Chapter 4. Storytelling and Narrative

Stories are as old as communication itself. Since the first protohominids daubed their paintings on the rough walls of their caves, stories have been told. Stories and games have been intertwined to varying degrees for almost as long.

Computer games generally have some sort of story attached to them as well. Sometimes it is a one-paragraph backstory . In other cases, it's a fully integrated story line ”where the game is the story.

In this chapter, we discuss some guidelines for constructing compelling stories and integrating them into game designs. To some extent, the importance of story integration is dependent on the type of game you are designing: Some games require more integration than others. For example, a simple game such as Space Invaders requires only a one-liner: "Aliens are invading Earth, and only you can stop them." Why? It doesn't matter. The player's imagination takes care of that. At the other end of the spectrum, adventure games such as Grim Fandango and Discworld Noir have a detailed and involving story line, as convoluted and structured as any novel . And, of course, we have the middle range ”games in which story is important but is not the overriding gameplay feature. This concept is illustrated in Figure 4.1. As we progress across the story spectrum from left to right, the importance of the story increases . Examples of games such as this include Half-Life and Luigi's Mansion (shown in Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.1. The story spectrum.

Figure 4.2. Luigi's Mansion.

In Half-Life, the story is an important part of the flavor of the game, but aside from acting as a mechanism to allow the player to become more immersed in the game world, it bears no relevance to the actual gameplay. (And by this we mean that the gameplay of Half-Life is virtually identical to that of any other first-person shooter; it's just the story and setting that give it the edge.)