Designing narratives for video games
We have briefly seen the structure of a story, but how is a narrative designed for a video game? And how is it implemented?
The first thing to note is that a game cannot be simply written and then played out by the system like it was a movie. A game narrative unfolds when someone actually plays the game, so mechanics and dynamics are as important as the story, if not even more so.
Interactive storytelling means that players should play and experience the story through their actions. Reading or listening to notes and watching cutscenes should immerse the player in the game world but should never come before the actual gameplay.
The idea is that, even in the most narrative-driven game, the player should be able to bolt through the game, skipping any reading, listening, or cutscenes... and still be able to make sense of the game story simply by playing it.
Not an easy task for us designers!
We have already seen in Chapter 3, Scoping...
