skipped if desired. Stories can be told using gameplay. For example, the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons by Starbreeze Studios. Brothers is about two brothers who must go on an adventure to save their father from death. Brothers uses the control method of an analog stick for each brother which creates a conflict between your mind and your hands. This helps reinforce the story where the characters have to survive through several conflicts and makes it feel like you are struggling to play the game much like the characters are struggling to survive. Towards the end of the game, you can only play as one of the characters which create a feeling of loss, as now your left hand can no longer be used similarly to the loss of one of the brothers.
1.3 Game Genres Genres exist in order to categorise media including TV, books and videogames in a simple and quick way. It also allows for people to see similar media to a select media allowing for people to find more media which they may like. Most genre’s also features subgenres which describe the select media in a more descriptive and accurate way. For example, subgenres of the horror genre include survival horror,comedy horror and stealth horror.
Certain game genres are better at telling a story then others. For example, it is far easier to have an interactive, interesting story in an adventure game then it is in a puzzle match-3 game. This is because the game genre itself often features things that can be easily associated to what real humans might do in that scenario. Adventure and shooter storylines can often be easily changed into a movie storyline whereas a storyline for a puzzle or tycoon game would be harder to change to a movie storyline. This allows for more cinematic gameplay, which feels similar to a movie. 1.4 Approaches Many stories feature writing templates and patterns such as the hero’s journey and the three act structure. The three art structure works by detailing how many stories have a distinct start, middle and end. The start usually describes the environment, the characters and the basic plot. The middle usually displays the main character attempting to resolve the problem introduced from the plot, yet struggling to do so, and finding themselves in worse situations. Finally, the end usually ties up the story with the main character either succeeding or failing at resolving the problem displayed in the plot. Some stories perhaps detail a “plot twist” where the story changes in a large way towards the end of the story as well. The hero’s journey consists of 12 stages that most stories follow to generate an interesting and satisfying story. The 12 stages can be summarised under 3 categories of departure, initiation and finally, return. 1.5 Representation Stereotypes are used in games for multiple reasons. Some games use stereotypes in order to have simple characters that can easily be summed up and described in one sentence. This is useful for games with simple stories which focus on gameplay as they don’t need complicated characters but just characters that the player can play as, fight and fight for. Stereotypes also allow writers and designers to create multiple characters quickly which is useful to keep budgets low, release dates soon and content high. Some people find stereotyping offensive due to how it can describe certain groups of people (ethnicities, genders, etc) as all being the same. Mario in the “Super Mario Brothers” franchise is a stereotype of an Italian and this can be seen with Mario’s dialogue and catchphrases. As well as that, Princess Peach is stereotyped as the “damsel in distress” of which whom mario must save. Many triple-a videogames have you playing as a muscled, strong white american soldier fighting enemies of a different race in order to save the world and get the girl. Examples of games using these stereotypes include “Wolfenstein”, “Medal of Honor” and “Gears of War”. These games are designed for casual gamers and therefore do not focus on story but focus on pure gameplay. Market trends point to games with these type of characters as selling well, and therefore as a result, many triple-a game companies use similar characters in order to increase chances of making a profit as well. Some games use these stereotypes as a way of parodying the gaming market and creating a twist in the story. For example, 2K’s Games’s “Spec Ops: The Line” seems to be a generic cover-based third person shooter where the player kills thousands of terrorists, but later in the story, you find out that this story is not glorifying war like it seems to, but in fact is against it. For example, the main character's morality is explained by the fact he is slowly turning insane. As well as that, the game shows how destructive war is by having the player partake in murdering civilians and destroying massive buildings. 1.6 Emotional Themes Stories tend to feature emotional themes such as happiness,sadness,fear,hope and more. These allow for the stories to resonate with ourselves and our past. Emotional games and stories can cause the player to feel something and generate a strong emotional response. Games with strong emotional themes include “The Walking Dead”, “To the Moon” and “Uncharted 4”. According to onlyagame.typepad.com, the most common video game emotional themes are wonderment, contentment and amusement. Strangely, sadness was one of the least common emotional themes, even though they often generate the most powerful response. Due to the powerful but rare response given with sad emotional themes, many players seek out sad stories in videogames. 1.7 Interacting with Stories Interacting with stories in video games is easier in some games than others. For example, some games like Root Double use scripted stories with the only interactivity with the story is certain choices the player can make throughout the game in order to change the final outcome. Whereas, other games allow the players to interact with the story constantly throughout the game and change the eventual outcome such as Bethesda’s Fallout 3. Fallout 3 is a first person role playing game where you choose what happens in the game from your choices and your gameplay. For example, you could gain access to a secret underground facility by carefully stealing the access codes from a sleeping employee and then hiding and crouching your way through the facility, or you could just go in and shoot everything you see. Both of these playstyles affect the gameplay, the storyline and the environment in different ways. 1.8 Writing Strategies It is wise to plan a story before writing it in order to improve its final quality. Planning allows for the story to make sense and have interesting twists and turns. Planning can be done in multiple different ways including Mind Maps, story-boards, drafting and revision. Storyboards are images along with text that display what the camera views and what is happening in each scene. This is especially useful for cutscenes as it allows you to visualise where the camera and objects in the scene are meaning an animator can animate without the help of a visual director as they only need to follow what the storyboard displays. Mind Maps are used to visualise ideas and branches of ideas much like how the brain works. These are only useful early in pre-production as they rarely cover things in detail but rather have many possible ideas that could be in the final product. Lore in stories are used to describe the history and past of the world the story takes place in. This makes the world feel as if it is larger than the story itself and makes the player wish to know more about the world. For example, the director of the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, Hidetaka Miyazaki wrote “I tell worlds, not stories.”. This shows that he believes his games aren’t about a singular story but rather about multiple stories in a world that we believe could be real due to it’s large and interesting history. 1.9 Summary Stories are very important in modern video games. Telling an interesting and satisfying story in your video game whilst also having fun gameplay and pleasurable graphics is difficult but important to do to make a successful and popular video game. Stories can be told in many different ways including cutscenes, secrets and through gameplay itself. Game genres help categorise games so people can see similar games to one they like and to help describe the content of the game without needing to play it. Subgenres help differentiate further when needed. Some game genres are better at storytelling than others. Using writing templates such as the hero’s journey and the the three act structure can help write a satisfying and interesting story. Stereotypes are used in simple stories to reduce exposition. Stereotypes are also used in games to create twists in the story where the characters turn out different then you first expect. Some people find stereotyping offensive as it insinuates everyone from a certain group are all the same. Stories feature emotional themes in order to generate a strong response from the player. The amount of interaction to the story from the gameplay is different depending on the game. Planning a story before writing it can help improve the final quality of the game’s story.