Like many other people, I have a great idea for the game. Although this isn't a passing fancy after playing the latest game and claiming "I could do that!", I'm already a professional artist and I have extensive programming experience. However, when it comes to writing, my experience doesn't extend far past a couple of short stories to pass the time or to get a niggling idea out of my head. I've written down quite a lot about the characters, interesting scenarios, the primary storyline and plot outline, foreshadowing, the works, and it all sounds very good (Or at least I dont hate what I have). But there seems to be a problem here that I didn't plan for. I've never really written for a game before, normally just for fun, and my insistance on my current game being primarily story/character driven has painted me into a bit of a corner when it comes to incorperating the actual gameplay elements. If I created the game off the plot I've written as it is now, the game would be almost 80% cutscenes. Naturally, this wont do. There are a couple of easy outs, such as forcing myself to make everything 'through the eyes of the player' or incorperate detailed plot-trees so that if the player shoots important character X the game will continue as normal. Yet I dont really want to rely on either of these techniques. I want to show the main protagonists reactions to events rather than have an invisible mute, and making a plot-tree detailed enough to account for all the bastardised things the player will try would be practically impossible. There's also the problems of jarring the player from having long sections of pure gameplay, then several cutscenes only minutes apart to advance the story in critical sections. I want the player to feel a semblence of control, not just make them hunt for the next cutscene trigger and maybe play the game in between. So what are your methods to make a very story-driven game still in control of the player?

Small enclosed levels or levels built along pathways can be very helpful in getting the player to do the right thing to advance the by their own choice. Another thought is that the PC's reactions don't always have to be expressed in cutscenes, sometimes a dialogue box of the PC talking to himself will do. Sanitarium had a very clever example of this - each level had 10 sayings that would come out depending on the kind of thing you were trying to do - mess with a puzzle you didn't have all the pieces to yet, walk where you couldn't walk, go near something dangerous, etc. And there was a new set of these sayings for each of the game's 10 levels so that they fit the theme of the level and seemed to be part of the story. Some of my favorites were: "Hmm, vodka." "That would harm even me!" "No... maybe something else." "Ewwwww!" "There's a wall here." etc. Another thing Santarium (a very story-driven adventure game) did to keep cut-scenes from overwhelming the game is to distribute small ones (10 seconds or less) throughout the level, triggered when entered an area or touched an item for the first time, but especially when you solved a puzzle - thus the little cut scenes became the rewards you earned by solving the puzzles, signposts of progress, and nice little breaks from wandering around confused.

What genre of game are you making, FPS? You can try thinking of a game that successfully did what you want to do and analyzing it to figure out how it did it.

Are you looking for a way to keep the story on track, regardless of the player's actions? You could dissalow actions that would affect the plot. Lot's of people will complain about the restriction, but then again, if they don't want to be restricted to a linear story they can play an open-ended game.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster Are you looking for a way to keep the story on track, regardless of the player's actions? You could dissalow actions that would affect the plot. Lot's of people will complain about the restriction, but then again, if they don't want to be restricted to a linear story they can play an open-ended game.

Not so much that, but mainly trying to incorperate the 'cool ideas' I've written into gameplay sections, rather than a 'Oh good, another cutscene. I'm gonna go get a soda.'

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Original post by PlayfulPuppy So what are your methods to make a very story-driven game still in control of the player?

The key idea here is not to give or take the player's control, but to trick the player into thinking that he is in control.

Instead of stating clearing how to move the story along, have the player figure it out through gameplay. For example, you can give state an unreasonably hard objective or suggestion, and hint the player through cutscene or gameplay, that the objective is impossible to achieve. This will force the player to think of an alternative, creative solution. The player will think that he had tricked the game but in fact he is in the intented plot.

Not every player would appreciate this technique. Depending on the nature of your story you might only be able to use this at several points in the game.

You'll need to make a tight game if you don't use cutscenes. Cutscenes have a built-in signal that says "story time." But often, all other parts of game aren't even considered in terrms of story (at least not by me). And why should they be? In most games that I've played, 80% of it had nothing to do with story. But if every bit of gameplay were relevent, then I'd keep an eye out for anything meaningful. Same goes for elements besides gameplay.

There's dialogue, of course. And books that the PC can find lying around. You could also use the settings to tell us about the people who live there, and about what's happened there before. If a culture values art, the towns could display statues in the street and carvings in the side of buildings. You need never say that they like art, just show us. You can even use sound to your advantage - for setting the mood, or to let the player know that something important is happening. Sound could also help the player interpret what he/she sees the way you want him/her to. Play creepy music when the PC enters a room, and I'll look for something amiss.

I just remembered how much I loved Xenosaga, Episode I. That game sure had a lot of cut-scenes, but I was absolutely involved in the plot to the bitter end. Maybe creating games with lots of cut-scenes isn't such a bad idea...

I think that's a tough one. I played through most of FF9 before I simply got annoyed with all the dialogue. It was extremely frustrating to read through 20 minutes of story development, then play a brief battle, then read through another 15 minutes of story...etc. I wasn't playing a game anymore. I was watching a wierd text-based cartoon.

I'm all for cut-scenes since they do a great job of advancing the story, of providing depth and color to the world and to the characters...just be sure that the player gets to keep control and that it doesn't degenerate into watching a movie or reading a novel. That's what movies and novels are for.

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Original post by Taolung I think that's a tough one. I played through most of FF9 before I simply got annoyed with all the dialogue. It was extremely frustrating to read through 20 minutes of story development, then play a brief battle, then read through another 15 minutes of story...etc. I wasn't playing a game anymore. I was watching a wierd text-based cartoon. I'm all for cut-scenes since they do a great job of advancing the story, of providing depth and color to the world and to the characters...just be sure that the player gets to keep control and that it doesn't degenerate into watching a movie or reading a novel. That's what movies and novels are for.

That's funny - I played through the first 1/3 of FF9 before I got sick of the repetitive fighting getting in the way of advancing the story, lol.

[Edited by - sunandshadow on December 9, 2004 4:53:30 PM]

That's awesome. :)

Actually, I got to thinking about this again because I had started playing FFX (was borrowing it from a friend.) For the hour that I "played," I actually only spent 15 minutes or so with my hands on the controller. And of that, 10 of those minutes consisted of "walk across screen to door." At that point there would be another cutscene. Then "walk down path." Watch another cutscene. Only a couple of fights, and those were repetitive and boring.