Not all games have a story. Some are abstract and don’t require any story at all. Tetris is one such example, as is SimCity, in which there is no explicit story, but each player makes his or her own story—in which case you could say that the story is implicit. Other games have little or no story simply because the designers decided the game didn’t need any. But games are generally more powerful when they include the elements of a good story along with the important elements of gameplay. For instance, in the early days of the genre, First-Person Shooters had minimal stories. Games such as Doom and Quake didn’t require much to get you to pull the trigger. But later games, such as the Half-Life and Halo series and others, have begun to rely on strong story elements to complement the strong gameplay. Even Real-Time Strategy games, which rarely had a lot of storyline, now often include an unfolding fiction to accompany the frenetic building, researching, exploring, and fighting, which you can see in a game such as Warcraft III. Still other games—Deus Ex comes to mind—contain far deeper stories with more subtlety and range.
This chapter looks at traditional storytelling techniques and concepts. However, it is important to keep in mind that even when electronic games are based around stories, they may not always follow conventional storytelling structures. This is partly because in games, the hero is always the player, and the player is always faced with the challenges of the game interaction. In more passive media, it is necessary to take the audience through a hero’s journey in such a way as to entertain and absorb them, to focus the audience on identification with the hero of the story. In games, this focus is automatic.
Moreover, because games are often nonlinear, stories may not unfold in the neat three-act structures used almost universally in the movies or television. Where stories exist, they must have the flexibility to allow for variation in the way they unfold, simultaneously allowing the player to determine the hero’s path to as great a degree as is possible. Arguably, the best game stories are emergent stories, meaning that they are not fixed storylines, but stories that result from gameplay and player actions.
In fact, in games such as those featuring Massive Multiplayer persistent worlds, the main story of the game is secondary to the individual experiences of each player. In this way, each player creates his own story, while the larger story of the persistent world plays out around him. The individual’s part in determining that story is generally minimal, but in each player’s mind and experience, it is paramount. However, the underlying story of the world itself and its lore still plays an important role in the success of MMORPGs, such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft. Considerable time and effort go into creating stories, both fundamental back stories and ongoing stories through quests and character interactions, for many Massive Multiplayer Games.
The purpose of this chapter is, in part, to provide you with some sense of traditional storytelling concepts and ideas. But my greater purpose is to inspire you to take these traditional elements and concepts and use them to explore, invent, and expand upon what has been traditionally done and to inquire into the role of interactive, nonlinear, experiential design in the future of storytelling. I’m not convinced that the three-act structure is necessarily the way to go for computer and video games, and in the section called “Story and the Player’s Character” later in this chapter, I explore some models of interactive story structure to further stimulate thought and discussion on this subject. At the same time, I am equally convinced that a strong grounding in and familiarity with the traditions of literature, myth, and cinema will help us, as game designers, evolve storytelling to its ultimate interactive potential. And that’s mostly what this chapter is about.
In this chapter:
Joseph Campbell Meets Star Wars and The Matrix
Good stories often contain certain elements, and knowing something about creating a good story can help you make better games. In fact, the combination of great gameplay with great story can create an outstanding experience for players. When executed correctly, players will often forgive games that lack graphical quality as long as they have a rich storyline. You just have to look back to the old text-only adventure games we used to get addicted to.
The section below offers some of the elements that traditionally make up good stories. You don’t have to include everything on this list to have a good story, nor do you have to reveal to the player all elements that you have considered. A good example is the back story. It is very important that you know what it is so that your characters will develop consistently, but the player does not need to know everything you know. So, you may want to think of the following list as a reference. Apply these principles to your own game design ideas and see how many of them fit or how you might be able to expand and improve your game concept by incorporating more of these elements.
The concept of story is that somebody (the hero or the player’s character, if not necessarily a hero) has to fix something about himself (or sometimes discover something about himself). The hero or character commonly also resolves conflicts and, in the end, finds some resolution. This isn’t necessarily a blueprint for writing a story. But it is a story boiled down to its most basic form. Beyond that, stories take twists and turns and have moments of up and down from the protagonist’s (the player’s) point of view.
Think of it this way: Draw a graph to show how interesting the situations/scenes/key moments are from start to finish. If it’s flat and predictable, it’s boring; if it’s hilly and unpredictable, it’s interesting. So here are a few elements to consider when creating a story for your games:
The Elevator Pitch. This is the story boiled down to its essence. If you were to pitch this story to a friend in 30 seconds, what would you focus on?
The Back Story. This lets you know what has happened and who the characters are before the story action begins. What is the pattern of the characters’ lives, and how might it change as a result of the events of the game? How did the character get into that pattern? What were his motivations or expectations of life up until the game began? What is the pivot of each character (see the upcoming Character Pivots bullet point)? What are the location and environment like—use as much detail as you can imagine. (Research similar places for inspiration.)
How much of this kind of information you develop depends on individual preferences. Some people write volumes of back story; others do almost none. If you’re working as part of a team (which you probably will be), having a good back story and character bible can help keep the vision clear. Add to that an art bible, and you have the foundations for the game that will keep everything internally consistent and will allow you to create far richer experiences for your players.
Conflict and Change. No story is interesting if there isn’t some conflict or challenge to the characters. A story about a man who sits in his chair every day and smokes his cigar, gets up to feed his dog and eat some canned meat, then goes to sleep would not be very interesting. But now introduce a spunky little girl who, for some reason, is left in the man’s care, and now you could have a story. Similarly, a story about a woman who works in an office and goes through the same routine every day would not hold your interest. But bring in a brash, young, new manager who decides to shake up the office and with whom the woman has an adversarial relationship, tinged by a love triangle of sexual tension (they were married before), and you have the makings of a story.
The essence is that there is conflict introduced by a change in circumstances. And often, one change leads to a snowball effect, where the entire status quo is shaken up and the situation changes dramatically. What happens when you learn that a large comet is heading toward Earth and is expected to hit in three days? The chaos generates conflict, opening up endless threads of ideas and interesting situations. A friend of mine always says, “Make ’em suffer!”—so give your characters real problems and intense situations to deal with.
Character Pivots. Think of characters as people who have internal conflicts—goals and desires along with fears and weaknesses. Every character should have one or two very strong desires—rule the world, get the girl, make the most money, be the best, survive, prove their worth, and so on. Each should also have fears—of ridicule, poverty, pain, obscurity, mortality, and so on. Characters may also have weaknesses—perhaps a character is small and weak, is a woman in a male-dominated world, or has poor impulse control and loses it whenever certain events occur. If you know the story of your characters, you can establish their desires and goals and juxtapose them against their fears and weaknesses. Beware of cardboard-cutout characters, however. Just giving a character some pivot for the sake of justifying your story can be seen as gratuitous by your players. Make it real, not fake. (See also Chapter 12, “Character Design.”)
Interesting Characters. Make sure your characters are not clichés; they should possess emotional depth and personal history. Nobody is entirely “normal,” so what do your characters possess that sets them apart from simple mindless description? Maybe your high-powered lawyer loves to read comic books in his spare time, instead of legal texts. Your sexy ingénue likes to dress up like a man and go pick fights in bars. Who knows what interesting character traits you might come up with?
Character-Driven Plot. Stories can be driven by the plot or by the character. In a plot-driven story, the characters must adapt to the needs of the plot. In a character-driven story, the actions of the characters are authentic, and the plot derives from who they are and what they do naturally.
The Beginning. A common trick is to drop us into the world by starting us in the middle of a scene. In games, sometimes the beginning is really the training aspect, allowing players to become familiar with how the game works. This training can also be combined with establishment of the player’s initial goals in the game, which hooks them into the story, focuses the identification with the character, and immerses the player in the game’s reality.
Plot Twists. An easy way to add a twist is to take what the audience (or your character) thought they knew, and make it turn out to be completely wrong. You do need to be careful with plot twists, however, because if they are misused (such as if you have too many), it could ruin a good story because the audience will give up even trying to keep track, and the story will start to feel random. Using plot twists well is like telling a good joke: Timing, audience, and not overdoing it are all key. How big should a plot twist be? How upside down can you make things? It probably depends on the story you are telling and your audience. Try to be sure the twist actually makes some kind of sense in the context. Remember, also, that people need to feel they at least had a chance to “predict” their in-game future. They love twists, but they need to know you won’t just take 180-degree turns whenever you feel like it. Set the groundwork for your twists, even if the clues are incredibly subtle.
Playing with Perspective. This is when the gamer knows something the people in the story don’t know about, or you see the story unfold from different points of view. Playing with perspective can make interesting situations and scenes—for instance, when the audience knows there’s a giant monster hiding, waiting to tear someone’s head off, and yet we see the NPC obliviously strolling right toward the danger.
Perspective works best when there has been some setup; we think we know what’s going to happen next. Perspective can also come from seeing what other characters in the game are aware of. For example, there’s a game called Fahrenheit in which you are in the bathroom of a diner. There’s a dead body, and you are trying to get rid of it, but at the same time you get to see a small-screen window that lets you watch a cop in the diner. He finally gets up and slowly heads to the bathroom, which exponentially increases your panic as you are trying to get rid of the body and clean up the blood. So, giving you that other perspective or point of view can make gameplay even more exciting.
Memorable Moments. These are the key scenes and events that stand out, challenge you the most, make you laugh hardest, or shock you the most.
Talking Points. Think of any game you’ve ever told a friend about. What moments did you focus on? Those are the high points. When you’re creating a game, it’s really easy just to forget about high points, but they are very important. One way to work out whether you have any is to do some product testing (sometimes called focus testing) and then just listen to the conversation between the testers after they’ve played. See what they seem to latch onto. If the game doesn’t exist yet, just imagine that this is going to happen 18 months from now, and make sure to load the story/gameplay with moments you think people will be excited to discuss with their friends and online.
Humor. It’s okay for the humor to be dark. For more on humor, see the “Creating Comedy” section later in this chapter.
Believable Worlds and Situations. Do your research. Make your world—fictional or based on historical or modern reality—consistent and believable, and do research as needed to ensure that it is so. (See also Chapter 2, “Brainstorming and Research.”)
Realism and Consistency. Establish the rules of your world and your characters, and stick to them. Think of cause and effect and make character actions and reactions consistent with events as they occur. If something happens in the early or middle part of the story, how does it affect later events and character responses? Don’t forget what your characters have done or how the world has been affected by their actions.
Dialogue. Work hard on your characters’ dialogue (if any) and use it to establish who they are and to enhance the plot. Does it sound natural, like real people speaking? More importantly, does it sound like the specific character is speaking? For instance, a court noble, a common merchant, a drill sergeant, a professor, and a scientist all sound different in many ways. Without resorting to stereotypes, how do you establish who they are through what they say and how they say it? (For some more ideas, see Chapter 16, “Speech.”)
Execution. Expect the best from every aspect of the story and the game itself—from characters, to plots, to beginning, to end. Let nothing be sloppy, lazy, or half-assed. Give complete attention to detail in all aspects of the game. Pay particular attention to voice acting—bad acting or bad delivery. Timing can ruin any attempt you make to create a good story for your game.
Additional useful information about the characters in your stories can be found in Chapter 12, “Character Design.”
This section will cover the basics of the story arc and the three-act structure. But first, take a look at Figures 9.1 and 9.2, which depict a rather boring story arc and a more interesting story arc, respectively.
Prelude. This is optional. Before the real story begins with the main characters, you may sometimes want to set the scene or context through events that precede the introduction of the main characters into the storyline.
Characters. Introduce at least one of the main characters. (Sometimes you only foreshadow them, but rarely is this the case.)
Conflict. Introduce the conflict. What’s the problem and why should anyone care?
Timeframe. Know the timespan of the story. In other words, over what period of time does this story take place? Also consider whether you will use flashbacks to reach outside the timeline.
Time Period. What time period is this story in? Will the game feature time travel?
Setting. Know the setting of the story. What is the world and what are its characteristics? A trick here is to draw the map where this all takes place. Doing the map can be really inspiring, too.
What’s at Stake? Show what’s at stake (or at least give a sense of it).
Foreshadowing. This is optional, but it can sometimes be interesting if you hint at or reveal future events. Sometimes this can involve a flash-forward or even a flashback.
Tone or Style. Set a tone for the game, such as humorous, dark, grand, or gritty, and stick to it.
Purposeful Scenes. Think in terms of scenes with purpose, obstacles/challenges, and resolution.
Character Development. Develop the characters by letting the player see something new about them as the game progresses. Also, keep in mind how the characters will change as a consequence of their adventures. If your main character is very young, how does he react the first time he kills someone? How might he be changed when he succeeds for the first time at some difficult task?
Character Motivation. Give your characters (including the player character) adequate motivation for what they are doing. They may do exceptional or amazing things, but they do them because they have sufficient reason to make the effort involved. For instance, you might not lift up a car one-handed to grab a dime that rolled under it, but you would do so to save someone you love from being crushed.
Ups and Downs. Create changes of fortune—times of success, times of challenge, times of anxiety or loss—all leading up to the ending sequence. It’s okay for the player to have reversals of fortune and build back up again. Most games have a more or less linear increase in challenge—the game gets consistently harder. Many players come to expect that. But in a good story, there will be times when events go badly and times of greater success. A good story is not necessarily linear in its event structure, but it consists of sequential scenes that test and challenge different aspects of the main characters. Such changes of fortune in a game can dramatically change the level of emotional involvement of the player.
Consistency. Establish logical consistency. Things don’t just happen without previous events leading to them. Think about why your characters do what they do, and what they did that led up to these actions.
Consequences. Establish consequences and logical results. Whatever decisions the characters in your game make, they should have consequences that affect other characters and future events. Think things through. If the player decides to let an enemy agent live, how might that affect the game? And how would it be different if he killed the agent? What if the agent was the big boss’s brother or sister? How might that affect the actions of the boss and his henchmen?
Ambiguity. Create ambiguity with different possible solutions and different possible explanations.
Clichés. Be aware of the clichés used in the type of game you are creating and find ways to do things differently. Challenge the player’s assumptions if you can do so while maintaining gameplay quality.
Foreshadowing the Ending. Optionally, you can let the player anticipate the final events. This can work well in games with time travel, but it also works in more traditional story contexts.
Climax. Determine that pivotal moment when everything can be gained or lost and when the outcome is uncertain.
Doubt or Tension. Create tension by making the player uncertain of how to succeed or by giving the player difficult choices at the end.
Sequel Introduction. If you have planned for a future game based on this story—and you should always have that in mind—then you can introduce something at the end to suggest that there could be more to come. This was done well in the movie Batman Begins, which ended with the Joker’s card and led directly into The Dark Knight.
Catharsis is a Greek word that represents the feeling of emotional release, specifically at the end of a play or other art form. For instance, watching Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca receive medals at the end of Star Wars (Episode IV) was a cathartic moment.
Rewards. Reward the player for succeeding.
Effects of player’s accomplishments. If possible, show how the player and other main characters have changed as a result of their adventures. You can do this through visuals (the player character looks much stronger and battle-hardened, for instance), through dialogue, or through scenes that reveal the changes in the character. I personally like it when you feel the hero had to work for the victory. For example, when you see Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of the movie Predator, you really feel he’s had a heck of a battle. So instead of dancing around, he’s lucky he’s even able to walk away.
If you’ve ever wondered where good stories come from, one place to start is Joseph Campbell’s seminal book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell examined stories and myths from many cultures and times in history, coming up with a sort of blueprint of what he calls the Hero’s Journey. Although this is not the only way to look at stories, it has been used by many successful modern storytellers as a guide, so I suggest you consider it.
In its simplest form, the Hero’s Journey is summarized as a rite of passage represented in three basic stages: separation, initiation, and return. In Campbell’s words:
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
This simplistic synopsis forms the basis for many stories, fables, and myths. It can be seen recurring through many cultures and is even modeled in the biographies of many famous and accomplished men and women. One simple example that illustrates this story admirably is the well-known series of images taken from Zen Buddhism, sometimes called the 10 Bulls. The hero of this simple story undergoes an allegorical journey, outwardly seeking a bull (sometimes an ox) in the wilderness, but inwardly finding his own inner truth. These 10 stages are (in my own words):
The Search. This is the normal wandering search of all people for truth, as represented in this case by the elusive bull. The Seeker is an ordinary man.
Discovering the Footprints. This is the first sign that leads the Seeker to what he seeks. It is evidence that the bull exists and is nearby.
First Sight. With all his senses alert, the Seeker catches his first glimpse of the bull. He sees the truth he seeks for the first time, but it is only a glimpse to inspire his going further into the “initiation” that Campbell mentions.
Capture. The Seeker catches up with the bull, and after some struggle manages to capture it. After his first glimpse, he must stay focused upon the bull in order to catch it.
Taming. Even captured, the bull is wild and willful. The Seeker must use discipline, intuition, and resolve to bring the wild beast under control. But once he has achieved this task, the bull becomes docile and does the Seeker’s bidding. Now he has found truth, and it follows his path.
Riding Upon Its Back. In this stage, the Seeker no longer walks with the bull behind him, but rides upon its back. He is at home with his truth and easily continues on his life path. In many pictures the Seeker is playing a flute while riding the bull. To me, this is an image of contentment and repose as well as communication with others that the truth has been found.
Transcendence. The Seeker returns home; the bull is known as a transitory aspect of life. The Seeker is at home, at peace, and no longer attached to the duality of truth or not-truth (bull or no bull).
Emptiness. At last, free of duality, the Seeker transcends seeking, the bull, home, and even the self. This image is generally depicted as a blank circle.
The Source. From emptiness, the Seeker now connects with the source of all knowledge and knowing. He perceives truth and existence without illusion, masks, or interpretation. This is depicted as a beautiful garden with plants symbolic of the desirable traits of the enlightened Seeker.
The World. Having completed his journey, the Seeker returns to the everyday world, but now with a great boon to offer to all who encounter him. He lives as an ordinary man doing ordinary things, but those who encounter him receive enlightenment from his presence.
