Developing a Game Story/Game Writing

Introduction A game can be described as a series of interesting choices. In a game, the player leaves the real world behind and enters the game world, even in games like Charades, Tag or Baseball. In Tag tapping someones body has a specific meaning in the game-world that would be utter non-sense in the normal world. A Story is a series of conflicts and resolutions. It also makes a reader leave the real world behind and enter the story world. That is if the story is well written and engages the reader. Combining these two ideas is the challenge of writing a Game-Story. How much choice will you give to the player so that its still a game and not just an interactive novel? How will you make it a good, interesting story to captivate the player? Contents 1. From the Beginning 2. Hero's Journey Model 3. Basic Story Structure 4. Story Telling Elements 5. Tips to Try 1. From the Beginning Every story and game starts with an idea or concept. That idea can be a character, a situation, a relationship, a creature, a place, another game, a battle system, an item, an event, and so on. Once you are clear on your idea you can build a story around it. But there are some things to be careful of. You should always keep in mind that this is a game and not a movie or book where the audience has no choice in what happens to the characters. The player needs to feel some level of authorship. Keeping your audience in mind is called PLAYERCENTRIC DESIGN. (This is what is being taught in Game Design Programs.) It not only needs to be a good story, it needs to be fun. Developing a Game Story is really not much different than developing a story written on paper. There is just the extra challenge of making the story playable. 2. Hero's Journal Model Almost 99% of RPG games features the Heros Journey type story. Lord of the

Rings or the Hobbit are classic examplesas is Star Wars oddly enough. There is a general thread through these kinds of stories. A) The hero is an ordinary, everyday person until an event/mentor shows them the door and they begin on their journey. B) They are met with an obstacle they are unable to overcome C) They are challenged by their mentor or an event that they do over come. D) They lose their mentor and now must grow on their own. E) Hero continues to overcome obstacles and grow. F) The hero can now overcome the obstacle they were unable to overcome before. G) The hero returns home. 3. Basic Story Structure While the "Hero's Journey" is a specific model, all stories follow a similar structure. Introduction - Conflict - Climax - Resolution. Stories are made up of Conflicts and Resolutions. A novel is actually a very long list of conflicts and their resolutions. Short stories generally only have ONE conflict and resolution. Translating this to a game is not too difficult. Personally, I try to think of a game in a series of events. The cut scene before the event, the player plays and at the end another cut scene plays to state the resolution of the event and start the next. Longer games may have several conflicts and resolutions. Take a Game like Ocarina of Time (warning some spoilers). The first conflict is the Deku Tree is dying. The resolution is defeating the boss inside the dungeon. The steps between that conflict and the resolution are many. First you have to learn the game controls. Then you have to talk to Mido. Then you have to find rupees and buy a shield. Then you have to find the Kokiri sword. Then you have to talk to the Deku Tree. Then you go into the tree dungeon. After that conflict is resolved, the player is presented with another one.

The conflict is there is evil rising in the land and the world is in danger. (And you also learn that you were adopted.) Each dungeon or level after that has some sort of conflict. Fire Dungeon, the Gorons are starving and the cave is blocked. Water Dungeon, the princess is missing. Each had a cut scene proceeding it telling you of this specific problem as well as provide another step towards the resolution of the BIG conflict. The main quest should be the main conflict in the game. The resolution will be the final boss/battle/confrontation. All other side conflicts must lead up to this Main resolution with their resolutions. A good game designer/writer presents interesting conflicts for the player to try and resolve. Sometimes theres only ONE correct resolution that you can give. Other conflicts can have more than one resolution that the player can choose. This may affect the resolution of the main quest. Conflicts for a character based story are usually: Man vs. Man (The character is opposed to another person/group of people) Man vs. Nature (The character is opposed by forces of nature, storms, plagues, etc.) Man vs. Self (The character is opposed by his/her own mind or some spiritual struggle. Psychological type stories.) [header]4. Story Telling Elements[/header] You have to present your conflicts somehow. Usually this is done with cut-scenes and in-game dialogue. It is almost always text based. To write the explanation in the game while keeping the player immersed in the game, story telling is best done through dialogue cut-scenes. The side route is to have a bulk of text to read on screen. For action games and first person shooters, it is better to just have a mission log displayed. 5. Tips to Try High Concept Document: While you may not really be pitching this idea to a company, the information you need to include is perfect for getting peer feedback for your game/story. It gets the barebones idea for your game story down on paper. This document should include: Game Title/Working Title Game Genre

Setting: Player Motive: Features: Unique Points: Design Goals: Extra details (Audio plans, Character descriptions, voice actors planned, list of location descriptions.) (Example: My Little Pony: End of Flutter Valley) Quest Outline: When writing out your game plan, make a story outline for the game. Dont worry about dialogue or cut scenes. Play through the game how you intend the player to go through it. I usually work things out as a series of quests. I make quick notes about what I want to happen during that quest, what I expect the player to do, and the goal/result of that quest. Usually receiving an item, getting a new quest, a player joining the party are the results of quests. Example: 1. Opening Quest Trading Quest for money and unlock first cut scene. 2. Finding Niece help ELF find informed NPC, Elf joins the party 3. Catch Thief Chase Thief, Thief joins party 4. Travel to Capital City Travel to the Stop, Meet Fae Chief, demon character joins party 5. Demon Wolves Fight Demon Wolves, meet Wolf Pack Leader, Sprite Character joins party 6. Sneak into Capital City enter city without getting caught, meet king 7. Find a Unicorn for the king travel to centaur village, get unicorn seeds, trap unicorn, Unicorn character joins party. 8. Flee the Dragons run to the Lake, run up the mountain, meet Sea Serpent King and dragon queen. 9. Travel to Enemy City go to enemy town, catch Caravan, arrested 10. Challenge Boss fight your friends, fight Dragon Lord 11. Chase Boss chase Boss through labyrinth 12. Battle Boss/Save World Fight minions, fight final boss Prior to making this list, I had already created the story-world, the characters, and the basic storyline. What the quest list does for me is turn events in the story into game quests. This is the bare-bone trail for my game, it does not include side-quests or random game events. Game Design Document: A Game design document goes further in depth than a Pitch Document. You must take the ideas from the outline and pitch document and

form a larger database of information. For industry games these documents are pretty hefty, but really just expanding on what you got should do it. The Game design document should include: General Information -Game Name -Game genre and setting -Description of the world including important towns, unimportant towns, names of places and probably a quick map. Game System -Specifics on Battle Systems, Class Systems, Menus, and on screen displays. HUDs and the like. Story Elements -Premise of the story -Character Descriptions -Types of NPCs encountered -Types of Monsters/Bosses Other Things -Victory Conditions, Weapons list, Ability list, quest list/game outline, cut-scene list, dialogue scripts (usually a separate document). If you are working with a team it is absolutely crucial that you have a detailed Design Document for everyone to follow. If you are working alone, its just good to get down the details you need to know.