What the player does should enhance the story, and vice versa.
In some games,
the story and the gameplay seem to be unrelated. Even if the story is compelling and the gameplay is fun, the ideal is to link the two. This chapter addresses this issue.
A failure to mesh game design and mechanics may not be a fatal flaw, but it's a waste of a good opportunity to further emotional engagement by the player.
Many games don't need to worry about this problem. The game Spider-Man is about a guy who turns into a human spider. Naturally, the principal game mechanic has you rapidly flinging your character on a string between skyscrapers like a yo-yo amped up on steroids. So story and game mechanics tie together nicely.
Thus, in some games, this potential problem is a non-issue, while in other games it deserves serious thought.
I'll further illustrate the importance meshing game design and mechanics with two contrasting fantasy/sci-fi examples.
Let's say you're designing a children's game with a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe kind of offbeat goofiness.
In this game, set in London, you play “Tyrone Camden McMead, ever so posh yet relaxed in his tweed.” He's a man who hates cats. After Tyrone punishes the Grand Cat (the cat who rules all other cats), the Grand Cat turns him (you) into a cat. At this point, the game begins.
Your goal is to stop a group of adorable wiener dogs from spreading through the city. You know they're really the forward flank of an invading alien force.
This group of wiener dogs are spreading a secret odor that makes Brits love wiener dogs so much that they'll acquire more and more of them until the entire country is literally overrun by millions of wiener dogs.
The streets become a mass of writhing wiener dogs. In certain sectors of the city, wiener dogs are piled high in every house and shop. There's no more food for people to eat, and they get crushed below the towering carpet of wiener dogs. Big Ben is silenced, and becomes Big Has-Been. Soon the aliens will swoop in. Britain will be theirs for the taking.
What are the mechanics we'll use here? Obviously, because you play a cat, they involve such things as leaping, scratching, squeezing through tight spaces, landing on your feet, attracting by purring, repelling by hissing, and many other skills my college girlfriend had mastered.
The moral of the story: Because you're a cat, the mechanics are pretty obvious, and they'll fit in perfectly with the story.
Now let's take a more challenging example.
Let's say that there's a game where you're an explorer on Mars, and you find that the planet is inhabited by ghosts—human ghosts. In fact, you learn that an evil, alien race brings people's souls here between lives. (In this game, reincarnation is real.) Once the human souls are here, the aliens erase their memories and implant new identities and purposes into the souls, and then send them back to Earth.
The goal of the aliens is to ensure that Earthlings are so alienated from their innate personalities, with wrong goals, altered identities, and needless worries, that they will undermine themselves and their world. It's all a way to keep them screwed up, ineffective, and self-destructive. Earth is thus a prison planet that needs no guards.
In the game, at first you need to deal with (fight) some tormented ghosts. Later, you'll need to take on the aliens. Finally, you'll need to go back to Earth and deal with some highly placed political leaders who are in collusion with the aliens.
What kind of mechanics suggest themselves to mesh with the game? It's not nearly so clear as with the cat example.
There are two approaches, and I'd probably apply them both.
One would be to make a list of necessary—almost obvious—mechanics and weapons, such as:
A weapon to deflect ghost attacks
A way of capturing ghosts
A weapon to “kill” a ghost (a strange concept)
A special, very cool weapon that can injure or kill the aliens, who have defenses against routine weapons
I'd try to make these items as imaginative, fun, and interesting to use as I could. Of course, all this is the obvious route any game designer would take.
The second approach would be more of a thematic one. This is the approach I suggested for Final Fantasy X.
Just as Final Fantasy X revolved around dreams, this game revolves around life, death, and identity. Therefore, I'd want some gameplay mechanics or weapons that reflect these themes.
For instance, I might create some kind of ray or device (the “Lazarus Ray”) that can bring dead or dying people, animals, and plants back to life, although perhaps I could only use it on rare occasions. Or maybe the device is powered by my own life force—I get drained of life as I give life to others.
As the game is about people passing into a ghost state, I'd want some kind of method whereby I could temporarily die, or at least turn myself into a ghost. Maybe, once I turn into a ghost, I have new abilities, such as moving through walls, spying on the aliens without easily being seen, or changing into a frightening appearance.
I would need to use these mechanics—bringing things to life and being able to become a ghost for periods of time—to win the game.
Because the aliens reprogram the identities of the ghosts before they reincarnate, then I'd want some way to awaken them from this programming.
It could be a device or form of gameplay such as:
A special kind of mirror that showed them their real soul.
A way of fighting with the dark being—their implanted personality—that rides piggy-back on their soul. Once defeated, it leaves them free to be themselves.
Maybe another tool could be a pair of questions asked to them: What were your deepest dreams? When did you give them up? The ghosts wouldn't need to answer—just being asked would be enough to snap them out of their programming.[1] Of course, something much more active, dangerous, and difficult than a pair of questions would be more fun.
In short, I'd want mechanics and gameplay that related to the themes of life and death, as well as identity.
Just the other day I was talking to the Creative Director at a successful development studio. He was telling me about a rough idea for a game. Although the details of the game were still a long way from coming together, nonetheless his company was committed to making the game. They already had a publisher.
Now, to tell this story, I've got to change a lot of details about the game's story, locations, weapons, and so on, but I'll give an analogous example. He bounced his game off me, and I spent ten minutes giving him some ideas.
His game (let's say) involves evil, giant, intelligent crab-like creatures who live under the surface of the ocean's floor.[2] Although not human in appearance, they are as smart as men and have evolved a sophisticated culture. A volcanic eruption has broken through the ocean's crust, and now these are swarming into the ocean, preparing for a land invasion.