In the 10 Bulls, the Seeker goes from the ordinary world of seeking through the initiation and back to the ordinary world. He is changed, however, and brings something back from his journey... a gift for all to share if they will. In this sense, the Seeker is much like a great many mythical heroes; even though this series of images represents a personal allegory and a spiritual journey, on some level so do all heroes’ journeys, myths, and fables.
According to Campbell, the basic stages of the Hero’s Journey are:
Separation (Departure)
The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Supernatural Aid
Crossing the First Threshold
The Belly of the Whale
Initiation
The Road of Trials
The Meeting with the Goddess
Woman as the Temptress
Atonement with the Father
Apotheosis
The Ultimate Boon
Return
Refusal of the Return
The Magic Flight
Rescue from Without
Crossing of the Return Threshold
Master of the Two Worlds
Freedom to Live
Joseph Campbell’s analysis, originally written in the 1940s and later updated in the late 1960s, is a combination of myth and fable, psychoanalysis and comparative theology. Throughout his writings, he dwells more in the psychological and spiritual meanings of myth than in the aspect of strict storytelling. Many of the stages of his Hero’s Journey, however, are easily adapted to modern storytelling in movies and perhaps in games.
A practical example of how Campbell’s work fits with modern storytelling can be seen by comparing the stages of the Hero’s Journey with the elements of two huge hit movies—Star Wars and The Matrix.
Table 9.1 provides an interesting extension of Campbell’s ideas as they relate to Star Wars and The Matrix. The chart is the work of Kristen Brennan and is used with permission. More information can be found at www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html, including a further exploration of people who have studied the cultural archetypes of storytelling.
Table 9.1.
Campbell | Star Wars | The Matrix |
|---|---|---|
I: Departure | ||
The Call to Adventure | Princess Leia’s message | “Follow the white rabbit” |
Refusal of the Call | Must help with the harvest | Neo won’t climb out window |
Supernatural Aid | Obi-Wan rescues Luke from the Sand People | Trinity extracts the “bug” from Neo |
Crossing the First Threshold | Escaping Tatooine agents | Capture Neo/he takes the red pill |
The Belly of the Whale | Trash compactor | Torture room/awakens in a pod |
II: Initiation | ||
The Road of Trials | Lightsaber practice | Sparring with Morpheus |
The Meeting with the Goddess | Princess Leia | Trinity |
Temptation Away from the True Path | Luke is tempted by the Dark Side | Cypher (the failed messiah) is tempted by the world of comfortable illusions |
Atonement with the Father | Darth and Luke reconcile | Neo rescues and comes to agree (that he’s The One) with his father figure, Morpheus |
Apotheosis (becoming god-like) | Luke becomes a Jedi | Neo becomes The One |
The Ultimate Boon | Death Star destroyed | Humanity’s salvation now within reach |
III: Return | ||
Refusal of the Return | “Luke, come on!” Luke wants to stay to avenge Obi-Wan | Neo fights agent instead of running |
The Magic Flight | Millennium Falcon | “Jacking in” |
Rescue from Without | Han saves Luke from Darth | Trinity saves Neo from agents |
Crossing the Return Threshold | Millennium Falcon destroys pursuing TIE fighters | Neo fights agent Smith |
Master of the Two Worlds | Victory ceremony | Neo declares victory over machines in final phone call |
Freedom to Live | Rebellion is victorious over Empire | Humans are victorious over machines |
Common Mythic Elements | ||
Two worlds (mundane and special) | Planetside vs. the Death Star | Reality vs. the Matrix |
The mentor | Obi-Wan Kenobi | Morpheus |
The oracle | Yoda | The Oracle |
The prophecy | Luke will overthrow the Emperor | Morpheus will find (and Trinity will fall for) “The One” |
Biggs | In an early version of the script, Morpheus once believed that Cypher was “The One” [Also, before understanding he was “The One,” Neo failed in the battle against the agent] | |
Wearing enemy’s skin | Luke and Han wear stormtrooper outfits | Neo jumps into agent’s skin |
Shapeshifter (the hero isn’t sure if he can trust this character) | Han Solo | Cypher |
Animal familiar | R2-D2, Chewbacca | N/A |
Chasing a lone animal into the enchanted wood (and the animal gets away) | The Millennium Falcon follows a lone TIE fighter into range of the Death Star | Neo “follows the white rabbit” to the nightclub, where he meets Trinity |
According to Campbell, each stage of the Hero’s Journey has been told again and again throughout the ages in a multitude of cultures around the world. Some of these stages are quite common in games; others are not often included.
Separation (Departure):
The Call to Adventure. Something happens that takes the hero of the game from ordinary life into a specific adventure. It could be a catastrophic event: a kidnapping, a crash landing, an invasion from without, treachery from within, and so on. It could be a message the hero receives from a herald character. (See also Chapter 12, “Character Design.”) Whatever the motivation, the hero’s circumstances change in such a way that he must seriously consider a path that leads out of the Ordinary World into an Extraordinary and often Supernatural World, beset by many challenges and dangers... the realm of the unknown.
The Refusal of the Call. Some heroes never question their role and take to their adventure without pause; however, many heroes are reluctant at first and, whether because of fear, conflicting circumstances, loyalty to something or someone who must be left behind, or other reasons, they hesitate and even refuse to take on the mantle of hero. Many game heroes are thrust reluctantly into their roles, but for the most part, game designers do not place much doubt or soul-searching in their main characters. Because the hero is an extension of the player, this kind of storyline is complicated by the blending of imaginary characters with real human motivations. We often play games because we enjoy the surrogate violence of the digital world. However, a reluctant hero—one with conflicts and doubts—can still serve as a vessel for our enjoyment as players and can provide an even more interesting plotline and more diverse gameplay options.
Supernatural Aid. Many games include some mentor or magical agency that empowers the hero in special ways and often convinces those who are reluctant or informs them to help them along the road ahead. This is as common in games as it is in myth and story. In fact, even when there is no specific mentor (see Chapter 12, “Character Design”) or other magical agency, the magic is inherent in the hero, who is faster, stronger, more agile and skilled than ordinary people from the get go, or who wields a magic sword or other implement that aids him in the quest. Again, it’s a very common theme.
Crossing the First Threshold. There comes a time when the hero must set out, leave the ordinary world behind, and truly enter into unknown territory. Often there are obstacles that appear to prevent or impede the hero’s progress, but these threshold guardians, in Campbell’s terms, serve only as the first of many tests the hero will face. Once the first threshold has been passed, the hero is truly on the journey. In many games, this might be the end of the “training” element of the game.
The Belly of the Whale. Symbolic of the total immersion and disappearance of the hero into the unknown, this is a less common stage in games, but it is not unknown. In some games, the player’s character, the hero, is plunged into some world or some situation that is very much like the belly of the whale that Jonah inhabited. In psychological terms, Campbell likens this to a return to the womb—apparent death and subsequent rebirth in the world of the mystery or adventure. As a symbol, this is a powerful component of myths and legends. As a story device, it may be useful to consider but not necessarily as ubiquitous as some of the other stages, particularly in modern stories. One way to look at this from a game perspective, however, is as the descent into dungeons, which happens in many games. In a way, the dungeon could be analogous to the belly of the whale. Another way to look at it is when the player has perhaps really entered into the fantasy world from the relatively safe starting point of the game.
Initiation:
The Road of Trials. Nothing could be more game-like than this section, in which the hero, in order to attain his goal, must face various tests, challenges, journeys, tasks, and other trials. This stage is in many ways the essence of game design. In some ways, the other stages serve to create a framework for the Road of Trials. Generally speaking, the vast majority of the time spent in game design and in gameplay will be in this stage of the Hero’s Journey. However, Campbell’s examples in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, taken from myths and fables, are rich with imagination, symbolic tests, and unique perspectives. They might serve as inspiration for a richer variety of game design decisions and directions, helping designers break out of repetitive patterns and jump into more universal symbology combined with archetypical and often surprising events.
In the next three stages—the Meeting with the Goddess, Woman as Temptress, and Atonement with the Father—Campbell’s discussion is highly psychological and refers to many of the roles of man/woman, father/mother, and god/goddess in the human psyche. There are elements in these sections that can definitely be used in games, especially to symbolize those deeper psychological and mythical aspects of our Jungian collective unconscious. In an essential way, these three stages represent the hero’s (or individual’s) struggle with the father/mother archetypes in his life. These stages are not as common in games but are seen often in other stories where powerful male and female figures exemplify the various aspects and pairs of opposites of the father and the mother. Some examples are:
Mother Archetypes
Beautiful
Nurturing
Understanding
Protector
Loving
Hideous
Threatening
Spiteful
Persecutor
Overprotective
Father Archetypes
Wise
Ally
Mentor
Kindly
Vengeful
Rival
Enemy
Wrathful
Note
Collective unconscious is a concept introduced by psychologist Carl Jung that suggests a universal, shared consciousness distinct from the personal consciousness of each individual. In some ways, you could think of it as a psychological principle similar to The Force from Star Wars.
Keeping in mind these concepts, it may be possible to introduce into games these stronger archetypes of male and female characters, whether they appear as kindly allies, terrible enemies, gods and goddesses, or other types of characters. This doesn’t have to be blatant, but an awareness of the power of the mother/father archetypes can cause unconscious resonance with the player. Fairy tales used these archetypes in the stories of wicked queens and stepmothers, fairy godmothers, kindly kings, and helpful or vengeful gods. An surprisingly interesting twist in a lot of animated Disney movies is that there’s no nurturing mother figure or sometimes the mother dies in the story. (Think about the classic Disney animated movies that stand the test of time, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Aladdin.)
Apotheosis. Apotheosis means to deify, and it is at this point that the hero has successfully fulfilled his tasks, met his challenges, and vanquished those who sought to block his way. In games, this may be the point at which the player has attained some goal that dramatically increases his power(s). In a way, certain forms of leveling up are like mini-apotheoses. In spiritual terms, it is the individual’s connection with the godhead and ultimate attainment of enlightenment. In story terms, it is the culmination of a search or sequence of important events.
The Ultimate Boon. With the hero’s apotheosis comes the great gift promised by the adventure. It could be something the hero brings back to the world, as Prometheus brought back the gift of fire to mankind (for which he was severely punished by the gods from whom he stole the fire), or it could be something closer to home—the hand of the princess or even the peace of mind that comes with having avenged a terrible wrong. Whatever this great gift is, it is something the hero has sought, or it is a great reward for his efforts. It signals the end of the Initiation phase of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, but not the end of the journey itself. As in the Apotheosis phase, this stage can also be part of the mini-cycles of leveling or completion of stages, so that in games particularly, the Road of Trials often has recurring moments of apotheosis and ultimate (or at least recurring) boons. At the end game, presumably, the ultimate boon is presented.
Return:
Refusal of the Return. In myths and legends, the hero, having attained the highest gifts, sometimes is unable or unwilling to return to the Ordinary World. In the story of the Buddha, after he has attained enlightenment, he doubted that the wonders he perceived could be communicated to others. In other stories, the hero may be seduced by the Extraordinary or Supernatural World and may want to remain there, never to return to the world of his origins. In other stories, the hero returns without reluctance, so this is not always present. In a game context, this Refusal of the Return would be most relevant if there were compelling reasons for the hero to return and he was resistant to it. Some story point and new herald event might be necessary to prompt the hero to undertake the return to the Ordinary World. However, in most games and stories, the hero’s return is more or less assumed and automatic once the goal has been attained. Looking back at the 10 Bulls example earlier in this section, however, the return is part of the journey, and the sharing of the gift is the ultimate culmination.
The Magic Flight. In myths, the Ultimate Boon is often stolen or taken without permission, and what ensues is a chase scene that—in myths, at any rate—often involves supernatural events and symbols. This involves the hero attempting to return to the safety of the Ordinary World while being pursued by some aspect of the mysterious world where the adventure has taken place. In game terms, this is an opportunity to create additional excitement, challenges, puzzles, and storylines, extending the game from the attainment of the goal to the safe return. This could be a dangerous journey to return the rescued princess to the safety of her father’s castle, or it could be the return of a magic elixir that will save a dying village, and so on. Danger pursues the hero until safety has been reached or the pursuer has been vanquished.
Rescue from Without. Whether the hero is simply reluctant to return to the Ordinary World or whether he is engaged in a dangerous Magic Fight, it is often the case that some agency, some outside force, will be needed to assist him back to safety. This is common in myths and stories where the hero must be brought back from the adventure by something outside himself. Not all heroes require this assistance, but some do. For instance, at the end of The Lord of the Rings, Sam and Frodo are rescued by the eagles. Without that rescue, they would have died after the fall of Mordor. They accomplished their task of destroying the Ring, but to return to the world, they required something from the outside.
The next three stages of the Hero’s Journey may have less to do with games than the others, since they deal with the hero’s re-assimilation and ultimate mastery of the two worlds—the one of adventure and the common world of his origins.
Crossing of the Return Threshold. This aspect of the story is the hero’s re-assimilation into the world, which comes with its own hazards and challenges. It may be that the ordinary world no longer holds much appeal to the adventurer who has seen greater horizons and the wonders of self-discovery. Or it may be that people cannot accept the hero, changed as he is and no longer seeming to be one of them. In any case, from a game perspective, this is probably not a common stage that will be used. Once the adventure and the action are finished, the return home is generally not dealt with or—if it is, it is only an epilogue to complete the cycle.
Master of the Two Worlds. In this stage, the hero must learn, in essence, to straddle the phenomenal world of his journey and the mundane world of his return. In somehow bringing these divergent aspects into unity, he comes to see that they are indeed aspects of the same world, and he is able to move fluidly between those aspects. His difficulties with returning to the ordinary world are gone, and he is truly the Master of the Two Worlds. Again, this is less likely to be a theme carried out in games, unless it is as an epilogue or perhaps the beginning of a new adventure.
Freedom to Live. The assimilation is complete, and the hero is reborn into a new image with the knowledge of the transcendent truths of his journey fully integrated into his earthly existence. In essence, this is the ultimate happy ending.
How useful this Hero’s Journey will be in designing games depends on the kind of game you’re producing and how much your hero’s story contains a deeper subtext or metaphor of mythical proportions. Most games do not attempt such lofty pursuits, nor should they. And, to the extent that great game stories are more often than not emergent from the gameplay and players’ choices, it is interesting to see how closely player-created emergent stories follow Campbell’s sequence of the Hero’s Journey and to what extent game designers can bridge the gap between story structure and interactive emergent game stories. The question of the relevance of the Hero’s Journey to game design depends a lot on the designer, the game structures, and the players themselves. In reality, however, the concepts can be inspiring and therefore useful, so they are definitely worth the time to consider.
Years after Campbell’s work was published and widely read, Christopher Vogler created a condensed and somewhat modernized treatment of Campbell’s work in his book, The Writer’s Journey. Vogler’s revised version of the Hero’s Journey has found a home in Hollywood and elsewhere and is often used by Hollywood writers, producers, and directors. Although similar to Campbell’s original sequence, Vogler’s version is perhaps more suitable to modern storytelling, and although it contains some of the psychological insight of Campbell’s original work, it is in general more practical and story-oriented. Like Campbell’s work, this treatment of the writer’s journey is only relevant to some extent in game design, depending on the kind of game being produced and whether it is structured toward a specific story arc or toward emergent, more freeform gameplay.
Vogler’s steps, which he fits into the more standard three-act structure of modern moviemaking, include the following stages:
Act One
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Act Two
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Supreme Ordeal
Reward
Act Three
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with Elixir
In Act One, Vogler’s hero experiences more or less the same types of events, situations, and pivotal characters as does Campbell’s, though Vogler eliminates the Belly of the Whale stage. In Act Two, Vogler summarizes much of what, in Campbell, was very psychological and theological, condensing the second act into a discussion of the tests and other characters in the story (Tests, Allies, Enemies), then condenses Campbell’s discussion of the father/mother principles and the psychosexual elements into the Approach to the Inmost Cave—the area the hero must go in order to complete the quest. The Apotheosis of Campbell is gone, but a Supreme Ordeal is added, which may equate to the ultimate Boss Battle of a videogame—or, at any rate, the ultimate test of the hero. This test, if successfully completed, leads to the reward, followed by the third act, with its Road Back, Resurrection (back into the world), and Return with Elixir—or returning with the gifts the quest has given the hero. Again, in games, these last elements are often minimized, with the Supreme Ordeal and the Reward being the effective ending of the game.
This more simplified form of the Hero’s Journey fits well into modern storytelling, and Vogler offers many examples from modern film archives. However, no formula or absolute structure works for all stories, and neither will it work for all games. In fact, games are a unique case, and many of them require no deep story or psychological or spiritual meaning. I’ve included this section for a few reasons, however. First, because these ideas—Campbell’s, and to some degree Vogler’s—have infused our consciousness through movies and pop culture. Second, because as games become more sophisticated, game designers will be seeking ways to deepen and enrich the power and influence their stories have on the players of those games.
Today, people often watch other players. There are now game audiences—people who enjoy the unfolding of the game story passively, just as people used to gather around campfires and listen to storytellers or, later, gather around radios, TVs, and in movie theaters to watch stories unfold. As more people find games enjoyable to watch, as well as to play, some aspects of story may become more compelling, and archetypal stories that affect the players and the observers with powerful, if unconscious, symbolism of myths and the human condition can be as effective as great movies.
Linear stories work in movies and literature, and some elements of good linear stories can certainly be applied to games. However, it wouldn’t be fun to play a character—even a great character—from literature if all you could do is exactly what that character did in the original story. If the player has no choice at all, it’s not really a game. That is not to say that literature hasn’t contributed some great game plots, or that you would have to change the overall story arc to adapt literature to games. But players must be able to make choices and, ideally, even deviate from the story in some ways in order for a game to feel alive. Good games allow players to test all paths to discover the ones that work best for them and also the ones that lead to failure. In games (as in life), failure is often a great opportunity to learn and can even be cool to experience—depending on the game. So, when adapting another source, it’s often best to use a more open approach to the story’s world, not the strictly linear storyline.
