But success will elude them all unless everyone on the team – whether it consists of two members or two hundred – is pulling in the same direction. Thus, the writer's working relationship with the rest of the team largely determines the potential narrative quality of the game. My own efforts in this area have had limited success, on projects ranging from kid-oriented handheld games like IGN Game of the Year coiner Over the Hedge for the Nintendo DS, to the.
The first is that when it comes to examples from existing stories, many of the ones I've chosen are from movies. Since this is a book about video game storytelling, you might wonder why most or even all of the examples aren't drawn from games.
Basic Training
Then, once we're into the film proper, a compelling series of sub-conflicts leads inexorably to the introduction of the film's first main conflict. A message indicates that Princess Leia wants to protect the galaxy from the evil of the Galactic Empire, but she has been captured and needs the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi. And make the scope of the conflict only as wide as necessary, not wider.
The core concept of the three-act structure was first (and best) expressed as far back as 335 BCE. Each of these three story phases is associated with one of the actions in the three-act structure, as such:.
Beginning/Setup
To understand any change, we need to have a clear picture of both the situation before and after. We as the audience also need to understand why the Hero would want to enter into the conflict in the first place. This is the event, occurrence, or action that first introduces the hero to the main conflict.
Without it, the Hero would not become aware of the conflict and therefore would never have an opportunity to resolve it (which is the whole point of the story!). So, despite its introductory nature, Act I is full of important elements that lay the groundwork for the rest of the story.
Middle/Confrontation
The Hero is often charged with improving not only his own lot, but also the condition of those around him—sometimes that of his entire community. It's almost always because the world he comes from is a good one and worth fighting for, or it's a bad enough place that it's going to take a fight to improve it. We'll also get to know the source of the main conflict, if we haven't already.
This story element often takes the form of a Villain (or Antagonist, if you prefer) supported by lesser Followers who will be throughout II. For this reason, many writing gurus divide II. the action into two halves, separated by a center—the center not only of the action, but of the entire story—that's when things often spin in a new direction.
End/Resolution
Hero
This is our main character and the main character we are watching or playing (in a game). More than any other archetype, the Hero is consistently embodied in one character throughout the story. The Hero's primary function is to resolve (or at least attempt to resolve) the main conflict.
Herald
Mentor
This is another way in which the hero's growth can be forced and demonstrated: at some point the hero must persevere without relying on a parent-like figure to guide or support her. Han Solo acts as a negative mentor, giving Luke opinions and advice that is ultimately rejected by the young hero. In video games, the Mentor role is often boiled down to its core essence: telling the player what to do and how to do it.
This can be filled by a classic Mentor NPC, such as a group leader who barks orders into your earpiece, or by the game's UI itself.
Threshold Guardian/Henchman
In video games, Henchmen are usually embodied by the seemingly endless waves of nameless enemies a player faces.
Trickster
Shapeshifter
Villain
We'll again use Star Wars as our cinematic example, and for games we'll refer to the highly popular narrative-driven title Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (with apologies for multiple spoilers).
The Ordinary World
The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
In Uncharted 2, Sully and Chloe present Nate with the call in his prison cell and offer to rescue him to help them get the Cintamani Stone before Flynn and warlord Zoran Lazarevic do. Identical to Plot Point 1 in the Three-Act Structure, this is the point where the hero finally commits to the mission and begins his journey to resolve the main conflict. At this crucial point, the audience has been provided with all the setup material it needs to understand what is at stake and to care about the characters involved.
In Star Wars, this is the point at which Luke finds his foster parents killed by Stormtroopers. In Uncharted 2, this move also occurs in the jail cell scene, as Nate finally agrees to join Sully and Chloe in their quest to beat Lazarevic against the Cintamani Stone.
Tests, Allies, Enemies
From this point on, it is usually made clear that there is no turning back, and at this point the story finally gets going. The hero enters uncharted territory: he leaves the ordinary world behind and enters what is known as the special world.
Approach to the Inmost Cave
The Supreme Ordeal
Reward
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the Elixir
In this chapter, we will take a closer look at the two most important characters in any story – the hero and the villain – and also cover the concept. Of course, the hero is not the only character who changes over the course of a story. This is why you rarely see Refusal of the Call in games - Heroes can be reluctant, but players rarely are.
Note: The potentially stickiest form of presentation is the plot explanation—. information that helps elements of the story make sense. The writer bombards the audience with dialogue in order to "cut out" important background information so she can get to the "good stuff." Syndrome reveals his true identity—the grown man that Incredi-Boy has become—and the audience realizes that the opening sequence contained an important foreshadowing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson may have declared "foolish consistency" to be the "hobgoblin of little minds," but when it comes to storytelling, it's the careless disregard for consistency that can be foolish. So if you present a story that is supposed to take place in the real world and something happens in it that seems physically impossible to the audience - without any explanation provided - the audience is likely to lose their suspension of disbelief, at least for a moment. Aside from the conceit of hostile aliens in flying saucers attacking Earth, everything else in the film is presented as if it were set in our world—the real world.
In fact, this is the first hint of character growth in Han, who has the second largest character arc in Star Wars (behind that of the Hero-Luke, of course). He's the first one on the scene, and so he's the one being honed. Straight to the Rebel base—the very last place they should go if Leia believes the Empire is watching them.
In Poetics, aware of the need for a significant surprise at the climax but concerned about credibility, Aristotle warned: "The end must be both inevitable and unexpected." Princess Bride—who advises, "The key to all story endings is to give the audience what they want, but not in the way they expect.".
In the Trenches
What the player will or can potentially see or hear (concept art, art, animation, audio). A third-person sandbox game set in the Old West in which the player assumes the role of a gunslinger. Core game designs and mechanics are always tied directly to what the player character can do. the verbs she can express within the boundaries of the game space.
And there's the player story: the story that's unique to each player, based on choices she's made or things that just are. If you decide to eschew them in favor of the player's story, your game design and systems better be pretty fantastic. Character B has no combat requirements, but must be able to talk to the player to take care of a quest.
As discussed in the previous chapter, the entire game will revolve and be structured around the player's character and his verbs – what he is capable of within the confines of the game space. This is a great example of Design and Narrative working together to create a unified vision for the player character. It's a character concept and motivation that fits well with the gory, ultra-violent nature of the player character's gameplay abilities.
For example, you'll notice that many of the items in the list on the previous page are related to emotions and how the characters and the player are supposed to feel during the mission. At the start of Trial Chamber 17, the player is introduced to the Weighted Companion Cube. At the end of the mission, the player must "euthanize" to exit the test chamber and continue the game.
If the enemies were aware of the player character's presence from that point on, the later parts of the mission's story would have broken. Ironically, this plant now exists in the back of the player's mind, just as it was meant to.
