Beginning to master beginnings.
This chapter shows
ways of using an opening, pre-rendered, or in-game cinematic to suck the player into the game.
As was discussed in the previous chapter, because both pre-rendered and in-game cinematics are like movies, many of the techniques that apply to writing films also apply to cinematics.
note
All the guidelines and techniques explained and demonstrated in Chapter 2.31, “Writing Powerful Pre-Rendered and In-Game Cinematics,” also apply to a game's opening cinematic.
In films, there's usually a desire to “hook” the audience within the first few minutes. There are many techniques that quickly engage a viewer. They'd work just as well in games.
Let's say your game is about a villain, Hobson, who has learned to control the natural elements. He can imbue them with life and command them to do his bidding.
We'll use this game as a case study and apply some of the different ways to grab a player's attention with opening cinematics.
Our hero, Gavin (the character you'll play once gameplay begins), kayaks on a small river. He gets a call on his cell phone from his controller in the CIA, warning him about Hobson's element manipulation. Gavin's controller warns him that he (Gavin) is in particular danger because he once injured Hobson in a firefight and killed Hobson's best friend and right-hand man. Hobson might want revenge.
Suddenly, a torrent of water comes rushing down the river toward Gavin! It's all he can do to stay alive as the racing river threatens to smash him against the rocks.
Just as quickly as the flood had swept upon him, the water abruptly recedes. Once again Gavin finds himself on a placid little stream. He's confused.
CUT TO: Further up the river, two firemen finish tightening down a fire hydrant that had erupted.
The preceding is a Fakeout Scene, because we fake out the gamer to think one thing is happening (that Hobson is controlling the water), when it's really something else (a broken hydrant). Fakeout Scenes often have a comic quality to them once they're over and the viewer sees the fakeout.
However, a Fakeout Scene doesn't need to be comic. The film Total Recall begins with Arnold Schwarzenegger dying on Mars—but then he wakes up, and both he and we, the audience, realize he was dreaming.
In the opening cinematic, Gavin is doing some welding on his motorcycle in his garage.
CUT TO: Gavin's kitchen where some water simmers in a pot. The water, seemingly alive, creeps out of the pan, down the side of the counter, along the floor, out the kitchen door, and into the garage—toward Gavin, doing his welding.
We have a definite mystery in progress.
Gavin is welding his motorcycle in his garage. He takes it out for a spin on the freeway—and sees a police chase in progress on the freeway, but going the other direction.
The criminal is firing shots out of the window at the pursuing police car.
Gavin floors the motorcycle, and turns it toward the embankment separating the two halves of the freeway. He shoots up the embankment, jettisons into the air, and lands on the other side of the freeway, but going the wrong direction!
He screeches to a halt as a huge truck barrels down on him. Suddenly, he's driving backward, with the truck still gaining on him even though the driver has hit the breaks. The truck stops just before Gavin is run over.
He whips his bike around and takes off in the direction the police car was heading. Going at an impossible speed, he weaves in and out of traffic, missing cars by inches.
He finally catches up with the astounded police, who shoot him an annoyed look (they know this guy). Gavin throws out a piece of nylon line with a hook at the end, snags the shotgun off the dashboard of the police car, and yanks it right out the window!
Gavin hits the gas and powers toward the car being pursued, as bullets from the criminal's Glock ricochet off his bike. Gavin closes in on the driver, and uses the barrel of his gun to slam the pistol out of the villain's hand!
The criminal veers the car toward Gavin, trying to force him off the road. Gavin adroitly maneuvers his bike out of the way, and fires repeatedly, almost point blank, around the edges of the driver's door. The door falls off!
Gavin points the shotgun right at the criminal and waves goodbye. The criminal gives up, pulls over, stops the car, and jumps to the ground with his hands over his head.
This cinematic, which lasted no more than three minutes, is over. But we've completely established Gavin's character.
This technique means that we start the cinematic with action already in progress.
The illustration here shows a case in point. Gavin snowboards down a mountain, firing at one of the villain's henchman who tries to kill him. Meanwhile, an avalanche has come to life and it chases our hero.
We meet Hobson, the mastermind behind the scheme to manipulate elements. He's in a lab in the beautiful Swiss alps.
He and his nine-year-old daughter take a stroll out of the lab. Hobson's got a device with him with a series of antennae and knobs.
As they walk and stroll, he tells his daughter how man's evolution was shaped by the elements in which he found himself. But now it's time for the next stage of evolution, when man shapes the elements. (The conversation, of course, would be enlivened and deepened with all the techniques discussed in the Chapter 2.31.)
As Hobson strolls and talks, he turns knobs and flips switches on the device. Around he and his daughter:
A river reverses direction and starts flowing up hill.
Hobson picks a leaf off a tree and turns a knob. A small whirlwind appears and blows the leaf around and around in a lazy circle. It would do that forever, except Hobson's delighted daughter snags it out of the air.
Hobson turns another switch and a rainbow crosses the sky—and then a second rainbow, a third, a dozen, as his daughter laughs.[1]
In this version, we begin the game by being swept into a very unique world.
Although the chapter presents a far from exhaustive list of techniques, it demonstrates that there are many ways to approach an opening cinematic.
When you design an opening cinematic, try to make sure you've found the most captivating way to pull a player into the story behind your game.
I held back the two chapters on cinematics to the very end of this section on Emotioneering for a particular reason: to de-emphasize their importance. Far too frequently, when people think of ways to create emotion and story in a game, they think of cinematics.
But creating masterful cinematics in your game, including an opening cinematic if there is one, is the least game-like portion of a game. And, as we've seen so clearly, even the most artful cinematics barely scratch the surface of the techniques available to create a depth and breadth of emotion in a game.
This marks the last chapter of Emotioneering techniques.
You're now equipped with hundreds of specific ways to create emotion in games. A little later in this book (in Chapter 5.2, “Techniques for Creating Fun”), I'll examine methods of creating fun. Fun, of course, is at the core of games' appeal.
The premise of this book, however, is that undergoing rich emotional experiences is fun in its own right. I believe we need to expand our definition of “fun” to include experiences that take us up, down, and around the emotional spectrum; that deliver us into new realities; or that give us insight. Fun films and television shows have been using this expanded definition since the inception of their media.
By using the techniques of Emotioneering, hopefully you'll join me in fulfilling the mission that is the slogan of the Game Developers Conference:
“Make Better Games.”
[1] Although the technology Hobson is using might as yet be a bit mysterious, we still know what he's doing. It's not a mystery on the same level of the water creeping out of a pot, as in the earlier example.