In games, the world the character inhabits should be alive and somewhat unpredictable. Players should have the ability to choose their directions, and the world around them should respond. In place of simple repetitive and predictable scenes, such as characters who always do and say the same thing every time a player’s character interacts with them, consider creating game situations in which things might change. People’s attitudes could change based on circumstances or based on the player’s previous actions. Some characters might have a past history with the player’s character, which would affect their behavior and make it less predictable but more consistent with the player’s experience.
One other way to create more interesting game worlds is to create a responsive game system in which players may take different approaches and, ultimately, experience different events and outcomes based on those approaches.
Although many of the ideas contained in this chapter are applicable to games, they trace their origins to linear storytelling. Although linear methods are helpful and often useful when designing games, they cannot encompass the wide range of possibilities that are available for designers of games with their myriad interactive possibilities. For games, new paradigms are inevitable, and new approaches to the art of the story are almost mandatory. These new approaches will most likely borrow heavily from linear approaches but will expand to make the best and most creative use of nonlinear or interactive entertainment.
Even in more or less linear plots, adding an element of freedom can give players a more rewarding experience. For instance, even if the quests, missions, and tasks the player must perform to succeed in the game are essentially linear, if players can accomplish these tasks in different ways or different orders, or if they can engage in other interesting activities while completing these tasks, the game won’t feel linear and limiting. Even in games such as Halo and Halo 2, in which your objectives are pretty linear, there are many tactical options, multiplayer options, and often different paths to get to your goals. Probably the least inspiring examples of linear game design involve “rail” games and games in which your path is preset and offers no branches or options. You must tread a predefined path toward the goal, and no deviation or variation is offered. (Even if you see a door that goes somewhere else, it will be locked.) Personally, I find these games generally unsatisfying, although some arcade games essentially do this, but with enough nonstop action that all you really care about is surviving the current level, and with enough tactical options and power-up items to keep things interesting.
I should note that just adding more choices, options, or rooms does not necessarily make a better game. It is always a balance that must be struck between playability and accessibility on the one hand and freedom, variety, and interesting choices on the other, but an excessively confining and limiting game is probably going to be poorly received. By contrast, many popular games have a plethora of choices and options, and by setting appropriate limits and structures, they still manage to be fun to play.
In thinking about storytelling in nonlinear media, I’ve thought in terms of metaphors and systems. I really don’t think it’s very useful to dwell on theoretical models for too long, but some of these ideas might be useful in brainstorming and in considering new ways to structure games. For instance, working with 3D webs, snowflakes, or cubic spaces might not really mean much in the reality of designing a game, but they might inspire some new approaches, resulting in more original and unusual game designs.
The linear story simply takes a character from Point A to Point B in a straight line. For this to qualify as a game it must be interactive, and the player must have to accomplish some goals, but there are no options but to succeed or fail at each stage of the game and no alternatives to each situation. The original Karateka (precursor to Prince of Persia) was a clear example of linear game design, as were arcade games such as Gradius, Castlevania, Mega Man, and Golden Axe and most racing games. Many games from the 2D era were essentially linear, but such games are quite rare in the 3D era of game design. For instance, the original Abe’s Oddysee and Abe’s Exoddus were essentially linear games, but with a great variety of gameplay and puzzles to solve.
In contrast to the straight linear approach, the branching structure consists of a linear story with choice points. This is like a logic exercise in which you have essentially either/or choices. You pick Path A or Path B. The path you choose determines the direction the gameplay will take, ultimately arriving at an ending point. There can be more than one branch at a decision node, and branches can reconnect with each other, but ultimately the gameplay heads in one direction from the beginning of the game to the end. In this type of game, some branches lead to dead ends (the player dies or gets stuck or has to backtrack to another node). In some cases, only one decision tree—only one sequence of choices—can succeed. This type of structure was typical of the early text adventure games, and one of the best graphical game examples was the arcade game Dragon’s Lair.
The web structure is similar to the branching game, but it’s far less linear. This type of game consists of a series of interconnected paths or branches that can be taken in virtually any order to accomplish a particular phase, mission, level, or other determinable section of the game or story. Players travel along the strands of the web, which branch again and again, but the player’s actions are somewhat restricted in that they still have to stay on the paths and take the many branches the game offers. However, if you can imagine walking around on a huge web, you see that you can essentially go in any direction—around, toward the center, or toward the edge—and each decision in this metaphor results in game-play consequences.
At some point, the player completes enough of the required elements of the game or has experienced enough elements of the story to move forward to the next web structure, which is connected to other web structures via node points. These node points can be specific plot elements of the story, or they can be level bosses and so on. The player is prevented from moving through a node point by some obstacle or game requirement—for instance, the need to have obtained certain information or objects, or to have accomplished certain goals—including perhaps defeating a boss. The idea here is that players have the opportunity for nearly free exploration of a part of the game or story, but they always have to funnel through the node point to move to another part of the story. From a design standpoint, this allows players moments of increased freedom and choice and less restriction, occasionally punctuated by moments when their choices narrow. It also allows designers to control the flow of the story, the ramping up of difficulty, or the pacing of exploration.
This concept could be thought of as widening and narrowing options, and it can be applied to many of the structures of game design. In this case I’m referring to the overall game flow, but the same principle can be applied at the microcosmic level, in which many of the actions and circumstances the player experiences contain expansions of choices, at some point followed by a more restrictive structure. A simple example would be standing before a locked door. At the point where the player encounters the locked door, there are many possible choices, including going another direction, getting someone to open the door, letting someone with security clearance open the door (then following him in), finding another way in and ignoring the door altogether, finding a way to unlock the door (which might entail various means), or even breaking through the door using a variety of possible methods. There are a lot of choices at the moment, but once the door has been successfully removed as an obstacle, the choices narrow down to two main ones: go through the door or don’t.
This all seems pretty obvious, and the amount of analysis required depends on how theoretical you want to be. However, you can consider the overall game design as an example of this sort of structure, and you can also consider subsections of the game in a similar way.
Web structures can have both two- and three-dimensional aspects. In the 2D realm, each separate web/story structure can connect along specific nodes to another web. Crossing into another web can expose the player to new story elements and new experiences, but movement through the game still requires movement through the nodes, which act as the funnel points to ensure that the player experiences the important plot points and accomplishes the necessary prerequisites for advancement in the game. A good example would be a point in a story where the player might encounter a boat that could provide transportation to an island. The opportunity to travel by sea might open whole new areas of the game, and in this structural model, it would represent the gateway to a whole new web or set of webs. The boat would be like a node in the web structure. Likewise, the island you could reach by boat would also be a web or system of web structures, each of which contains choices, options, and gameplay experiences that ultimately lead to either a dead end in the story or a new node to even more web structures.
In the 2D model, the game can be visualized on a flat plane comprised of interconnected webs, each of which represents some aspect of the game—an area, a level, a quest or mission, and so on. In this structure, the player’s path through the game can branch wherever the designer has decided there is a node or connection between areas of the web, and when the player is approaching these nodes, options will narrow. This concept can be expanded in several ways. One way involves expanding the system of webs and nodes into a 3D space, in which specific web structures of the game can connect not only on a single plane, but across other planes in a three-dimensional space. This structure suggests a very open environment in which the player can virtually enter a wide variety of new “experience spaces” from almost any given situation or location in the game. This might be particularly useful to visualize if the player always has access to some specific dimension, area, or “experiential space” of the game at any time.
In some ways, access to the player’s inventory/equipment screens is a modal change from the main game experience that can be accessed at any time while playing. In the 3D web model, it exists as a link off any branch or activity on any part of any web. But other, more gameplay-oriented, examples might be possible. For instance, another way to think of this structure is as a series of planes of activity connected to each other via the nodal gates. Imagine that a particular game allows the player to travel in time whenever they wish, and they can access the same locations at different points in time. Although the fantasy is maintained that this location is the same but only time has shifted, in reality the player is accessing a completely different location in terms of gameplay and game design. Such instant access would not be easy to accomplish with the strictly mono-planar 2D web structure, but would be quite consistent with a 3D multi-planar system.
The suggestion of a snowflake model is only to inspire you to think in new ways about structure. To my knowledge, there is no current snowflake model of design. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it to inspire a new sort of structure. That’s why it’s here in this book—to inspire you.
This purely theoretical concept of a snowflake structure is a more freeform variant of the web structure. Because no two snowflakes are exactly alike, presumably no two snowflake game structures would be exactly the same, either. I visualize this as a series of snowflakes set side to side and laid out in planes, like the web system. The difference is that instead of branching paths, as you have with the web, you have freeform movement within each of the snowflake domains, with the center of each snowflake providing the transition point to another plane of the story/game. The only significant difference between the web and snowflake systems is that the former is based somewhat more on specific story/game/action branching, and the snowflake is based on freeform movement and exploration.
Does the snowflake metaphor work? That’s up to you. I only include it as a possible source of inspiration. When I think about webs, snowflakes, and other structural metaphors, my goal is to use these to imagine more interesting and diverse gameplay opportunities, not bind myself to some theoretical model. These ideas should be expansive, not contractive. So, I put it to you: Can you imagine a snowflake model that could make your games more interesting and fun?
The cubic system is somewhat difficult to understand, in that it is more or less a big empty box into which you dump the elements of your story and game. There is no implied or underlying structure here—only a three-dimensional space in which to create. However, within each empty “cube” are the elements of game exploration and play, and each cube then connects to other cubes that are equally open-ended in structure. Cubes can be connected at any interface, either by seamless migration from cube to cube or by means of structural connectors.
For instance, consider a series of cubes connected by short, tubular connecting structures. These connectors would, in fact, be story transitions or markers. They would represent specific events or situations that the player would experience once they have satisfied the conditions of entry into the connector. This would then lead to the next cube.
The cube model might also include areas of web or snowflake design, so that your players would migrate between completely open areas and areas restricted by branching paths or some other type of experience. In some ways, Grand Theft Auto III and later games might fit into this model, because they provide nearly unlimited freedom within a zone but require the accomplishment of certain prerequisites to gain access to new territories. In a different way, so could products such as SimCity or The Sims, in which the game is a virtual sandbox for players to explore and create their own goals. However, this might also be better modeled by the empty-sandbox approach. (See the upcoming “Empty Box with Toys/Sandbox” section.)
Although this is purely theoretical, this cubic structure implies that elements of the game are entirely freeform and that the player has no restrictions within one of the cubes. Although this may not be very satisfying as a structural model, since it fails to define choice points for the player other than at the nodes or interfaces between cubes, it might inspire some new way to conceptualize gameplay. By offering players essentially a blank canvas in which to immerse themselves, with transitional pathways to other blank canvases—or even to more traditional game structures—what kind of gameplay experiences might emerge? How do you create the blank canvas of the cubic structure? This is why the GTA series has been so successful. In each game, you get more and more freedom and more things you can do. You can date, fly a plane, drive a car, go into buildings, kill people...whatever you like.
The empty box with toys/sandbox approach is for construction-type games and sim games, such as SimCity, in which you give players lots of elements; set properties, rules of interaction, and behaviors for these objects; and let the players go for it. This really doesn’t describe a story-based structure, for the most part, but stories could emerge from the interaction of elements within the game, as they do with The Sims. The emergent stories are essentially created in the minds of the players themselves. In this sort of environment, each player conceives an individual story based on the experience he has. But, of course, with clever and careful control of the types of tools available, the kinds and qualities of experiences can be, to some extent, predetermined. For instance, it’s obvious that many players of The Sims will have romantic adventures. What makes it obvious is a combination of knowing human nature and providing the appropriate game elements to allow that kind of story to emerge. Of course, there are other examples of sandbox games. Can you think of a few? What makes them sandbox games?
Many games exhibit the phenomenon of emergent behavior, in which the interaction of various elements can produce unexpected, unplanned, or unanticipated results or behaviors. The previous example of The Sims describes this sort of phenomenon to some extent. In essence, most Massively Multiplayer games rely on the emergent behavior of thousands of people to create the essence of the gameplay. The structures, rules, and setting of the game are provided, but the players create much of the emergent story, from ad hoc teaming, organized guilds, and affinity groups and various other human-to-human interactions, to commerce systems, thievery, exploits and cheats, and so on. Each player in a Massive Multiplayer game is the “author” of an individual story that is told only in his own mind but has the added effect of influencing the stories of all the other players with whom he interacts.
Even games that are for single players or for small numbers of players can have emergent stories and behaviors. The more complex the system you create, the more likelihood there will be for emergent behavior. If you create a (virtual) living world with many elements interacting according to determinate rules, you are likely to see emergent behaviors. The question is, are they behaviors you want or are they going to detract from the game? One challenge is to create games in which there is a lot of emergent behavior, and it is those very behaviors that make the game unique. This works because sometimes the things that happen are more interesting (to the gamer who made them happen) than something we might think up for the player at a design meeting.
Players don’t even mind if this becomes hard work for them. For example, they might find that if an exploding barrel triggers the ones beside it to explode, they might go and collect every barrel in the game and try to lay out a long fuse of them to go and blow up something else (that the designer had never planned to be blown up). Using the elements of the game world to achieve unlikely results can become a focus in itself, and many players end up getting very skilled at it.
Often emergent behavior can result from very simple systems when they interact with multiple instances of the same system or with other simple systems. One example occurred when Will Wright was designing ocean currents for SimEarth. He used a very simple system of vectors—almost too simple to take seriously as a model for something as complex as ocean currents, and certainly not a complex mathematical algorithm based on complex interactions in the ocean—and the simple system resulted in a remarkably realistic result. The emergent behavior of this simple system, when applied in the holistic environment Will had created, resulted in a very complex and satisfyingly realistic simulation.
The opening line of a story, book, or play is always significant. The opening scene of a movie can set a tone and intrigue the audience. Likewise, the beginning of a game can be used to draw in players, establish the story or current situation, familiarize the player with the game’s controls and systems, introduce some of the main actors, and/or set a mood or tone that will establish the pace of the game.
There are various ways to begin a game—some fairly common and some less so—including:
Opening with a movie scene that sets the history and context of the game to come. This is very common in major games today.
Opening with a montage, which can depict any number of initial images and story elements (some of which are mentioned in this list).
Plunging right into the action (such as the middle of a fight, a chase scene, or a crash).
Starting with an easy, slow, gentle setup (such as two people chatting while drinking tea).
Starting with a major challenge (for example, a race is about to start).
Starting in the future.
Starting in the past.
Starting very simply in a game that gradually (or suddenly) becomes more complex.
Starting with a bluff or premonition (which could just be a dream).
Starting as the consequence of a great or catastrophic event (trying to survive chaos).
Starting in an idyllic situation that gets disrupted soon after (for example, the spacecraft or plane crashes into where you are).
Starting with a powerful character who is soon stripped of his power.
Starting with a mystery (so the gamer has no idea what’s going on).
Starting at the end and playing the entire game as a flashback.
Starting with the hero under threat of being killed.
Starting right in a sex (or lust) scene.
Starting right in a medical emergency, surgery, or the like.
Following someone who’s oblivious and entering hell. (For example, someone walking into a bank that’s in the middle of an armed robbery or enjoying a cruise ship that the viewer knows is filled with explosives.)
Starting with the hero being tortured or humiliated.
Starting right in an adventure sequence (just like Indiana Jones).
Opening with a continuous shot connecting lots of people and their conversations that paint a picture of the situation.
Following something, such as an animal as it heads toward the main action. (Imagine a happy rabbit bounding along and arriving at a bloody war.)
Starting by showing the working mind of the main nemesis in operation.
Seeing someone who is on the edge go over the edge, such as with road rage.
Starting with someone close to the hero being killed, tortured, kidnapped, or otherwise threatened.
Seeing something evil take place, then shifting to the hero and establishing his connection to it or interest in it.
Starting with a view from far out in space and then zooming in closer and closer until the hero is at the center of the action. (Or going the opposite way, pulling out into space to something we need to know about.)
Starting with a briefing (such as a military briefing scene that sets both the story and the mission objectives).
Having a narrator start the story, but without a movie rolling. As a camera pans over the game, a narrator explains the situation.
Stories in literature can end in a variety of ways, including having the hero die. In games, however, the hero’s death, while possibly a common occurrence during the course of the game, is not the most desired ultimate outcome, given that games are about challenges and successes, not story alone. That’s not to say that a great game couldn’t be designed in which the hero dies at the end—God of War being a notable example. Several scenarios come immediately to mind. But, in general, the endings of games (where there is any kind of explicit story and ending) have been limited to the basic cliché of defeating the enemy in a great battle, followed possibly by some feel-good scenes of congratulations. (And that’s okay, so don’t go with something else unless it’s better than the cliché.)
Of course, not all games involve stories and plots, and many games end in different ways. Some do end when you lose (such as certain arcade games in which there is no true ending). Other games end when you succeed, but not in the sense of a story ending—just successful completion of the game events, such as winning a race in a racing simulation or winning/losing a game or season in a sports game.
Here are some possible story game endings, other than the clichéd battle-and-reward sequence:
The hero solves a great mystery and watches as all the pieces of a game-long puzzle fall into place.
The “voilà” moment, when the clouds of mystery clear.
The epic (bring you to tears) heartfelt speech by a key character or someone in authority, such as the president.
After a rousing adventure, the hero (anti-hero?) realizes that the task he was on is either impossible or unimportant in the long run, and instead chooses what’s really important (either the final character growth step, saving someone, or maybe saving a relationship).
Everything shifts at the end of the game, and the hero must determine who is an enemy and who is a friend, who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad, and so on, and then act accordingly. This was the ultimate challenge of Myst, for instance.
The hero must make a great sacrifice at the end, perhaps letting someone he loves die in order to serve the greater cause.
The player’s character reaches an important and anticipated milestone in his life, such as achieving godly status, reaching his 21st birthday without being killed, or reuniting with a lost family member, lover, or other significant person/creature/thing.
The player has succeeded in becoming the ruler of the land or conquering all enemies and fulfilling some life goal or prophecy.
The hero becomes who he always should have been, and he takes that place and accepts it.
The cure to a disease is discovered.
Realizing all hope is lost, the nemesis commits suicide (sometimes taking his minions with him).
