Quote: Original post by OrangyTang

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Why can't storytelling be a defining feature of games?

Because then it wouldn't be a game, it'd be a movie?

An interactive movie or interactive book is a valid type of game.

Quote: Original post by MSW
its pretty simple actualy....remove everything from the begining story that has nothing to do directly with the first 20 minutes or so of gameplay.

Where does suspense come from then? You create suspense in the audience's minds by giving them a rumor they can't immediately investigate, a question they can't immediately answer, or a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit anywhere yet.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Where does suspense come from then? You create suspense in the audience's minds by giving them a rumor they can't immediately investigate, a question they can't immediately answer, or a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit anywhere yet.

The topic from a PC gamer's point of view:

It seems to me like the kind of flow you're envisioning would fit quite well into an RPG or a story intensive adventure game. However, lots of gamers, such as myself, are more geared towards action games with concentration on the gameplay.

Yes, an interactive movie is a valid type of game, but for some of us, not valid enough. There is a desire for faster, more complex control which makes playing the game more exciting. Those that desire this level of control would rather watch a movie than play a game where the juicy part of the game, the story (cut scenes, dialog, etc.), is interrupted by boring gameplay with little substance.

Battagline needs to gear this towards his intended audience.

I think it entirely depends on the kind of game you are writing the story for.

An FPS, tends to be quite linear so you can trickle the story as much or as little as you like, but you have to be aware that too much exposition takes away from the gameplay.

For an MMO on the other hand, you may want to keep the MAIN story arc as wide as possible, to allow players to form their own stories and conlusions as they play. For this kind of genre your really setting up the starting point of the story - but not ending it.


I think the key is always immersion. The story has to be immersive no matter what, and straying away from that to satisfy your story-telling needs will ultimatly screw things up.

Re: "Defining Feature"

A defining feature is a property that the subject MUST HAVE. A game does not need to tell a story to be a game, therefore story-telling is not a defining feature. I am not talking about anything deep here. Interaction is an example of defining feature of games. For once_upon_a_time, it is a game not because it has a story, but because there is the element of interaction, which is a defining feature.

I believe that this is just a misunderstanding. This is just definition, this is not a topic suitable for debate, because there is no substance to discuss. So I don't expect any reply to this.


Re: Integrated Designs

Quote: This all seems rather abstract to me (I apologize for my lack of vision). I would really like a concrete existing game (preferably one that was a comercial success) example of how to "integrate" a design. Do you know of a specific game that uses this approach successfully. How do they apply that approach to the game to successfully integrate it. Your Actor / Director metaphor is interesting, but I'm a software engineer... not a director or actor, so I need an example that's a little more applicable to what I'm doing (sorry I'm a bit slow).

I haven't talked about make a design to become 'integrated'. The discussion is not about turning a design that is not integrated to become integrated. It is just about what an integrated design is. I am not up-to-date on current games, so I can't give you examples of highly integrated designs. But you should be able to compare the integration of different designs (in terms of story and the game). Pick any two games from the same genre, and rate them on your gut feeling on their integration. If you can see that one is better in terms of integration than the other, then you are ready to improve your own design.

There are symptoms when a design is not well-integrated (although haven't them does not necessarily mean that the design is not integrated)
- You find yourself wanting to skip the 'story'
- You find that you are 'doing the quest' just so that you can get item x
- You find that none of the 'quests' have any influence among one another
- You find that how you achieve a 'mission' has no effect whatsoever on the story
- You find that your PC's abilities, although related to the game world, have no relation to the story
- You find that your 'ending cutscenes' do not summarize the actual emotion of the player as they went through the 'mission'.

You should be able to get a really long list of complains, based on the prespective of a participant, not an audience.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow

Quote: Original post by MSW
its pretty simple actualy....remove everything from the begining story that has nothing to do directly with the first 20 minutes or so of gameplay.

Where does suspense come from then? You create suspense in the audience's minds by giving them a rumor they can't immediately investigate, a question they can't immediately answer, or a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit anywhere yet.

And where did I say that can't be done in an game intro?

Now maybe in your game there are several nobelmen actively plotting to overthrow the king. The king has turned his back on the population, and the nobelmen try what they can to help. But this info isn't important for the first 20 minutes of gameplay - so there is no reason to go into such detail when a simple "there is trouble in the kingdom" not only gets the point across, but sets up the mystery you speak of.

