Game Design: Theory & Practice- P9

Game Design: Theory & Practice- P9: My earliest recollection of playing a computer game was when I stumbled upon ahalf-height Space Invaders at a tiny Mexican restaurant in my hometown. I was perhapssix, and Space Invaders was certainly the most marvelous thing I had everseen, at least next to LegoLand.
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Game Design: Theory & Practice- P9218 Chapter 11: Storytelling game-world and telling them the story as it happens. The Dungeon Master plans out in advance the locations the players will be exploring, has some idea of what char- acters the players will meet in what locations, and probably knows what major conflicts will be presented. The players, though, are in control of what parts of the level they investigate, and how they conduct themselves with the different NPCs they may meet. For instance, the DM probably does not have a script of what the different NPCs will say when approached. Instead, he knows what their personali- ties are like, and how they are likely to respond. When a player asks an NPC a question, the DM is able to come up, on the fly, with a reasonable response. A clever DM will never have to say, “The NPC does not understand your question.” As with the parent-child storytelling experience, the DM will be able to keep the Y players on track with the overall story he wants to tell, while allowing the players a FL considerable amount of freedom in how that story unfolds and perhaps even in how it resolves. AM Of course, the problem in creating a computer version of an interactive story- telling experience such as the ones described above is that both require a human to be telling the story, since a modern computer will never be able to dynamically TE come up with story developments as well as a human can. So the best a game designer can do currently is try to re-create such an interactive storytelling experi- ence, but, in lieu of dynamically generating the story line, anticipate all of the questions the player might ask, places he might go, and lines of dialog he might want to say. Of course, this is a Herculean task, and no matter how much anticipa- tion the designer employs, she will never be able to think of everything a player might try. At the very least the designer must try to allow for different playing styles and levels of inquiry into the story-world, instead of pigeonholing the player into one way of playing the game and exploring its story. If a designer is interested in truly interactive storytelling, it is her responsibility to make the designer’s story flexible enough to allow it to become the player’s story as well.Places for Storytelling There are a number of ways in which a game can tell a story. Customarily, games use a number of different storytelling devices to communicate their story, with dif- ferent games relying on some devices more than others. The type of story you hope to tell, what technology you will be using, and the gameplay of your game will determine what storytelling devices will work best for your game. The simplest distinction one can make is in what context the storytelling takes place: Team-Fly® Chapter 11: Storytelling 219l Out-of-Game: This is any storytelling that is done on the computer while the game is running, but when the player is not actually playing the game. This includes any cut-scenes during which the player loses control of his character, such as the cut-scenes or mission briefings that occur between levels in Command & Conquer or brief non-interactive sections in Super Mario 64.l In-Game: Logically, this is the opposite of the above, and covers any storytelling that occurs while the player is actually playing the game. This includes the setting of the game-world, the behavior of the player’s opponents, any dynamic conversations the player may have, and any interactive pre-mission planning the player may do.l External Materials: This includes any storytelling done completely outside of the computer, such as in an introduction written in the manual or any paraphernalia that may come with the game, such as a map or a collection of gems. A given game may use only one or all three of the above types of storytelling.Half-Life is an example of a game that included only in-game storytelling; theplayer never lost control of her character from the beginning of the game to the end.The Infocom games are a good example of games that used both in-game and exter-nal materials to tell their stories. In addition to the conversations and descriptions ofthe game-world the player had in the game itself, the Infocom games always camewith extra documents and knickknacks, which served to enhan ...