The hero returns home, finally.
The all-or-nothing bet is resolved.
This will be the last embrace between the hero and the heroine.
As he dies, the hero sees victory that he made happen.
The nemesis just won’t die or can’t be killed, so the hero goes an unexpected route—maybe not to kill him, but to resolve the problem. (For example, Jafar in the final battle scene of Aladdin, wishing he was a genie to become even more powerful, but ending up trapped in a lamp. So he’s not killed, but he’s trapped forever, and the impossible is resolved.)
The hero realizes the entire story was a dream or a drug-induced coma and wakes up somewhere completely disconnected to where he thought he was.
The hero realizes home no longer exists, as did Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes.
A mystery ending (usually the setup to the sequel): Who was that? What the heck just happened? The Blair Witch Project is a good example.
What you had accepted turns out to be completely wrong, forcing you to rethink the entire story. (Think of the movie The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis.)
A project or challenge the hero has been working on for the entire game is finally completed.
By “bad endings,” I don’t mean endings that suck; I mean endings in which everything doesn’t come out right from the player’s point of view. These so-called bad endings can serve several purposes, however. On one hand, they provide a good look at what happens if the hero fails. On the other hand, clever designers could use an apparently catastrophic ending to set up a sequel. In such a case, the player would have to be rewarded somehow. Game players don’t play games to fail. Still, it is possible that an ending could deviate dramatically from the expected “good” result and still be satisfying—and it could set up some great story and gameplay for future productions. Alternatively, it’s great for replaying (and generating discussion) if the game can have multiple radically different endings based on how you play it.
Some examples include:
The hero must die at the end in order to be resurrected as something stronger or different, or in order to enter the land of the dead and continue the story in a sequel. This can also include self-sacrifice for the good of others. The movie Thelma & Louise had a suicide ending, for example. (This is generally a bittersweet ending.)
Somebody important dies (love object, beneficent ruler, and so on).
Something important is destroyed, despite all efforts to preserve it.
Civilization as we know it is destroyed.
The hero “seems” to be dead.
This victory has turned out small, and the real hope is lost.
Storytelling, particularly in movies, TV, and games, can engage the viewer/player and make the story more dynamic and effective. Here are a few techniques you can use effectively in telling stories in games:
Flashbacks (Interactive or Non-Interactive). These are good if they are cross-linked directly back to game action. (For example, an alarm goes off in the flashback, and that links to an alarm in the gameplay.)
Real-Time Events That Reveal Story or Infer Things While You Play. For example, people dropping to their knees and praying to you when you walk up their street. Or a helicopter following you, but then being shot down... by whom?
Live Moment-to-Moment Character Actions (Not Speech). For example, hand signals (SWAT signals, pointing, waving, and so on), head nods, ducking to anticipate something, or cowering in fear as you pass.
Third-Party One-Way Information. For example, radio, TV, signs, overheard rumors, graffiti, objects such as books or maps, and so on. Basically, these are things that can convey messages to you. (See also Chapter 30, “Ways to Communicate with the Player.”)
Third-Party Two-Way Information. For example, overhearing two people talking (or asking questions or arguing), tapping their telephone line, seeing someone use a computer or ATM and reading over their shoulder, or using one of those laser devices that bounces light off office windows so you can hear the discussion inside.
Non-Interactive Cinematics (Preferably Played in the Game Engine So There’s No Quality Change in the Graphics). Seamless integration helps where the gameplay turns into non-interactive cinematics and right back to gameplay without disturbing breaks in the visuals. Interactive cinematics are getting better and better as time goes on; you don’t need to listen to the story if you don’t want to, or you can focus on a single part—maybe follow the characters you are most interested in and listen to their private conversation.
Full-Motion Video. This refers to traditional movie footage used to tell a story. This footage could be live action or CG. It’s clear that the action of switching to full-motion video will generally interrupt gameplay, and if the video cannot be skipped, it usually generates resentment in a certain percentage of gamers. So full-motion video should only be used when needed or when its effect is maximally positive and not disruptive to the game flow. Some games, such as later Final Fantasy games, have blended video cut scenes seamlessly with the action, making a less disruptive connection between the non-interactive and the interactive elements.
Text. This can be displayed on a separate screen, scrolled, or page flipped; alternatively, text can overlay the action (providing information on progressing the story), or it can be on billboards and other in-game items and locations.
Narration/Voiceover/Live Blow-by-Blow Commentary. With this technique, the hero himself can talk—for example, “I’m out of bullets!” You can use pop-up heads on the screen with speech or text (as in Metal Gear Solid). Or, sports commentators can describe the ongoing action during a sports game.
Picture-in-Picture. This is effective if you want the story to be revealed from two (or more) locations at once. (It’s good to make a player worry about another location, even though they’re not actually there—it adds complexity and breadth to the game by requiring the player to be aware of more than just the immediate surroundings. The Fahrenheit game is an example. So was the original Maniac Mansion.)
Loading Sequence and Downtime. Information or the story can be revealed during loading sequences or downtime. (This helps hide delays that the gaming hardware causes.)
External Sources. You can reveal information from external sources (outside the game), such as live online from other players or mentors, on the web, through “real” phone numbers, and so on.
In many stories, there are times when the hero discovers that whatever he thought was true was not, or the situation dramatically changes. The line, “Luke, I am your father,” from Star Wars comes to mind.
Often plot twists are major zingers that happen at the end of a story, such as in the movies. The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense are both examples of this. Other times, plot twists can be major events that weren’t foreseen, but which dramatically change the events that follow and, presumably, the protagonists’ actions. Suppose you didn’t know the story of the Titanic. Talk about plot twists. The rich and successful are on the ultimate luxury cruise when it all turns to disaster. There must be a story in there somewhere....
Plot twists can happen at various points in a story. The term “the plot thickens” usually refers to a moment when something new has been added to the story, making the situation more complex. This often involves a revelation or discovery that significantly alters the course the protagonists must take. A good example is in The Maltese Falcon, when the ship’s captain delivers the “black bird” to Sam Spade’s office, putting him suddenly in possession of the item everybody’s after.
In games, plot twists are common. There are many opportunities within a game to provide information or situations that will alter the course of the game and, consequently, the direction the player must go in order to succeed. It’s not uncommon to be playing a game and think you are very close to the ending, only to discover that a whole new set of tasks is required before you reach that point. These tasks often come after you discover some new information about the nature of the final threat or the solution to the big puzzle you face.
Note that plot twists, in the game sense, can be major shifts of the story or of the player’s circumstances, or they can be minor temporary situations that simply require the player to adjust to circumstances. For instance, you step through a teleporter, and suddenly you find out that your squad members were actually enemies all along—they were just trying to get you through the portal, and now they are revealed. Unexpected? Yes. So what do you do? Assuming you somehow survive this encounter, the twisty part is over. The game has not substantially changed. This was a temporary change of circumstances. However, if you were to discover that the agency for whom you have been working actually represents the evil you thought you were fighting (as in Deus Ex), the twist substantially changes the rest of the game. Your goals just completely changed, thanks to the twist.
Some common examples are detailed in the following list. See also Chapter 11, “Scenarios.”
The enemy is really an ally.
An ally is really an enemy.
It’s all a dream.
Bad to worse: You think you’ve solved a situation or overcome an obstacle, only to find that the situation is far worse than before.
Breakdowns: Everything you need to succeed fails, either by nature or by intent.
The enemy has discovered your plans (maybe even a long time ago, you now find out).
The enemy takes a key hostage that changes everything, including your goals.
Your (secret) identity has been discovered.
Something happened just as planned, but it’s too late.
An event causes the schedule to change (usually for the worse). For example, there’s a runaway train, and everyone is worried about when it will reach the end of the line. Then a bridge is destroyed, leaving only 10 minutes to disaster and increasing the time urgency considerably.
Your senses, intelligence, perception, or super powers have failed you.
Somehow the information you counted on did not arrive.
You have received information and possibly already acted on it, but it turns out to be incorrect or false.
The wrong characters fall in love; for example, A loves B, who loves C. C hates A, and B doesn’t even know A is interested.
The options change, and some of the new options are very challenging.
What you were fighting for just changed. (Generally, now it will be much more important.) For example, perhaps you were saving your family, and now you are saving the world as we know it.
What you were sure of, you are now not at all sure of.
You told someone what you thought they needed to know, but they interpreted it very differently and took action you hadn’t anticipated as a result.
A new person enters the story and becomes a rival.
The hero is given no choice but to do what he would never do.
Someone new enters the story and becomes an unanticipated asset—you have new options as a result.
Your element-of-surprise advantage is suddenly blown.
Someone key dies in a freak accident.
The proof you needed is gone forever—or worse still, it now incriminates you!
You find out that to get something to work will require a string of things done correctly, or in perfect sync, or you will need to cooperate with your enemy.
Nobody trusts anyone else, nobody knows who to believe, and nobody knows who to rely on.
Uncertainty takes control.
Someone uninvited shows up.
Your plans start to fail, or maybe all of them fail at the same time.
A new person has new information, outlook, or perspective.
Someone leaves, dies, or quits who you were desperately counting on.
Someone defects at the wrong moment, or you discover that someone is a mole or traitor.
A character faces his worst nightmare.
You meet someone unexpectedly who can help you, offer you something you need, or maybe even steal something from you that was crucial.
There’s a set time schedule triggered before disaster, and you are at its mercy.
Many games involve a straightforward approach: Anything that moves is bad; shoot it! The story, if there is one, involves no complexity or ambiguity. The hero is in the right, and that’s all you need to know. However, some games have attempted to create situations that present players with difficult choices—moral, ethical, or logical dilemmas.
A dilemma is essentially a choice of actions, each of which has undesirable or imperfect consequences. For instance, the choice of whether to get burned from a fire (when escaping a building through a corridor that’s on fire) or to burn to death is not really a dilemma, because the first solution is clearly good from the chooser’s point of view, and the second choice is clearly bad. There’s no ambiguity and no difficulty in making the choice. But suppose the choice were to be almost burned alive, endure horrific pain for months, and live the rest of your life disfigured and grotesque to save five of your friends, or to endure minor burns but only save three of your friends. For some, this might be a somewhat more difficult decision to make, because neither choice is perfectly desirable. A related dilemma would be a situation in which you had to choose who to save from the fire (assuming you could only save one person or thing): your wife, your baby, your father or mother, your dog or cat, or your computer. You would have to consider a rationale for your actions, given that only one could be saved. So, to be a dilemma, a situation must have two or more choices, each of which results in imperfect or undesirable consequences—often the lesser of two (or more) evils.
Dilemmas make great scenes for games and movies because different gamers will have very different responses to such situations. (Some will care about only themselves; some will care about everyone but themselves.)
In traditional game theory, one of the classic dilemmas is known popularly as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. I thought it worth mentioning here as a model. Much has been written about the Prisoner’s Dilemma, but here’s my version: Two accomplices have been arrested and placed in separate cells. The prosecutor visits each one separately and tells him that he has two choices. He can confess and plea bargain or he can remain silent. However, his fate is tied to the choice his accomplice makes as well. If one prisoner confesses and the other remains silent, then the first one will go free, and the one who remains silent will get the maximum sentence based on the testimony of the one who confesses. If they both confess, they will both be found guilty, but they will get lighter sentences. If they both remain silent, they will be convicted on a lesser charge.
Look at it from the prisoners’ perspective. If they are both silent, they are taking a cooperative approach, and they each get the minimum sentence. However, if either of them confesses and plea bargains, it can be seen as a betrayal of the other—a defection.
Clearly, the best solution from an individual’s point of view is to confess (defect), but only if the accomplice remains silent (cooperates). The next best solution (from the individual’s point of view) is for both to remain silent and take the lesser rap. If they both confess, they get the middle result. This can be seen numerically by assigning values to each option—in this case, how many years the prison sentences would be.
Results (Prisoner 1, Prisoner 2) | ||
|---|---|---|
Prisoner 2 | ||
Prisoner 1 | Cooperate | Defect |
Cooperate | 1,1 | 10,0 |
Defect | 0,10 | 5,5 |
It is clear that the best result Prisoner 1 could get would be if he confesses (defects) and Prisoner 2 remains silent (cooperates) (0,10). If both remain silent (cooperate), they each suffer (1,1). Again, the best overall solution would be for both to remain silent. Both confessing/defecting results in each of them getting a medium result (5,5)—not the best result either of them could have obtained. The question is, does each one trust the other to do the most rational thing?
Assuming that each prisoner is only out for himself and wants to get the minimum sentence, there is considerable reward for betraying the other, but the risk is great as well. Do you go for the big payoff or do you assume the other prisoner will stay silent and each of you will get off lightly? The safest move is to confess—you can win big, and at worst you lose less—but the best outcome comes when both remain silent (cooperate).
What would you do? Obviously, the most likely result is to betray the other by defecting since you have to assume the other guy is going to try to get his best result as well. How can you trust the other guy to stay silent when he can get off all together by betraying you? So, even though the “best” result involves cooperation, in a pure situation where each prisoner is out for himself, it is unlikely that both will choose cooperation.
This model has applications both in real life and in games. Real-life examples of the Prisoner’s Dilemma occur in a variety of settings. One example is the arms race that can occur between two rival countries. Do they divert their assets to build a larger military or do they negotiate a disarmament treaty? If one builds up and the other does not, it tips the scales in favor of the one that builds up. If they both build up, they both lose because they have to divert their resources into the military instead of, say, domestic reinvestment. If they both disarm, both come out ahead, which would seem to be the most beneficial choice. In fact, usually the “rational” choice these countries would take is to build up—the price of trusting the other to disarm is too great, so rarely does this situation result in the “best” solution.
Another example occurs during road races, where the leaders may pull ahead of the pack. If two runners or cyclists, for instance, are leading, they can help each other by taking turns in the lead, where the one in front works harder to break the force of the wind, and the one behind gets to “draft” on the frontrunner and therefore not work as hard. In a cooperative strategy, they take turns drafting and leading, allowing both the opportunity to finish at least first and second, barring any unexpected racers overtaking them both. If they don’t cooperate and one consistently takes the lead, the other one has a big advantage. If they run side by side and don’t help each other, neither gains any advantage—and in fact they may lose ground to the pack and both tire before the end.
Take another example. A boy and a girl are on a date. They both hope the date goes well and that they can deepen their relationship. So they both have a stake in the outcome. If the boy pays for the meal, the girl will invite him up to her apartment after the date. If they go dutch, then she will kiss him goodnight at the door and possibly accept another date. If she pays, then she will say goodnight at the restaurant and there will be no kiss, no next date. In this case, there is mutual benefit if the boy pays—they both get a nice result. If they go dutch, then the benefit is less, but it’s still better than if she pays, when nobody gains anything—and in fact they lose an opportunity to find what they are seeking.
Later work on the Prisoner’s Dilemma involves iterative situations in which the participants made Prisoner’s Dilemma–like decisions sequentially, with an evaluation of the results in between. This tests whether participants in such a situation can learn to adapt and find the “best” strategy in which both win the most points. If both sides cooperate in each of (typically) 10 turns, they mutually get the most points possible. If one defects and the other cooperates, then the defecting group gets the most points, and the cooperating group gets none. If both defect, they get the medium result. So it would look something like this:
Results (Group A, Group B) | ||
|---|---|---|
Group B | ||
Group A | Cooperate | Defect |
Cooperate | 3,3 | 5,0 |
Defect | 0,5 | 1,1 |
In practice, many people go for the most points their side can get by defecting every time. If they do that, ultimately the other side will defect, too, even if they are tempted to cooperate. It turns out that the best strategies for obtaining the optimal solution involve being cooperative on the first move, then doing a “tit for tat” response to the other side’s move. If they cooperate, the first side continues to cooperate. If they defect, then the first side will defect, although improved models suggest occasional “forgiveness” moves, in which the first group will meet a defection with another cooperation, just in case the other side gets the message.
A practical example of this iterative model can be seen with the racers who cooperate. It always takes one of them to cooperate first, but if the other reciprocates on the next “turn,” then cooperation can become the standard. But if the second racer resists the other’s attempt to give up the lead, then the defection can lead to a breakdown of the cooperative attitude of that first runner, who will then become competitive.
In games, the Prisoner’s Dilemma can be used effectively to examine some of the choices available to a player. For instance, suppose when you meet an enemy, you can draw your weapon and try to kill him. Presumably the enemy will do the same. This is the usual encounter with an enemy, and one that is consistent with the likely outcome of a Prisoner’s Dilemma. But suppose in the game either party could offer to join up by approaching unarmed. Here’s the dilemma: If one of you approaches unarmed and the other does not, you are at a distinct disadvantage. If both approach unarmed, you can join forces and be stronger together than you were individually. However, you can still take the normal approach and fight it out, but there is at least the risk of injury or death in the encounter.
Here’s an example of an iterative dilemma in a game: Suppose you and your enemy each hold 10 hostages, and you begin 10 rounds of negotiation with the enemy. At the end of the 10 rounds, the negotiations will be terminated. In each “turn” you can either release a hostage or not release a hostage. Your goal is to get your hostages to safety and to release as few of the hostages you have as possible. Again, as in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, there are better and worse outcomes. If you both release a hostage, you have at least saved one of your people and so has your adversary. If neither releases a hostage, nothing changes, but at least one hostage will remain in captivity at the end of the negotiations. If one releases a hostage and the other does not, of course the side that did not gains, in terms of the exchange, by receiving a hostage but not releasing one.
In this example, the best result you can gain (if saving your hostages is most important to you) is a complete one-to-one exchange of hostages. However, by occasional defections (meaning you don’t release any hostages, but the enemy does) you can have a net gain.
This example shows the beauty of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. It’s clear that mutual distrust would result in no prisoners being exchanged. It’s also clear that total trust would result in a complete exchange of prisoners, perhaps the best overall result. But putting yourself in the place of one of these sides, you will be tempted to “cheat” and gain an advantage. It isn’t really all that satisfactory to lose all your hostages, even if you do gain all of the enemy’s hostages. Players in this scenario would attempt to cheat at least some of the time. In this case, each time you release no hostages, you ensure that at least one prisoner remains a prisoner. If you defect and the enemy defects, two prisoners remain in captivity. Under these circumstances, it’s possible that no hostages will be released, and if the trust is betrayed once, it’s likely that it won’t be regained and no more hostages will be released.