You play an oceanographic researcher who stumbles upon this emerging danger. Using what you know, you fashion weapons based on some of the offensive and defensive systems used by sting rays, jellyfish, and octopi.
You capture one of the weapons[3] of the enemy at one point and use it in an emergency situation. It's not the only weapon you could use at that point, but it's the best one for the job.
You don't realize that the weapon itself is alive. For these creatures, weapons are part of their family and have responsibilities to the family. The weapon you stole actually spies on your weapons—and transmits what it learns to the enemy.
As a result, one of your own weapons is compromised, for the enemy can now build a defense. (The weapon you lose is your poisonous tentacle weapon, based on jellyfish.) So, for a short-term advantage (stealing one of their weapons), you now pay a long-term penalty.
This was my first round of ideas. They handled one issue regarding tying the story to gameplay: I merged the undersea story with sea-related weapons.
I also added some emotional complexity to the plot by having the original advantage poised by the creature's weapon turn into a disadvantage.
However, the story and gameplay still weren't merged nearly enough in my mind. So I suggested that the character you play is the kind of guy who got into oceanographic research because he likes isolation; he doesn't have a very high regard for people. And now that he's fighting these undersea creatures, he's inclined to do it alone.
We'd incentivize this behavior by having a couple people, at the start of the game, act rudely to him by mocking his research. We'd learn that your character has endured a lifetime of this kind of abuse. This way you, the player, don't break your bond with your character when you learn he prefers isolation. After all, when these NPCs mock him, they're in effect mocking you too. (See Chapter 2.19, “Role Induction Techniques.”)
Much of the game takes place under water, where there are fish. Fish swim in schools. I suggested that there should be schools of fish we see periodically throughout the game—and they will be the symbol of what your character (and you, the player) need to learn—to act willingly as part of a group. (See Chapter 2.23, “Enhancing Emotional Depth Through Symbols.”) They'd appear whenever you had a decision to make regarding whether to go it alone or work with others.
Ultimately, to fight the invaders from under the seabed, you'll need to work with some allies. Like fish, you'll need to leave your isolation behind and, metaphorically, swim with your school. (See Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques.”) Some of your new allies will be humans, one will be an enemy who has changed sides, and even some sea creatures will lend a hand. The more you work with others, the more success you'll have.
Each ally helps in their own way—either by assisting in battle (an octopus helps you escape behind an ink shield, or a stingray lets you ride on his back as you attack). The humans help in more traditional ways.
In the end, you will have found your own school of fish, so to speak. That is, you will no longer be an isolationist.
So now the story and gameplay are integrated in a number of ways:
You have weapons modeled after those of sea creatures for use in an undersea war. So these weapons tie into the story and offer related gameplay mechanics.
To fight, you must work with others who bring their own skills to help you in battle. This involves not just game mechanics, but teaches a lesson that is part of the story: to work in a group the way that fish do.
Some of those who help you in battle are underwater creatures. So riding on a stingray or being helped by an octopus feed into gameplay mechanics, are integrated into the story, and contribute to your First-Person Character Arc.
Even your enemy's weapon—the one that spied on you—is related to both gameplay and the story. Regarding gameplay, it ruined your ability to use one of your own weapons. Regarding the story, your enemy's weapons acted as part of a family—the exact thing you'll need to learn to do. So using that weapon feeds into gameplay mechanics. It's integrated into the story, and contributes to your First-Person Character Arc.
Someone you knew and didn't like (at that point in the game) advised you against using that enemy's weapon. Had you followed that advice, you would have been better off. This story twist also impacts gameplay, but relates to your First-Person Character Arc, too.
In my conversation with the Creative Director, I focused on a number of areas, but primarily on creating a story, a First-Person Character Arc, and gameplay mechanics that all tied together.[4]
My friend, the Creative Director, was delighted with the direction of these suggestions. He thanked me in what perhaps might be the nicest way possible—he hired me on the spot to work on the game. I've already begun.[5]
Do the mechanics and gameplay in your game feel like they're an extension of your characters or story? Do they echo the theme or themes of your story? That's the ideal.
Just to make your life more complex, however, I'll toss something into the mix that seems to contradict the ideas in this chapter.
I've worked on many games that started not with a character, nor a story, nor with an overall vision of a game, but began with a group of gameplay ideas and mechanics that someone wanted to see in a game. Those having been decided upon, a story and game were built around them.
Even when working under such an approach, I still strive to take those gameplay ideas and mechanics and weave them into a story for which they have particular relevancy.
So whether I'm beginning with story or beginning with game mechanics, my approach is the same.
Still left undecided is this question: Is it possible that I've actually been granted the ability to see the future, and, knowing that a wiener dog invasion is at hand, have used this chapter to warn you so you can prepare for the end?
[1] And if I was very clever indeed, I would put the player through a First-Person Character Arc so that, by the end of the game, he or she might be sincerely asking himself or herself the same two questions. See Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques.”
[2] As opposed to your more common friendly giant, intelligent crab-like creatures who live under the surface of the ocean's floor.
[3] Weapons are a Story Element; here, I Complexified the enemy's weapon. See Chapter 2.29, “Injecting Emotion into a Game's Story Elements.”
[4] Of course, I also did some Technique Stacking. The techniques used were referenced elsewhere in this section.
[5] By the way, the game doesn't take place under water or involve fish or intelligent crabs. The example is an analogy. An NDA (non-disclosure agreement) prevents me from discussing the details of the game. Also, I was biologically altered on a cellular level so that if I was to describe the actual game, I'd explode.