Remember this thread is only about the initial game story intro that happens before players start playing...the first 20 minutes of playing the game could interactively allow players to learn much of your backstory and all that if you so wish...and remember video games can be as visual as films, pictures tell a thousand words...the openings to the Indiana Jones films, and James Bond flick don't have text describeing what is going on. they use the economy of visuals to do just that...and even then the big mysteries of the story arn't important untill later.

Quote: Original post by Estok
I am not up-to-date on current games, so I can't give you examples of highly integrated designs. But you should be able to compare the integration of different designs (in terms of story and the game). Pick any two games from the same genre, and rate them on your gut feeling on their integration. If you can see that one is better in terms of integration than the other, then you are ready to improve your own design.

Surely you must have played a game at some point in time that you consider to have a well integrated design. I don't care how old it is, I've been playing games for 25 years or so, so unless it pre-dates the Atari 2600, there's at least a chance I've heard of it [wink]. If I've never heard of it, then I can google for it and at least get a feel for what the game is like.

When I first start to play a game I ALWAYS want to skip the story until I've played it for a little while. Once I've figured the game out, I usually want to read more about what'g going on. This is just me, it seems there are several types of game players, but what I'm attempting to accomplish is to write a game (it happens to be an rpg) that is rather action oriented relative to many rpgs, and has a story that people can either choose to follow, or if they would prefer just ignore. My hope is that people who are not initially interested in reading the story in the game eventually get sucked into it. This has happened to me in several games I've played... Star Control 2, Diablo, Diablo 2. I've started out just playing them and not reading anything said, just skipping through all the dialog, but after a while I start to read and really get into the story.

Anyway, this is my hope for my game.

Thanks for the info [smile]

Examples of integrated designs

- Romance of the three kingdom series from koei (to a degree)
- Black and white (this was an integrated design, but at the same time it was so boring that I stopped after a short while)
- I am not up-to-date with mecha games, but I am pretty sure that Gundam series with missions (as opposed to the FPS/Fighting breeds) are highly integrated.
- Kingdom's heart, it seemed integrated in the beginning based on impression
- MUDs are fully integrated. But in general we don't need to talk about them due to their bias for the player to create content.


Re: Integrated Design

By definition, you cannot 'skip the story' in an integrated design. It would be like starting a baseball game without a pitcher. There is an interactive component that starts the game, from which the player begins to experience the story. Skipping the story is skipping the game.

I understand that you are speaking based on your experience, but having a story in a game does not imply having text for the player to read. In the context where the story is displayed through text:


"When I first start to play a game I ALWAYS want to skip the story until I've played it for a little while"

This is a sign that the story presentation is a failure. In order to understand this, you need to think about a movie that can immobilize you since its first minute. The function of the begining is to create anticipation and to define the potential energy between the player and the game. It is like swithcing the magnetic field, gravitational accelerations, and all the forces that draw you into it. By design, the player will never want to skip the beginning 'story', even if it is presented in text. You need to know that those designs failed in terms of presentation.


"Once I've figured the game out, I usually want to read more about what'g going on."

This property stays in integrated designs.


"This is just me, it seems there are several types of game players, but what I'm attempting to accomplish is to write a game (it happens to be an rpg) that is rather action oriented relative to many rpgs, and has a story that people can either choose to follow, or if they would prefer just ignore."

This is in the catagory of information discrimination. The simplest implementation of this is the hint button. In an integrated design, the 'hint' component is manifested as an in-game element, think the suit in Halo, that provides information when the player wants it. Or, in a strategy game, you can optional select an advisor to discuss strategies (as in Romance of the three kingdoms). Moogle from FF is in this department. RPGs in general have books and monuments lying around for this purpose.


"My hope is that people who are not initially interested in reading the story in the game eventually get sucked into it."

To further support this, you can introduce a diary type component that logs the events in case the player wants to go back and understand more about the past that he had already gone through. As long as your game itself is sufficiently enjoyable and the underlying story is not too dumb, this effect is free. There is almost no effort needed to achieve this effect, except the optional hint that the information is available somewhere. It is like after playing chess for awhile you want to know the history of it. This property resides on the curiosity to unexplained customs. So as long as the player realizes that he is getting familiar to something strange, you get this effect for free. You can really easily support this by introducing curious patterns, such as having selected enemies that drop items from a distinctive set.

For example, a patlabor ARPG game can begin with a fighting scene where a labor that had broken loose had just knocked you into the rumble. As the pilot (you) struggle to retain consciousness, the pilot had overlapping flashbacks on during his training on piloting the suit, while his partner is engaged to the suspect in the background. It comes to the moment where your partner had restrained the suspect, and you are suppose to shoot it.