One strategy in this scenario would be to establish cooperation until the last move, then defect. The worst that could happen is that you both defect. But suppose the last hostage was the most important. That might change the situation. Perhaps you needed to establish trust with the first nine, because the last one was critical. How does that change your approach? Can you risk betrayal earlier? Would you really release the last hostage, knowing that the other side has nothing to lose by not releasing theirs?
Of course, using the Prisoner’s Dilemma as a model is only the start. You can create all kinds of dilemmas in games, and you can modify and alter the parameters—even of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, which is, after all, only a model. There are other variants, such as the Chicken model (named after the game of driving cars toward each other and trying to make the other one swerve or back down). In this model, the consequences of both defecting are severe—a head-on collision. So the stakes are far higher in the lose/lose scenario. In this case, there is still a bigger reward if you “defect” and the other does not—meaning he swerves first. But the risk of waiting for the other to swerve first is far greater than the equivalent risk in a Prisoner’s Dilemma scenario, in which mutual defection is bad, but not so much worse. In this case, it’s a matter of weight and degree.
The Chicken Model | ||
|---|---|---|
Group B | ||
Group A | Cooperate | Defect |
Cooperate | 5,5 | 1,10 |
Defect | 10,1 | −10,−10 |
Another variant is called an Assurance Game, in which cooperation is rewarded far more than defection. In this case, the matrix would look like this:
Assurance Game Model | ||
|---|---|---|
Group B | ||
Group A | Cooperate | Defect |
Cooperate | 10,10 | 1,5 |
Defect | 5,1 | 3,3 |
In this type of game, cooperation is clearly the best choice, and the motivation to defect is considerably reduced. The best outcome, by far, involves mutual cooperation.
Still another type of dilemma that is quite applicable to games is called the Tragedy of the Commons, which involves the shared use of resources with limited renewal rates. For instance, if all loggers can cut wood from the forest equally, then each logger can gain individually by cutting the trees and selling the wood. However, without restraint the forest will be decimated if trees are cut faster than they can renew, and ultimately nobody will be able to log—there will be no more trees. With cooperation, the loggers could work together to ensure that they logged in a sustainable manner, thus maintaining a consistent flow of logs and income. However, without cooperation, each individual logger will cut as much as he can until ultimately there’s nothing left.
The dilemma in the Tragedy of the Commons example is similar to that of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in that cooperation provides a better result overall, but defection (in the case of cutting trees only for individual gain) results in a good result for the defector (at least at first) and a bad result for the group overall. The difference here is that the bad result ultimately catches up even with the defector, and the Tragedy of the Commons is generally applied to groups of more than two, in contrast to the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
There are lots of ways to explore game theory and lots of nuances to explore. However, it isn’t my goal to get bogged down in pure theory. Often, when you are designing puzzles and scenarios in games, you will be operating more instinctively. You won’t likely stop and say, “I’m going to design a Prisoner’s Dilemma or a Chicken model here.” You may in fact be doing just that, but only because it’s good game design and makes the game more fun. Even so, knowledge of some of the aspects of classical game theory can be helpful and can allow you to recognize patterns and opportunities when you are creating your own masterpieces.
You can also have a lot of fun with this when deciding how prizes (or the spoils of war) will be split amongst a group, by letting them decide.
Types of dilemmas include logical, moral and ethical, and emotional dilemmas, all of which are covered in the following subsections.
Logical dilemmas are probably the most common in games. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is largely a logical one (with possible moral, ethical, and emotional elements, depending on how it’s set up—suppose the other prisoner is your brother...), but there are others, some quite simple. For instance, do you take the low road or do you take the high road? Do you cut the green wire or the red one? Do you save the priest, the artist, or the political leader? Do you kill the strongest enemy first or the weakest?
Most game puzzles involve logical choices, but in order to be a dilemma, there must be specific consequences to each choice. And there is a noticeable risk/reward factor in operation. A fairly common example might be the Lady and the Tiger dilemma. Behind one door is a beautiful woman. Behind the other is a vicious man-eating tiger. The consequences of your choice matter considerably. Of course, to be a logical choice and not just a random one, the person deciding must have some way to guess which door is which based on previous elements of the story or game.
Here’s another example: Suppose you have a puzzle to open a door by adjusting a series of levers. If nothing happens when you try a wrong choice, it is a still puzzle—to find the right configuration—but it isn’t a dilemma. If, on the other hand, certain configurations would result in someone important to you being killed or your party being bombarded by machine-gun fire, then it becomes more of a dilemma. Do you risk the wrong action? Do you find a way to neutralize the threat first? Do you seek out more clues to the proper configuration so you don’t risk suffering the unfortunate consequences of choosing incorrectly?
It shouldn’t be difficult to think of some logical dilemmas you can use in your games. But think in terms of interesting consequences resulting from different outcomes and different strategies and approaches to the dilemma. Think of every possible choice a player might make.
You capture an enemy agent. Should you kill him outright and lose any possibility that he has useful information or could be used as a hostage? Or do you keep him alive, hoping to get something useful out of him, but risk his escape—or worse, that he has a way of attacking you or revealing your position to the enemy?
There’s something you want, but the risk of getting it is very high. For instance, there’s a dandy sword at the end of a long tunnel. Obtaining the sword will make your character much more powerful in the future, but getting to it you risk death. Or even worse, perhaps you risk losing the weapons you currently have, which would mean even if you tried for the sword again, you would be far weaker than the first time, and the rest of the game would become substantially harder.
You can embed a sacred stone in your sword to improve it, but there’s a 50-percent chance you will destroy the sword during the process (and all previous stones you embedded). Every stone you add (to keep improving it) puts everything before in jeopardy.
There is a book on a desk that contains the names and locations of all the enemy agents. However, if you take it, the risk is that the enemy will quickly notice its absence and will implement all its security measures. You may not be able to escape with the book, and once it is discovered that the book is missing, all the enemy agents will quickly be alerted. Additionally, if you are caught, some of your allies will be implicated and hunted down by the enemy. In a situation like this, of course, you want to give the player options that allow him to minimize the risk of discovery, such as substituting a false replica of the book, copying the contents without actually taking the book, or somehow disposing of the person who might discover its absence. However, once you successfully minimize the risk, this is no longer a dilemma.
Morality involves our beliefs about right and wrong. In its purest form, morality is a universal belief. For instance, most cultures believe it is wrong to kill (at least one of your own tribe). However, in practice, morality is subjective and based on cultural norms. So morality is to a great extent determined by the individual or the culture to which the individual belongs.
In games, this presents interesting opportunities. For instance, in classic Dungeons & Dragons, there are Good and Evil characters, plus characters who are nuanced versions of these. Thus, a Good character is expected to behave according to certain models of morality, while an Evil character would behave differently. And, of course, Good characters and Evil characters are like oil and water; they don’t mix well.
But even in games without such formal descriptions and categories, there are implied morals (and ethics, which involve proper behavior based on moral values). So, for instance, playing the character in Grand Theft Auto is different from playing a character in Dark Age of Camelot. Playing a Jedi Knight in a Star Wars game is different from playing a Dark Jedi or the lead character in Devil May Cry. Why? Because the implied morality of the characters is different, and therefore the acceptable actions they can take are different.
Knowing the presumed morality of the main character in a game is still somewhat different from knowing the morality of the player. Some players cannot justify doing evil acts. For instance, in Fable, many players can only play according to a more or less Good alignment. But some players really enjoy playing the Evil way. Because in Fable you have a choice of what kinds of actions you want to take—good or evil—the game is full of moral dilemmas, the consequences of which help determine whether you are on a good path or an evil one. Ultimately, moral dilemmas add to the emotional impact of a game. If a moral dilemma is well established, the player should really have to consider the consequences of each choice, and there should be real consequences!
Often, the question asked is whether you violate your moral code for the greater good or for personal gain? For instance:
Do you open the door that leads to the treasure, but that also unleashes a terrible demon upon the world?
Do you travel back in time and kill the kindest person in the world, knowing that if you do not, the person will make a terrible mistake in the future and cause untold multitudes to suffer?
Do you allow a man’s daughter to be taken away to slavery and torture in order to gain the enemy’s trust so you can ultimately defeat him?
From a burning building, do you save a baby, a beautiful woman you desire, or an old man who may hold the key to world peace?
Do you put a dam on the river to provide power to thousands of homes, even though it will starve out several small communities that depend on the river?
Do you steal a man’s most prized possession, believing that it is an important weapon against the evil that is coming?
All of these are examples of moral/ethical dilemmas, but these are only a few to inspire you to consider how these kinds of dilemmas can create great game situations.
Although to some extent all dilemmas involve emotional responses, some dilemmas rely almost entirely on the emotional response of the player to a situation. For instance, if faced with a choice of killing a cute little puppy dog or a grotesque half-worm/half-centipede creature, which would you choose? But what if the grotesque creature was really a highly intelligent being, critical to the survival of the universe, and the puppy was just little Billy’s pet? What if the dog were really an evil mastermind bent on the destruction of all you hold dear, and the worm creature was, well, just little Billy’s pet? Or, as another example, do you stay behind to save your mother/daughter/sister/brother/father, or do you run because there’s a chance you can reach the commander in charge of the army and warn him in time to prevent a disaster? What makes it a hard emotional dilemma is that there is an immediately obtainable and desirable choice and a different, possibly even more desirable, choice—but one that is not at all certain and requires abandoning the immediate and strongly personal option. Emotionally, can you ever compare saving thousands of strangers to saving one loved one?
Similar dilemmas might involve choosing between a beautiful, innocent-looking young woman who acts shy and dependent or a gnarled old crone who speaks her mind and is rude and excessively direct. The first instinct in each case is to protect the one who seems most attractive and most innocent or helpless. Providing clues to the player about the true nature of the situation—perhaps those who appear innocent and helpless are really the most evil and dangerous—the player must go against the emotional response in order to find the best solution.
Other emotional dilemmas may involve sacrificing loved ones, giving up a prized possession, or even betraying a friend. In each of these cases and many more, the decisions that must be made also risk strong emotional responses. For instance, suppose you spent a good part of a game in a courtship with a beautiful companion, someone your character (and also you, as a player) came to see as a potential, albeit virtual, partner and a love interest. Then suppose the companion contracted a deadly and virulent disease. If you leave your companion infected, the disease will ultimately kill not only you, but millions of other victims. You must destroy the disease, and there is no known cure. You can risk seeking a cure, but in the time it takes to find one, the disease might have spread or it might kill your companion anyway. Perhaps the safest solution is to burn the victim and the disease with her. But how hard will that be when you have formed such an attachment with this character, and you have already foreseen a future with her? In real life, this would be tragic. In a game, perhaps it’s not so tragic, but certainly it would have some emotion tied to it if the connection between the characters was well established. A great example of this might be found in the game BioShock.
Likewise, suppose you completed a series of difficult quests in order to earn a certain item—say an über-weapon. Then, at a certain point in your game, that weapon—yes, that one—suddenly is needed by another character, or it must be sacrificed in order to beat back a powerful enemy. In any case, some noble cause requires you to relinquish your hard-earned, precious weapon. It would be the equivalent of asking Gollum to toss the One Ring into the fires of Mordor—painful. But what if you could, just maybe, save the day by the strength of that weapon, so that instead of sacrificing it, you would wield it for the common good? Risky, perhaps, but worth a try? One way is a sure thing; the other is risky, but you keep your weapon. Another dilemma.
So make sure to put the characters or the player in positions where they have really tough decisions. It’s a good story trick to make some situations in your game really memorable.
In any story or any game, one of the main goals is to keep the player’s interest and to keep the experience progressing. One way to examine this is to break the experience into definable timelines. Think of them as the intensity level or amplitude of a particular aspect of the overall experience measured over time. There will be times of lower intensity and times when the intensity spikes. Think of it as a rollercoaster track viewed from the site. You don’t want things to lull for long periods of time.
Not all games will have all the timelines mentioned in the following sections. Some will have more exploration/discovery than others, and some will be mostly about the action timeline. However, thinking about timelines can also get you thinking about ways to add more depth and range to a game. If your game has only an action timeline, think about putting some surprise in it. If it has mostly a discovery timeline, perhaps it could use some action.
The following sections cover some possible timelines to track. (See also Chapter 28, “Controlling Pacing.”)
Although initially players must learn the mechanics and rules of a game, the learning line is more about how players will discover new information within the game’s story or universe. Many games are structured like mysteries in which players must search and uncover clues that ultimately reveal the truth. In such games, the learning line must keep players’ attention by steadily rewarding their efforts and occasionally offering an especially significant piece of the puzzle, causing the learning line to spike.
Even in games that are less dependent on mystery and puzzles, players are always learning by meeting new challenges. For instance, even in a shooter where there may be little or no storyline, the introduction of new enemies, new weapons, and new battlefields provides opportunities for players to learn, which invigorates the learning line.
So just start drawing a staircase. Getting three steps up is when you learn something new. Getting one step down is when you don’t learn something new. (You can modify that ratio based on how many features are appropriate for your game.) The trick is to be on the lookout for long periods of learning nothing, so you can see whether you can stop that from happening.
Games commonly depend on action as their primary component, yet within the action timeline, there is room for peaks and valleys—times of intensity, followed by times of even more intensity, followed by times of rest and recovery. In games where there is a lot of discovery and dialogue, looking at the action line may be important to keep the game exciting.
Games often include a main action line for the game as a whole, but separate action lines for the individual incidences along the way. How do you add action? You just make things go wrong. Flip comfort into chaos. What was predictable is now unpredictable. What was expected failed somewhat or went entirely wrong. Maybe the enemy takes a major stride forward. Just try to put the gamer into a new situation in which his adrenaline will pick back up.
In addition to the peaks and valleys of information and action, it is very useful to include surprises—times to really wake up players and provide extra stimulation. This is often done by using twists (see the “Plot Twists” section earlier in this chapter); by introducing new elements or new enemies, or new information from NPCs; or by shifting the rules a little to force players to leave the familiar and readjust their techniques and/or expectations. For example, perhaps they get used to a weapon and then something eats it, or the cave characters have been walking through has many monsters buried beneath their feet, which now decide to pop up and say hi.
One way a game can seem fresh or can turn stale is if players feel free or confined, respectively. So, in many games, the rate at which new territories or new areas are uncovered is an important timeline. You want players to get the most out of any area, but periodically expanding the available game space and/or opening up new aspects of existing ones is important. Frankly, it feels good to keep changing the environment, so you don’t just play in tight corridors for hours on end. So try to give the feeling of wide-open spaces and contrast that with really tight spaces—again, it will play with their experience. You can do the same with other perspective changes, such as with height—for example, going from underground (or underwater), to on the ground, to in the air, to very high up.
The emotion timeline in games runs the gamut from laughter to fear, from curiosity to anger. In some games, there may also be a buildup of emotional attachment to characters. Depending on how you design and plan a game, you may be able to access a wide range of human emotions. Even in a relatively simple game, you know that players will have emotional responses to certain events within the game. It may simply be increased excitement at the prospect of a huge battle or anticipation as they approach some dangerous intersection. It may also involve cursing the developers for making something too hard or for implementing rules that the player doesn’t like, but these reactions are not part of our focus, however valid they may be in many game players’ experiences. In any case, emotion plays an important part in games, as we identify with our player character and focus on winning. Considering that emotion and tracking it in a timeline can help you see where your game needs more work or where it is working perfectly.
Frustration tracking is when you think about what negative feelings a gamer is having, and you attempt to track it. For example, if finding a way out of a space is tough, but 60 percent of people find the exit pretty quickly, what about the poor 40 percent who are stuck and frustrated? Should you make the problem really simple, so 100 percent of the people sail through? The goal is to understand where people might get frustrated and only help them when needed.
There’s a trick people are now using in game testing to try to work this out. You have someone play a level, then digitally start drawing a graph. If the gamer hits a button, he is signaling that he is frustrated; the more he hits the button, the more frustrated he feels right then. You can track this info with the gamer’s exact location and start to get a feeling where your players are suffering. Again, the trick is to look at the graph and put in automatic sensing support to wipe out the high-frustration spikes. Unlike the other timelines, the frustration timeline should be reasonably flat. Some players tolerate and even enjoy a little frustration, while others get quickly discouraged. Your game design should deal with each player as an individual, helping him just when he needs it, in the areas where frustration is likely to happen.
One hook on which you can hang your game is cultural relevance. Start by looking at what’s going on in the world at the time you plan to ship. Suppose you notice that the 100-year anniversary of flight is coming up. Can you make a game that commemorates that event and ties into its publicity? Or, if you’re making a game of political commentary, does it tie into a certain war? Or maybe the Olympics are coming.... Comedians, advertising companies, and movie writers all study what’s going on in the world and also what is happening in homes and on the streets. This is where “fresh” ideas often come from. For instance, I just read about new Israeli defense weapons. They look like hightech rifles that bend in the middle so their LCD displays can allow you to aim and fire around corners. Simple innovations like these can immediately be carried into the game world. I first saw the weapon described a few years ago, and it was recently used in the movie Wanted. I haven’t seen it in a video game yet, but what a cool concept!
One of the biggest surprises to game makers is when they make a game that doesn’t have current relevance—for instance, a game about swashbuckling pirates, which has had its moments, but lately has not been very popular—and then they wonder why it’s not a giant hit. They need to look at who’s buying the games. These young guys, steered heavily by peer pressure, just don’t want to be seen with the pirate game in their hands, even if they secretly want it. Be aware of that concern—it’s not only very real, but it’s getting worse every year. Watching the evolution of the Prince of Persia games is a good example, as they have adjusted to player expectations.
So where do you look for relevant information? How do you keep abreast of the trends, the interests of people, and the specific inspirations that would lead to better, more successful, and more culturally relevant games?
You can start with popular culture and go from there:
Movies. What’s been hot over the last few years? What generates a lot of press/discussion?
Music. What’s hot, what’s controversial, what’s edgy, and what’s not?
Videos. Any new “looks” or rendering styles? (The Stash DVD series is great inspiration for new looks.)
Television. What new camera effects, lighting, or angles are people using? How are top-rated shows presented? What’s new on VH1 or MTV? What kind of comedy works best these days?
Radio. What is the mix that makes the most popular shows? What do they talk about?
Books. What are some very popular books and novels?
Newspapers. What headlines (mashed up) can lead to entirely new ideas?
Major Trend, Technology, or Design Magazines. What’s in T3, for example? How about Popular Science, Discover, or even Popular Mechanics?
Teen Magazines. What’s being covered in teen magazines?
Subject-Specific, Culturally Relevant Magazines and Websites. What do you find in magazines or on websites about such topics as skateboarding or music?
Internet. What’s hot on MySpace, Facebook, blogs, and so on?
Politics. Isn’t there always lots of good villain material here?
World News. What’s going on in the world around you?
Other Edgy Games. What’s hot in other games right now?
If you’re really doing your job, you want to get into the trenches. Talk to people from different groups, particularly those who are likely to buy the games you are going to make. Don’t take what they say too literally; read between the lines. People will tell you all kinds of stuff. You need to interpret what they say into what will make a game that they will look forward to and will be happy to play with their friends.
Multi-session storytelling is a major concern for game developers today. Unlike movies, which we generally watch in one sitting, or TV, which we watch in discrete segments, game players often play one game over many sessions. Some players even play more than one game during the same period of time, going back and forth between them. These issues are especially true of games that take from 20 to 60 hours to play—or even more! It’s pretty unrealistic to devote that much time at one session. Add to that the growing popularity of persistent world games online, and you have people moving back and forth, interrupting gameplay regularly and then randomly returning to the story environments. How can they be expected to remember all that was going on when 95 percent of games make no attempt to help people catch up where they left off?
This problem has been compounded by the use of mobile phones and handhelds for games, when the session times can be as short as waiting in the line at the local coffee shop. So how can players keep track?
The solution is to make smarter games. Here are a few ideas, some perhaps new and others already in use in some games. No doubt you can think of a few more:
A smart game can look at the save date or track the dates of play sessions and think, “This dude has not played me for 18 weeks!”
Create reminder systems to help players keep on track, including quest log descriptions and progress indicators, maps, review movies or journals, NPC dialogue, and so on.
The game can auto-monitor your continuation rate and maybe gently ease back on difficulty as you get the controls down again. (Imagine saving in a really tough area, coming back seven days later, and being rusty—now that area is twice as tough! That’s not good.)
Have the game welcome the player back, fill him in, and remind him what he was up to.
The in-game characters can add extra feedback based on things you might have forgotten.
The game could use frustration tracking. (See the “Frustration Tracking” section earlier in this chapter.) For example, maybe the player keeps trying to open a locked door, then walks around and tries the same door yet again. The game might think, “You probably forgot you need the key.”
The game could use easy-to-cancel helper systems to remind the player of the control mechanisms. (For example, if the player keeps trying to fire without reloading, it reminds him how to reload.)
The game could provide a map to show the player where he is in relation to his goal (just in case he forgot the lay of the land).
The game could use snapshots of the milestones passed so far, so the player can be reminded of the cool stuff that’s happened and can get back into the context of everything.
The game could use a quick movie to show the story so far. It would work like the little synopsis you get sometimes with TV shows, when they tell you what happened in previous episodes.
This section is about secrets and how they function in game designs. I’m not referring to the meta-game aspect where players may reveal secrets to each other outside the game sessions (or even within a session in a multiplayer game). What I’m referring to is the way a game designer keeps information from the player until it is needed or until it is most effective—or even keeps it entirely from the player if it is something that never needs to be revealed or that must be discovered through intuition instead of by explicit means.
Alternatively, this section might have been titled, “Information: When to Reveal It and When to Withhold It,” but I like “Keeping Secrets” more. Why? Because as a game designer, you are for the most part and in most games omniscient. You know the whole story and every variation. You almost always know what will happen when the player does x or y. And it is through the game structures that you reveal information.
Although the designer tends to know everything, it is not desirable for the player to have equal knowledge. Players want to discover, to explore, and to experiment. They want to engage in a mystery. So in keeping secrets, designers can foster that game experience.
How do you keep secrets? You can reveal information:
By the use of clues.
When the person you were keeping the secret for is now dead.
When the person keeping the secret is threatened.
When a friend or lover is threatened.
When the player has met some preordained obligation or challenge.
When the player has satisfied certain tasks.
When the player has shown mastery according to certain conditions.
When the player has discovered certain objects or methods that give him the power to reveal the secret.
When the player has constructed a specific object, device, or machine that reveals secrets and so on.
By begging, “Please tell me!”
By torture.
By wanting to belong to a group, thus revealing information that might aid in acceptance.
When the player desperately needs the information.
When specific elements of the plot have occurred and “the reveal” happens.
When a specific amount of game time has elapsed.
When the player gets to a certain location where the answer is waiting.
When the player learns to decipher a code.
When a player triggers a specific event.
Or perhaps the information was always available, but the player must understand the message or notice the source of information.
Mystery is getting pretty critical in storytelling these days. You should watch the speech by J.J. Abrams (on the mystery box) at TED.com. He created hit shows such as Lost, which always contains a lot of mystery and questions for the audience. Gaming is the same. It’s commonly more fun not to know the answer, but to discuss it with your friends and think a lot about it. Gamers have great imaginations, so let them use those imaginations!
Really study mystery and always try to keep questions in the player’s mind; try to anticipate their predictions and play with that knowledge. This also allows you to create meta-mysteries, which are not just simple things players don’t understand. They may confuse everyone (including non-linked people in the story). Some meta-mysteries are revealed so slowly that they last years, meaning multiple sequels! They actually tie the sequels together and keep the gamers wanting answers.
More options may be found in Chapter 30, “Ways to Communicate with the Player.”
Often in a story, particularly a mystery, thriller, or comedy, one of the main characters will simply do the wrong thing over and over again. As an audience, you want to scream at the person and tell him what to do. It’s often a painful but suspense-building aspect of a story. Although this kind of suspense can occur in games, it’s generally somewhat harder to orchestrate. One easy way is to have an NPC take the wrong action while the player knows the NPC is going the wrong way but can’t stop him. You can use this method similarly to how it’s used in movies and literature.
But there is another kind of wrong-headedness that can work in games, where the player is the main character. As such, he is no longer the outside observer, watching helplessly while the main character makes mistakes or walks heedlessly into danger. In this case, since the main character is under the player’s control, such plot-directed wrong-headedness is not an issue—at least with the main (player) character. Clearly, players as individuals may (and often will) do things in games that from the point of view of the game’s stated goals are wrong. But this is part of gameplay, experimentation, and to some degree, the natural rebelliousness of game players. Again, this may be wrong-headedness from a particular point of view, but it is perfectly acceptable game-player behavior.
What the game designer must do is anticipate when the player does something that is obviously wrong—or at least that isn’t the most sensible response to a situation. Players will often go the wrong way because they legitimately don’t know which way to go. Some will do so in order to experiment and test the limits. Still other players will understand perfectly well what the game designer intends and will purposefully do something else to see what happens. You want to reward all these people with some result—the more creative and unexpected, the better.
Although players often enjoy finding ways to outwit the game designers, they also tend to have great admiration for games that account for their most unexpected and off-the-wall actions. Players who try outlandish stunts in a game will be impressed when the game responds in such a way as to confirm that the designers had considered even those actions. “Wow. They even thought of that!” So, what the player will discover when he or she takes a wrong-headed approach can vary from reward to punishment, from opportunity to death, but it should be interesting and entertaining, and it should prove that the designers were prepared for all contingencies.
Types of results, discoveries, penalties, and/or rewards for wrong-headed actions:
Traps
Easter eggs (the term for discovering a hidden secret)
Attacks
Secret rewards
Secret places
Unexpected encounters
False or misleading clues
Clues to redirect player on course
Discovery of new quests, paths, areas, or activities
Something funny or ironic
Death, but something amusing or really brutal—a memorable death
Impassable barriers
Cool animations
Long-term consequences (for instance, you kill a shopkeeper, and there is no longer a shop in that location for the rest of the game)
Nothing at all
It’s strange that there’s an incredible drought of humor in games, but it’s kind of hard to do. Yet game reviewers love it when they get some humor...but only if it is done well.
So, if I’m a designer and I want to try to make a funny weapon, how might I do that? In the game Armed and Dangerous by Planet Moon, they take something dangerous (such as a shark) and put it somewhere you would never expect it, such as in a gun! So you have a shark-gun you can fire at enemies. Not only is it an amusing idea, it’s fun to watch the sharks eat your enemies! Frankly, it’s not just a more interesting weapon—when you get one, you can’t wait to fire it at your enemies!
Something to remember is that humor can be consumed like a meal, one mouthful at a time. Think of the TV show Friends, which is respected for being funny to a wide audience. Instead of relying on one big hilarious joke, they pepper you with a mix of humor so that very different people in the audience would all find something funny.
So what’s an easy way to add humor to a scene you’re making in your game?
Following the mantra of this book, I offer a mix of methods to get you started. To begin with, all professional comedy writers will tell you that writing humor is work. It takes discipline and effort. Most of them write lists and ideas ad nauseum to find the associations that spring forth, with the proper amount of massaging, into full-blown humor. These same professionals (or some of them, at least) say that anyone can write comedy if they will do the work and understand some of the basics.
Fundamentally, humor is based on assumptions and surprise. That’s one way of seeing it, anyway. Your audience will make assumptions based on what they see or hear. Your job is to lead them to some obvious expectation, provide just the right amount of tension as they anticipate the outcome, then surprise them with a roast turkey sandwich...er, something completely unanticipated. There are, of course, many ways to accomplish this, as you will see.
What follows is my quick-and-dirty method for putting humor into games. But first, let’s consider what kinds of humor work best in games. Is it:
Puns?
Clichés?
Sight gags?
Funny situations?
Long monologues?
If you answered anything but E, you might be correct, but certainly C and D are the most likely correct answers. As you’ll see, both puns (mostly visual) and clichés can be used as material for humor. However, most of what has been written about humor is about how to write humor. In other words, it is about the written or spoken word. Games rely far less on spoken or written material than media such as radio, movies, or TV. So, puns and clichés are a bit more difficult to incorporate in a game. However, it is not unheard of to find oral humor in games. Monkey Island is a great example of a game that thrived on humorous dialogue mixed with puzzles, but most games are more about visuals and action than they are about words. Therefore, much of the humor you are likely to put into your games is going to be in the form of sight gags or funny situations.
In some ways, this puts games (in terms of comedy) closer to the old days of silent stars, such as Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, who used sight gags and situations extensively, than to modern comedians, such as Robin Williams or Chris Rock, who rely primarily on wordplay. The physical comedy of a comedian such as Jim Carrey would translate more easily into game humor.
There are different types of humor that can work in games. As mentioned, there can be humor in dialogue, humor in situations, slapstick visual humor, and even humor in the unfolding story. Some humor is entirely in the moment and doesn’t rely all that much on anything but the immediate situation. Someone banging their head doesn’t require a lot of setup or character exploration. In the right context, it’s funny. However, a lot of humor is derived from the interactions of characters with the situations they find themselves in, and for that type of humor, it helps to understand something about the characters themselves and what can make them funny.
Another aspect of humor unique to games is that the game itself is an interactive experience. So, the shark-gun mentioned previously might be funny in a cartoon, but it’s even funnier when you can fire it yourself! The humor in this case is somewhat within the control of the player, and the player can amuse himself with this funny novelty again and again.
Although humor can be enhanced by repetition, it also wears off eventually. Something that was side-splittingly hilarious on the first or second exposure ultimately becomes a “so what?” joke if it sticks around too long. The spoilage rate on humor varies with the joke and with changes in culture over time. So the shark-gun will probably become just another gun after the tenth time you’ve fired it. It could last longer by varying the way the shark eats its targets or by introducing new enemies that add nuances to the shark’s attacks—for instance, metal enemies that cause the shark’s teeth to break with humorous animations (for example, it’s left holding its mouth, speaking funnily after attacking a robot). Or maybe there are different kinds of animals you can collect to shoot from the gun, each with different humorous effects. “Damn, I’m out of sharks! The enemy has no shirt on, so I’m going to fire the hundred angry kittens.”
At any rate, because games are interactive and the player is in control (more or less), there are new opportunities and challenges that have yet to be fully explored. This chapter, however, can provide you with some good tools and ideas for that exploration.
(See also Chapter 12, “Character Design.”)
Comedy often boils down to conflict of characters with other characters, with the world around them, or even within themselves. The heroes of games are often offbeat and different. They are perfect comic characters. Even those characters who seem outwardly normal may have the elements required for humor—with a little help. So, in order to create comedic action in a game, first consider your characters:
How do they see the world?
Is there a way to turn their view of the world into something comical? This would be a way to distinguish how they view the world from the norm. Perhaps they are very innocent and naive, or maybe neurotic, like Woody Allen in many of his roles. Take this characteristic and exaggerate it. Woody isn’t just a little neurotic in Annie Hall; he’s very neurotic. This is using exaggeration, which is one of the main tools of comedy. To be clear on that, as an example, you can make it funny when someone is scared of spiders, but you can make it even funnier (after exaggeration) if the person is absolutely petrified of spiders, so always push beyond the normal limits. Imagine this person is more scared of spiders than anyone in history. Now what?
What is the character’s greatest strength? What does he do well? What are his best character traits? For instance, maybe the character is really good at cooking and kind to children and animals. You can push those characteristics to their limits as well.
What are the character’s flaws? Perhaps he is overly optimistic or too cynical. Or too gullible. Perhaps he is a vampire and can’t be in sunlight, but he is vain, hates being so pale, and wants a nice tan. The character’s flaws can take him to places that could generate ideas.
Can you flip the character’s comfort level? If he is a vegetarian, put him in meat situations and vice versa. If the character likes slow, give him fast. Flip the situation in which he feels comfortable.
Can you turn his characteristics into something comical? For instance, if the character tends to be a little bit loud and bombastic, make him really loud—like Foghorn Leghorn, the chicken in the old cartoons. If the character is naturally shy, make him painfully shy, to the point where he tends to gravitate to the most isolated corner of every location and tries to blend into the walls. Then make him do something that pushes him into the limelight, and have him squirm and suffer through every funny interaction, with his shyness at the center of his reactions to events. If the character is very precise, make him the most anal character you’ve ever heard of. Think of The Odd Couple, where Felix is the ultimate anal retentive and Oscar is the ultimate slob.
What does the character want? What drives him? Consider that he may want something on the surface—a cushy defense industry contract or a date with a movie star—and something different on the inside—love, for instance, or self-acceptance.
By using the information about your characters—how they tend to see the world and be in it, and what they want from the world—you can create funny situations that are consistent with your characters.
This may seem like a lot of extra work. After all, what does a gun-totin’ aardvark really want, other than to mow down everything in his path? And, to be honest, not every game needs full character development. A gun-totin’ aardvark is sort of funny in itself. But then, think of ways that an aardvark can be even funnier. What does an aardvark do? Who does an aardvark love or hate? How does this aardvark see the world? If you explore your characters—all of them—more thoroughly, the opportunities for humor will naturally increase.
Almost any character can be funny. For instance, how would you make a trash compactor funny? Maybe that seems like a tall order, but Pixar did it in WALL·E. How did they do it? Watch the movie.
There’s a lot written about story structure for any type of story. That’s part of what this chapter is all about. But now let’s look at just a few of the basic types of stories that lend themselves to comedy:
Which Side of Normal? In this type of story, the hero is either a very normal guy put in a very abnormal situation (Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) or a very strange character put in a normal world (Bill Murray playing Hunter S. Thompson in Where the Buffalo Roam, Robin Williams as Mork in Mork and Mindy, or Jim Carey in almost any of his comedies).
The Incompetent Hero. The hero is a doofus, but, well, he is the hero. Think of Hong Kong Phooey or Inspector Clouseau.
Altered Perspective. The hero is otherwise normal, but something has happened to change his perspective of the world—something pretty strange and radical. Think of Tom Hanks in Big or Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
Power and Magic. This is a story in which the main character is somehow affected by a supernatural or scientific event. This can be comedy or not, but it can definitely be comedy. Examples include Jim Carrey in The Mask, Chevy Chase in Modern Problems, and so on.
Character Clash. Simply put two characters in opposition, and you have the makings of comedy. In Adam’s Rib, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play two lawyers who are also married to each other. He’s prosecuting a case against a woman who shot her husband. She’s defending the same case. It’s a perfect character clash.
There are other types of story situations that also can lend themselves to comedy. Some are not particularly applicable to games, such as ensemble comedy, which works well on week-to-week TV sitcoms (and might one day work on episodic online game sitcoms, if they ever become a reality). You can also base comedy on parody and satire—for instance, a boxing or wrestling game featuring George Bush against Osama bin Laden. Okay, taste in humor is subjective.... How about Brad Pitt against a team of camera-wielding paparazzi? Or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a married couple who are also rival assassins, as in Mr. and Mrs. Smith?
The basic comedy story structure is:
Introduce us to the world of the main character(s).
Who are the characters? Give the player a taste of their issues.
What do they want? The player gets to see something about the characters’ ostensible goals.
Some change happens in the characters’ world that presents an opportunity or a challenge.
Good things happen—the characters begin to get a handle on the new world they are in.
Bad things happen—they meet opposition or some obstacles that make the situation get much worse.
Hitting rock bottom, they reach a critical point. It’s sink or swim, live or die, succeed or fail.
The hero must make the ultimate risky choice in order to complete the adventure. It may seem to be the wrong choice, or it may seem to be one that will likely end in his ruin or even death, but it is the only right choice for that character.
The hero generally gets both his outer desire (to win the lottery and be rich, for example) and his secret inner desire, which has become clear throughout the story (to find love or self-acceptance, and so on).
Actually, this structure could be applied more or less to many stories, whether funny or not. One interesting difference with games is the fact that Steps 3 through 7 occur again and again on a micro scale. Even though there may be a major story arc to which this structure is applicable, in games there are a lot more elements of action, tension, challenge, and reward. So, when designing any story, including comedic ones, in games, it’s important to realize that you may have several stories within the main story, and that the story may even have multiple paths and different outcomes. For that reason, creating stories in games is far more complex than creating stories for linear media, and new rules may need to be created. One of several possible story arcs for a game might look like the following list of steps, although sometimes you introduce the character first and let the “situation” develop as the game progresses. Note that, given the interactive nature of games, I’m using a pseudo programming style for this outline. This could also be shown as a flowchart:
Introduce the situation. What is the key event that triggers the game?
Introduce the hero. How does the hero relate to the world and to the trigger event?
Set the hero on the path. Start the quest to resolve the situation caused by the trigger event.
Begin loop:
Offer challenge.
Player uses skill.
Player uses strategy.
Offer risk.
Give reward.
Until X (where X represents the player reaching a goal or a new milestone). This could be reaching a new location or a new character level, finding a specific item, or meeting a specific character.
Add to story (main plot quest or side quest)?
Modify plot? In other words, at this point do you add information or changes to the main storyline? Do you increase, decrease, or otherwise change the nature of the challenges the hero faces? Do you increase tension? Do you accelerate the effect of the trigger event?
If you’re not at a major milestone, then go back to 4.
Plot milestone. Here is a major event in the story where something specific must happen before gameplay continues. It could be dealing with a boss, a problem, or a major quest.
If not at the end of the game, go back to 4.
End. This is the ending of the game and the final scenes leading up to it.
Epilogue. This is the reward sequence where the outcome is revealed and the hero’s success is celebrated and rewarded.
Here’s a way to approach writing humorous content in your games: First, write down the key elements that matter to you in your scene. Now compress these elements down to just the most essential. For example, suppose you pick hero and dog and quest to be the key parts of your scene. Now, I’m not any good at comedy writing, but I will try to show how each of the systems works. You only need to use one of the methods, but I am going to attempt to use them all. (Gulp!)
So the scene is a guy (who is our Hero) with his Dog, getting ready to leave home to go on an epic quest... or at least on a camping trip.
So first I look at my key words (hero, dog, quest) and then I start to brainstorm by systematically applying the following techniques to any of the words, hoping to add humor to the scene.
Cause or use a misunderstanding. For example, the Hero says to his girlfriend on the phone, “It’s gonna be a long trip!” Overhearing them, Dog starts packing his bone, his blanket, a canister of mace, and so on. Then he overhears, “He’s not coming; he just slows me down.” Dog drops his bone, shocked. Now pissed, he poops in his owner’s suitcase. Later, the owner walks in and says, “Rover, better pack your stuff; we’ve got a long trip ahead.” The Dog is happy, but then looks to the suitcase and freezes. (Now you also have a preloaded joke for later, with the poop in the case that the audience is aware of but the Hero is not.)
Use visual comedy by making something slapstick happen. This usually works best when, due to being clumsy or stupid, someone gets hurt or inconvenienced. For example, Dog bites the guy’s sandwich, and the guy jumps to his feet and bangs his head. Reacting to the pain, he drops the remains of the sandwich, and the Dog takes off with it. Basically, you can easily do anything that plays with visual, embarrassing, or painful reactions.
Strange as it sounds, you can make use of fear to get humor. The fear can be of someone/something, or it can be fear of an idea or concept. For example, Dog is going on the quest with the Hero because he’s supposed to be a really fierce dog, but it’s dark outside, and we find out the Dog is scared of the dark! The Hero finally pushes the Dog out into the street with its knees knocking; the Dog has about 30 flashlights strapped to him. Fear is easy to create if you refer to the list of phobias in Chapter 12, “Character Design,” and sometimes it’s fun to invert them. So instead of a fear of spiders, perhaps the Dog has a fear of dead spiders—or, ironically, he thinks spiders are cute and adorable. Or instead of a rational fear of height, he’s scared of catching his paw nails in the cracks in the pavement, so he prefers to walk on the road (the reactions to that could be funny). You get the idea.
Along with fear naturally comes danger. Humor can be heightened when you raise the stakes for the character(s) involved, and there is no better way to raise the stakes than to increase the danger of the situation. In fact, the more dire the circumstances, the greater the opportunity for humor. In this instance, consider that the Dog is running at full speed and suddenly comes to a chain-link fence. He starts climbing, getting slower and more frightened, sweating; he looks down and is a full 12 inches from the ground. He looks back up and has 50 feet to go. It’s funnier because the stakes are higher and the reaction is real.
There are other ways to raise the stakes (besides danger, that is). For instance, there isn’t much tension if your Hero is risking 10 bucks on a bet, but suppose he’s risking everything he owns, which means everything the Dog owns, too. The fact that the stakes really matter makes it fun to play with the stress, and then you have the reactions and objections of the third party (Dog, in this case) to play with as well.
You can insinuate something. Tease the player that what he thinks he knows is possibly wrong—insinuate something! The Dog hints to the Hero that someone will make moves on the Hero’s girlfriend if he disappears again on another long and dangerous quest. (When truthfully, Dog really doesn’t want him to leave.) Knowing Dog is willing to go down that path—making up anything, trying to be subtle, trying to plant seeds of doubt—can be a fun way to go.
You can also consider adding some innuendo. This is the classic stuff, such as saying, “Those are nice melons,” when talking to a girl.) For innuendo, the trick is that the girl doesn’t get the joke, so you can continue down that path, laying it on: “I like to test them with a squeeze” and so on. There’s a lot of space for blue jokes (adult jokes) when you go down this innuendo path.
Use wordplay. Martha Focker was a favorite name from the movie Meet the Parents.
Use double entendre. This is simply when there are two completely different meanings to a statement. The phrase “I’m having an old friend for dinner” isn’t special until Hannibal Lecter (the serial killer who eats his victims) says it.
Sometimes it can be funny when a plan backfires. So, having set up a plan (which was to avoid something undesirable, scary, or dangerous), now cause the plan to fail. Now the characters have to face the problem head-on. For instance, Dog wants to make sure Hero takes him on the quest, so he starts telling Hero how dangerous the quest is, thinking he’ll for sure take his trusty dog then. But Hero thinks, “He’s right. It will be dangerous—too dangerous to take my trusty dog and risk his safety.” The plan backfires, and now Hero doesn’t want to take Dog. Of course, more comedy options are generated because Dog tries to come anyway.
Like the previous example, humor can result from having absolutely the worst-case scenario occur. For instance, the Hero is all packed and ready to go. The only thing he dreads is a visit from his mother. He tells the Dog, “Dog, we’re outta here. Just as long as Mom doesn’t find out, we’re golden.” Of course, just as he approaches the car, carrying all his suitcases, backpacks, kayaks, portable boom box, shortwave radio, GPS, skis, bicycle, and tennis racket (see the upcoming discussion of exaggeration), his mother walks up the driveway. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asks. Whatever the punch line, it’s funny because the player (audience) was clued in that only a visit from his mother could screw things up, and that’s what happens. I did this once with an old car we had. When I was a kid, my father told me not to drive it, but I decided to. Then I had a head-on crash with my father in his car. Think a slow-motion crash—just enough to damage the car and leave us staring at each other over crumpled metal. (In the worst-case scenario, as long as nobody is hurt, it suddenly turns funny for the audience.)
Use the technique in which only the audience knows something. Or you can call it the oblivious hero. In this, the audience/player can see what’s going to happen, but the character doesn’t. It’s like when the hero complains about someone (maybe his boss), and the audience knows that the boss is overhearing every word. As another example, it may be that another character in the scene has a different perspective. For instance, suppose Hero is walking along the street, and some guy ahead of him tosses a banana peel onto the sidewalk. Dog sees it and says, “Uh, boss...” just as Hero steps on the banana peel and does a beautifully executed pratfall. Score it 9 out of a possible 10! What might make this even funnier is to reverse the situation. Hero tries to warn Dog about the banana peel, but he’s too late. However, contrary to expectations, Dog doesn’t fall over. He’s a four-footed creature, after all. He just sort of runs in place for a moment and continues, kicking the banana peel back behind him where, of course, Hero steps on it and does his pratfall!
Exaggeration is one of the main comedic tools. If there’s a situation and you want to make it funny, exaggerate it! If you’ve got the Dog facing a vicious cat, make the cat really vicious, snarling, bug-eyed, and huge. It will be funnier that way. Or, if Hero is talking to the Dog about the dangers of the trip ahead (eight police dogs have perished so far) while Dog packs his things, exaggerate the descriptions, then exaggerate Dog’s reaction—he starts shaking and begins to unpack his baseball hats, sunscreen, and sunglasses. Now he starts to pack weapons, such as a pistol, a sword, and a cat costume.
Although exaggeration is one of the most commonly used elements in comedy, understatement can have great comic effect, especially when it’s applied inappropriately. In the previous example, where Hero is explaining the upcoming adventure, suppose it involves parachuting into the heart of a live volcano, finding a passage into the Earth, and digging through a rock wall 100 feet thick to get to a treasure chamber guarded by supernatural mummies with bad tempers. Now suppose the player knows all this, but Hero only tells Dog, “Bring your shorts. It’ll be hot where we’re going.” Or they are about to enter a building with about 4,000 enemies waiting to rip them apart. Hero says, “Hey Dog. Sharpen your teeth. You might have to break a sweat in there.”
There are two kinds of reverses. One is to reverse a situation, such as Dog talking on the phone and deciding whether he wants to take the owner with him. The other is used in jokes all the time, where you build up anticipation and assumptions and then provide the opposite result. This works in jokes like Jonathan Winters’ “I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” In a game situation, imagine a big buildup—dark music, heartbeat percussion like in Jaws, and a big, scary door. There’s gotta be a giant scary monster on the other side. Open the door and there’s...an earthworm. The lion with no courage in The Wizard of Oz is another good example, given that at first he seems to be ferocious, like we think a lion ought to be.
Every comedy writer knows the power of threes. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and so on. In a joke or comedy situation, the first instance of an idea establishes the audience’s expectation. The second reinforces that expectation. The third completely violates it. One person slaps someone else in the face, they slap back, and now you need to surprise (by not doing another slap—do something crazy instead) to achieve a triple. Suppose Dog is barking, and Hero comes over to investigate. Out of a small hole comes a mouse, followed after an appropriate pause (or beat) by another mouse, and then, squeezing itself improbably through the tiny hole, an elephant! Or a kangaroo... It’s incongruous and surprising and, presumably, funny.
Use an analogy. For example, you might compare the upcoming quest to a past event that Hero feels good about, but that strikes fear into the heart of Dog. “Dog, I know you hated losing your hair, but I’ll be more careful with the flamethrower this time.”
Give an unexpected response to a communication or situation. This does not have to be verbal. Perhaps the Hero says, “Okay, pack your stuff, Rover,” but Dog just comes over and bites him in the groin. Or if up to now Dog has been barking his responses, maybe this time he actually speaks his reply: “No way, José.”
Force instant emotion. Create a situation that will trigger an immediate and high-level emotional response. Use the characters’ responses for comedic effect. For example, the moment Dog realizes his owner is going to take another Dog on the quest instead of him—imagine the variety of reactions (jealousy is always fun) that Dog might have.
Use sarcasm. Hero is talking about how he’s going to go in there and kick ass, but Dog is shaking his head while looking to the camera. The more the guy boasts how great he is, the more Dog shakes his head, does that thing where you make it look like your hand is talking, and makes funny expressions.
Use dark humor. The player hears Dog’s thoughts. He looks like a pretty little puppy to the owner, but he reveals a twisted, dark, sarcastic side to the viewer. You can fade to hear his thoughts even over the top of his owner talking or superimpose another graphic of the true “inner” dog. Or perhaps the cute, cuddly little dog actually has a grisly appetite for human flesh, and Hero is always trying to find ways to satisfy that hunger because, in reality, Dog has power over him. This kind of humor can be seen in classics such as Arsenic and Old Lace and Little Shop of Horrors.
Use irony. Every time Dog goes on the quest, something goes wrong and he gets turned into a pig (which he hates), but this quest actually needs a pig.
Make fun of something commonly known. For example, you could make fun of Dog thinking he’s better than Lassie. Take something the audience is familiar with and feel free to make fun of it. Think about things like reality TV, Lost, Heroes, Fringe, Donald Trump saying “You’re fired,” American Idol, Survivor, Shrek, Harry Potter, “You are the weakest link,” and so on.
By the way, there are two kinds of making fun—satire and parody. The basic difference is that satire attacks specific cultural values and phenomena, whereas parody provides a funny, contrasting look at something. So you might create a satire about lawyers and their win-at-all-costs attitudes. Or you might parody Harry Potter by wearing his glasses and acting like him.
Make fun of someone’s vices. This would be like Dog knowing the owner is really anal, and him going along with it because he’s so used to it. Then Dog catches himself being anal, just like the owner. For example, maybe he’s putting his bone in the dishwasher and then making his bed when other dogs are watching through the window. Be sure to show his embarrassment at this point to emphasize and exaggerate the effect.
Remind the audience of some comedy moment earlier. This can be a repercussion—for example, Dog got sick and threw up in the kitchen. It was funny when it happened, but then later, Hero slips in it.
Use repetition. For example, perhaps Dog sneaks up and eats some of Hero’s meal, then leaves, then realizes it tastes amazing and comes back for more, over and over, even distracting Hero to make sure he gets just one more mouthful (escalating the effect). But don’t repeat repetition too often or you’ll get repetitive, and, as you can see, repetitive repetition if repeated repeatedly gets tiring. The trick is timing and making good use of each event.
Show clichés or pranks backfiring. That’s the old gag like a guy seeing a dog poop in the street, stepping around it and then walking into a tree in his distracted state. Or the old one of laying a coat over a puddle for a girl, but the puddle is six feet deep. There are tons of cliché situations that we know of (slipping on a banana peel, and so on), and they are good starting points for gags. Your job is to make them fresh. When you use a cliché—either a verbal cliché or a cliché situation—the audience is already sure they know what is going to happen. Set them up and then change the outcome. This is the basic assumption/surprise effect of a good joke. In another example, Dog comes in with his leash in his mouth, looking happy and excited. Hero is going to take him for a walk. Switch to the next scene, and it’s the dog walking the guy! (This is also a reverse.)
Use puns. Most people think of puns as perhaps the lowest form of humor, and most puns are simply wordplay without any real setup or payoff. However, in games, the most likely puns would be visual puns or puns used in the names of characters and items. For instance, a combination of a helicopter and a motorcycle might be called a rotorcycle. A very shaggy protagonist might be called Harry. Visual puns are more challenging to create. Or, imagine a creature with three spots arranged vertically along the front of its body—one red, one yellow, and one green. Its spots randomly light up one at a time, and when it stands in the road, it causes all kinds of commotion. Or imagine Road Runner spreading pancake syrup over Coyote after he’s flattened by some giant weight falling on him.
Use metamorphosis. This is when something changes on your body. For example, maybe you grew a giant zit or a giant butt overnight.
Use comments/heckles/insults. When someone makes a comment out of the blue—“You’re going up against a dragon with that stupid-looking poodle? You gotta be kidding!”—it’s usually a criticism or sarcasm. This can also be any insult, regardless of whether it’s from a main character. Insults generally get better the more over the top they become. For example, “She joined an ugly contest, and they said, ‘Sorry, no professionals.’” Or, “She’s so ugly, they filmed Gorillas in the Mist in her shower.” Or, “She’s so ugly, people wear costumes of her to Halloween parties.” The two old theater-box dudes in the Muppet Show were good at this stuff.
Use bodily humor or scatological humor. One surefire way to get a laugh is to do something gross with the human body—farts, burps, and so on. However, this can easily be overdone. A well-placed gross joke, image, or sound, however, can break tension quite well. Suppose Hero is having an intense argument with his girlfriend. Just at the point when they are about to say something they will both regret, Dog farts loudly, then offers a sheepish smile. Hero and his girlfriend fan the air in front of their faces and back out of the room. I wasn’t even going to add this section until I had a child, and now I get just how funny all the fart and, “Hello, my name is David Doo-Doo” humor is. Kids just love it, and you can have a lot of fun with it. So if you don’t have kids yet, don’t worry—you’ll find out why bodily humor is written into just about every kid’s movie.
Use sexual humor. Although you often tread dangerous ground in our culture with sexual jokes and innuendos, it’s generally a good way to add humor to a scene. For instance, Dog could be planning a big date with FiFi, but now he has to go on this damn quest. We can keep cutting to his dreams of how his romantic trip would have gone (in his dreams the Dog is super macho—a suave, hot lover) and then he awakens to his owner’s leg shaking violently, trying to stop the damn Dog from mounting it. This dream can repeat randomly through the quest until the Dog awakens to find himself accidentally shagging the leg of the dragon they were searching for (which makes use of repetition and exaggeration).
Use silly voices. For example, suppose someone you are really used to hearing suddenly speaks in a very different voice (as if they’ve been kicked in the groin or breathed helium). Or, perhaps Dog finds an “evil bone” in the museum. He eats it and suddenly he has the booming voice of Satan.
Use silly faces. Reaction comedy is common, and in many of the situations already mentioned, the faces of the actors in the scene will convey the meaning of the scene and often provide much of the comedy. Use exaggeration or understatement as required. Think of Tex Avery’s eye-bulging wolf watching the hot female performer in old cartoons, or think about Ren and Stimpy in The Ren and Stimpy Show. Or, in contrast, think of Cartman’s blank stare in South Park when something bad happens and he simply says, “Okay.” (In fact, that’s homework—watch as much Tex Avery as you can.)
Use distortion. Physically distorting your characters can be very funny. This is done mostly in cartoons, and it works very well in games. Distortion can include sight gags, such as having a 20-ton anvil fall on someone and flattening the person like a crepe, or causing a person’s eyes to bug out comically when he sees something he likes or wants (or, alternatively, when he sees something really scary). Or you might have someone’s hair stand on end—something like that.
Defy logic. We’re making games here, not scientific demonstrations. If it can be logical, fine. But if it will be funnier if it defies logic—logic be damned! Suppose Dog is thirsty, and he pulls from the shelf a box labeled Powdered Water. He pours it into his dish and begins to lap it up, burping happily when he’s done. Of course, Hero will be watching with a befuddled look on his face. Another great example of both exaggeration and defying logic is the cartoon gag when one guy pulls a gun and the other guy pulls a gun, but the second guy’s gun is a gigantic thing the size of a howitzer! (On the Spore team, they often encountered unintended behaviors and bugs in the making of the game, but their credo was, “If it’s funny, it stays.”)
Games often involve scary situations, events, images, and moments. What makes something scary?
“The essential fact is, to get real suspense you must let the audience have information. Now let’s take the old-fashioned ‘bomb’ theory. You and I are sitting talking... we’ll say about baseball. We’re talking for five minutes. Suddenly a bomb goes off, and the audience has a 10-second terrible shock. Now let’s take the same situation. Tell the audience at the beginning that under the table—and show it to them—there’s a bomb, and it’s going to go off in five minutes. Now we talk baseball. What is the audience doing? They’re saying, ‘Don’t talk about baseball. There’s a bomb under there. Get rid of it.’ But they’re helpless. They can’t jump out of their seats up into the screen and grab hold of the bomb and throw it out.” | ||
| --Alfred Hitchcock | ||
There are three significant elements to making something scary—danger, suspense, and surprise/shock.
Danger (or risk) is essential. There must be something at stake. In movies and books, the danger is to characters in the story, but in a game, it is often the character being played, making it potentially a more visceral experience. In a game, the danger can be the loss of the character’s life, the loss of progress the player has made through hard effort, or the loss of something the player has worked hard for, such as weapons/armor. In addition, there are dangers that can threaten other characters, situations, places, or things the player cares about or wants to (must) protect.
Suspense draws out uncertainty and fear of what might happen. Used correctly, it can dramatically increase how scary a situation or event is. (For example, consider the Hitchcock quote.) I personally believe we have a built-in need to try to predict the future. I’m not even going to begin to justify that statement; I just think we do. The twist is that we give up when we feel we have no chance and then the suspense is broken. Writers who change fundamental rules arbitrarily also destroy all hope of suspense, because the player can’t predict anything with a random rule base. When the player feels he has a chance of being right, he gets hooked. The problem is, he actually needs to be wrong sometimes (surprisingly often) to keep it interesting. Therefore, the point here is to provide long-term suspense—you need to let the player be right some of the time, but often enough for him not to just give up.
Surprise is used often to shock or jolt the player (or audience in passive media) into an immediate reaction. Used too often or too predictably, however, it becomes less effective—there’s no such thing as a completely predictable surprise. Sometimes, however, even when you’re expecting something to come jumping out of the shadows, you don’t know when or where (using suspense), so when it does inevitably come, you still jump in your seat. And working with predictability, you might have set up a series of surprises, only to completely violate your own setup with something unpredictable. For instance, if you almost always have an enemy waiting behind doors when the player opens them, sometimes don’t have the enemy there—but have the enemy appear in a different place, such as crashing through a window or jumping down from the ceiling. The player comes to expect the enemy behind the door, but when there isn’t one the tension rises, and then you spring the surprise. The equation of surprise isn’t, however, just a case of something being there that wasn’t before (see the upcoming Suddenness/Shock point). Imagine you just sat down to a movie and you are distracted, opening up your candy. Then the director throws a black cat at the hero. It will have a fraction of the impact that it could if you combine the surprise with suspense, meaning the movie takes the time to gain your full 110-percent attention—you know the cat is out there somewhere, that it’s got some killer disease, and that it’s hunting the hero. The hero then finds a dead dog, and boom—a surprise attack from the cat. There are some funny examples of this; just type “Scary Maze Game” into YouTube.com to see what I’m talking about.
There are other ways to make something scary, of course:
Music and Sound. There’s no doubt that music and sound affect the emotional content of a scene, and these auditory elements can make a situation very scary, very happy, very sad, and so on. In Jaws, the heartbeat music built up the tension and made the shark’s presence visceral. In Psycho, the insane, strident music intensified the insanity of Norman Bates. Low, almost subsonic sounds sustained in a scene can create an element of expectation and anxiety. Similarly, so can very high sustained sounds. In fact, to some degree, any sustained note implies the need for resolution and therefore creates tension.
Sound effects can also create fear. The sound of some scary animal or machine getting closer and closer certainly gets your hackles up. Wolves howl in the distance. You hear the sound of an animal’s death cry. Snarling. Certain sounds act immediately on the psyche, such as blood-curdling screams, gun and artillery sounds, a bullet ricochet, smashing glass, a crash or explosion in a very quiet scene, and so on. Even the sound of laughter can be disturbing—especially if it is somewhat demented. (For more on music and sound, see Chapter 20, “Music and Sound.”)
Pacing. Using the expertise of good movies and good novels, a well-paced story can work to increase the level of suspense, anticipation of danger, and fear. It works well when it builds up your adrenalin and gently lets you relax, then builds you up again. The old movie An American Werewolf in London did this well.
Foreknowledge. This goes along with suspense in that when you know there is danger ahead, even knowing what it is, you get anxious or fearful about it.
Suddenness/Shock. There’s no doubt that one of the best ways to invoke fear in someone is to startle them. In games, this can be accomplished by creating scenes and situations in which the player feels safe, or even where they may anticipate some danger, but then you have the danger spring on them suddenly. This has been done well in the Resident Evil games, where enemies may suddenly appear apparently from nowhere, and you must react instantaneously. Another great example of a game that shows this is BioShock. You can be walking through the darkness when all of a sudden bad guys come running at you, and you only have a wrench to kill them with!
Fears of the Real World. There’s a lot to be afraid of in any world—historical, futuristic, or modern. In today’s world, we have terrorism, disease, environmental fears, cops and robbers, relationship fears, addictions, politics, religion, and so on. All of these fears can play a part in a game and can be used to make the experience scary. (For more on what people fear, see Chapter 12, “Character Design.”)
Extreme Limits. Some players may respond with some fear when their world is somehow restricted. For instance, suddenly turning off the lights and having the screen go black can be unnerving. Or, imagine a character who depends on magic to survive or for protection. What happens to the player when the character enters a “no magic” zone, and he must make it through alive or he will lose something of value, such as experience or good items? Suddenly the character is vulnerable, and his familiar options are severely restricted. I also call this weak to strong, and it’s a great game mechanic. It was the basis of Earthworm Jim—going from a weak earthworm to a superhero in seconds and vice versa.
Safe Places Become Dangerous. There’s nothing as scary as a place you normally would consider safe suddenly being dangerous. When a bloody hand comes out of the bathroom sink, the bathtub starts pouring blood, or the face in the mirror starts talking to you, it’s disturbing. When you hear strange noises in the house at night and suddenly realize that the electricity is not working, look out! This is especially powerful when the location is very familiar or when the player has had a chance to become comfortable in a place. It can also be fun to flip this. Try to make dangerous places safe and try to seek comfort in a spooky place. For example, suppose you are trying to brush your teeth and go to bed while staying at a house that’s clearly haunted.
Safe People Become Dangerous. This was the case in The Shining. Having someone who seems to be an ally turn into an enemy can be scary if handled correctly, especially if the person is a very real threat. This device is often used in Role-Playing Games, but the threat isn’t very significant so it becomes more of a plot device than something to create fear. But if the switch of allegiance can truly threaten all that you have been working for, it will get the blood pumping, especially if the character(s) involved create the proper amount of creepiness, threat, or derangement. Here are some examples:
Clowns and Dolls. There’s something innately sinister about clowns and dolls. Probably because we are supposed to trust them so utterly, they make excellent characters for creating fear.
Children. Like clowns and dolls, children are supposed to be innocent and harmless, so they can seem especially scary when used correctly. One way this is often done is by using a demonic child with scary powers (Damien in The Omen). Another way this can be used is with children going feral and attacking in groups (Lord of the Flies). Or you could use both tactics, as in Village of the Damned.
The Reassuring, Suave, or Urbane Villain. Villains who seem good or who are entertaining and seem quite likeable but are really dangerous can be very scary. One classic example is Count Dracula, who appeared to be a very regal and charming, if mysterious, foreigner to his new English friends, but who, of course, was a blood-sucking fiend with frightening inhuman abilities. Hannibal Lecter is another example—talented, urbane, fascinating, but a serial killer and a cannibal. There are many examples in literature and movies of the suave villain. Likewise, there are the serial-killer types who appear to be just the guy next door. Scary.
Safe Things Become Dangerous. For instance, perhaps the television starts displaying evil messages or tuning into some satanic entity. Or the telephone rings and an evil voice talks to you. (This is used often in horror movies, such as The Ring and others.)
Camera Tricks. There are several camera tricks often used in movies that may be useful in games, such as:
Pans. You can pan the camera to reveal a part of something scary, such as a claw or a silhouette in the window.
Close-Ups. Getting really up-close and personal with something scary makes its effect stronger, such as an eye peeking through your keyhole.
Killer First-Person View. You can show the world from the point of view of the stalker.
Victim View. You can show the world from the point of view of someone being stalked. This is especially effective if you know they are in danger (which somehow you always do know in movies by the way they choose that point of view and the musical clues they use).
The Utterly Amoral Character. Characters who simply have no moral restraints (again, such as Hannibal Lecter) can be very scary. This is especially true if they are very charming and effective at gaining the trust of others or very powerful and ruthless and in a position to wreak havoc on the player’s goals. I also call this dangerous people pretend to be safe—just a flip of safe people become dangerous. In this version, someone you know is a killer and cannot be trusted is now acting way too nice. Or you have to trust them, as in Silence of the Lambs. You just can’t tell when they will show their true colors. As I write this chapter, this device is being used in the TV show Heroes for the lead villain, Sylar. (We’ve seen him kill so many people, yet now he’s baking cookies.)
The Slow, but Inescapable. The prototype of this kind of threat is the mummy from the original Boris Karloff movies. The plodding mummy never moved very quickly, but somehow his victims could never get away from him. Anything that operates like this—and it could be a character, a machine, a collapsing room, and so on—is scary, and it gets scarier the more futile the escape seems to be. Resistance is futile. The first two Alien movies handled this device well.
Creepy Villains. Some villains are just scary by design, such as the Predator from the Predator movies. For more on villain types, see Chapter 14, “Enemies.”
Darkness/Exposure/Isolation/Vulnerability. You can use scenes where the character/player is very alone and feels very vulnerable. Darkness or reduced visibility can accentuate this feeling, especially where there is the real threat of danger. For instance, diving in the ocean with complete visibility is fun. Being deep under murky water where there could be sharks and worse is unnerving. Here are a couple other examples:
Lights Going Out/Pulsating Light. Simple effects of lighting, from the clever use of colors, to strobe effects, to sudden utter darkness, can create an uncomfortable sensation in the player, and if really well done, these effects can signal danger and instill fear.
Light and Shadows. The use of light and shadows can often enhance the fear already created by other factors. Harsh, soft, or dim lighting changes the emotional impact and the feelings of safety or vulnerability. Shadows can be fleeting glimpses of danger or distorted monsters of the mind. You might be able to see just fine in a dimly lit room, but not when you step into shadows, meaning a safe space can contain lots of hidden dangers.
Truth That Is Scarier Than Fiction. If you can use a true situation, it is often more bizarre than anything you can imagine. (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel are good examples.)
Nightmare Symbols. A study of human psychological symbols, such as the work of Jung, can reveal some elements to inspire and instill fear in a story. Finding spooky symbols can work very well. The original Blair Witch Project comes to mind. If you add mysterious symbols to your game, and people do some research, they might find out that your symbols actually do symbolize something.
The Unseen. You know it’s out there, but it doesn’t reveal itself. It just leaves a wake of corpses...or something like that. Some of my favorite scenes in the Alien movies are where the aliens are in the ship. You don’t know where they are, but you know they could be anywhere. It’s very scary and unnerving.
Diseases. Some diseases, such as the common cold, lack fear value, but take a truly frightening disease such as Ebola, and you have something to work with. The movies Outbreak, 28 Days, and I Am Legend are good examples. Disease fear tends to be based on the idea of transmission being accidental or airborne. The stakes are raised when you already have the disease but didn’t know it, or when we all have a disease that’s keeping us alive for now. It can become even more sinister if the people with the disease are trying actively to infect others; this is essentially what some vampire and zombie stories involve, but this premise can include other kinds of diseases and conditions. Think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for instance. I guess the point is there are still plenty of places to take the disease idea.
Everyman Fear. This is something horrible that anyone can relate to. If it makes us all squirm, it’s probably good stuff for a scary situation. How about the surgeon banned forever from doing surgery due to his shaky hands? He’s now operating on some innocent person in the Hostel movie. Or how about the psychotic monkey holding a syringe to the girl’s eye in the movie Monkey Shines? The trick to finding tons of ideas that worked (for inspiration) is to search “Scariest Movie Scenes” in Google.
No Way to Stop It. This describes something that keeps on happening and you can’t stop it. This could be the Marathon Man dental torture or it could be something inexorable, such as locusts eating your crop, artillery destroying your fortress, a disease or maggots eating away your body as you watch (while strapped to a table), or an inexorable pursuer who never gives up the chase.
Power versus Vulnerability. The juxtaposition between power and vulnerability can be used effectively to create a scary situation, especially if the player character, or some sympathetic character or group, is the vulnerable one. In particular, imagine that your player is generally quite powerful and can plow through hordes of enemies without breaking a sweat. But then suddenly, you are confronted by creatures that can really kick your ass badly. Suddenly, that feeling of invincibility evaporates. This is why I sometimes refer to this as survival mode!
Insane but Verbal. Again, a character such as Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates can be verbal and even seem charming, but can be completely whacko. Only by listening do you start to work out, “Hold on, this dude is nuts!”
Something Comes Back to Life. It’s pretty easy to make almost anything that was dead—or should be dead but now isn’t—become scary.
Evil Groups. Evil groups are scary, especially if they have infiltrated the otherwise safe world and they are after you! In movies this is commonly Satanic groups, but there’s plenty of room for great secret evil societies.
Who Do You Trust? In any situation where there is great danger and you don’t know who to trust, there is fear. When your allies might be plotting against you and those who seem to be enemies may actually be on your side, the ambiguity makes for a scary and uncertain situation.
Horror and Comedy. Sometimes something can be scary and funny at the same time. Little Shop of Horrors and even The Shining at times seem funny in a macabre way. Horror mixed with comedy is an interesting way to play with horror, to give the audience a break from the horror for a short while, making it okay to have a laugh. Then you remind them of why they’re there, plummeting them back into fear.
Clichés. This list contains some horror-movie clichés. There are others, and they can be used to create recognition in the player or even to create humor, since they are often obvious and overused. For instance, think about the big buildup to a dangerous creature right around the corner, which uses visuals and tension-producing music—only to end up with the big, bad monster being a little white bunny rabbit. Another example is the scantily clad young woman alone in a house and the telephone rings. In some movies, that’s a dead giveaway—and I do mean dead. How might you turn that around and make it funny?
Gore. Sheer gore usually isn’t all that scary, but if used with restraint and well positioned within a scene, it can be quite frightening. There’s a difference between campy or cartoony use of gore and carefully planned and selective use. Gore can be shocking, gross, or scary... or even ho-hum boring, depending on the context. Usually gore mixed with surprise works well, such as when someone blows their head off, and a lead character who loves that person gets splattered with blood completely by surprise. It can be shocking.
Messing with the Rules. Uncertainty can cause fear, and placing players in a world where the rules are a little uncertain and the stakes are high can cause anxiety in a majority of players, particularly those who rely on the rules to provide stability and predictability of outcomes. Of course, any time you mess with the game rules, you must do it with very clear intention and delicacy, or it can just seem like cheating or lazy design. But think about the Joker in The Dark Knight, and how he made up his own rules and forced people to follow them.
Misdirection by a Character. One of my favorites, misdirection can be used to drive a player somewhat bonkers, particularly if trust is first established, then violated in subtle but increasingly disastrous ways. This method is subtle and must be used with care, but it involves using a character in the game to establish the player’s trust and then, when the trust is absolute, violating it. In fact, the character who has befriended the player is in reality the player’s enemy and is leading him to his doom, or something of that nature.
Misdirection by Trickery. Designers can use various tricks to unsettle a player. For instance, in the original Uninvited game, you came across a lady in a fancy dress, seen from the back. By the time you encountered this lady, the haunted-house atmosphere of the setting was pretty well established. It was quiet, empty, and creepy. Then you saw what seemed to be a sophisticated lady walking down the hall. You approached her, and suddenly she faced you, and her face was a horrible death’s head. Similarly, you might fool players into thinking something was very dangerous, but have it turn out to be harmless, while something they ignored really gets them.
Reactions of Other Characters. One way to tell an audience (and/or player) that something is scary is to have the other characters in the scene demonstrate their fear in different ways—turning white, becoming paralyzed, screaming, running, cowering, fainting, and so on.
Games are full of challenges and rewards. The events, structure, and emotional responses of a game all affect us when we play. But as games become more sophisticated, we will be able to affect players in more and deeper ways. Even in simple games, such elements as emotional response, surprise, twists, comedy, and so forth can be included in the design approach and philosophy.
To judge the depth of experience a player has, I’ve created a checklist of elements that can deepen the game experience, making it more fun and more memorable. Using your best-guess methods, put a checkmark next to each element your game (or another game you have played) contains. Total the number of checkmarks at the end to see how the game scores. Do the same thing with other games you like and games you don’t like. How about games you raved about—how did they score? Can you improve your score by adding some elements to your game?
Emotional responses: When playing the game, what emotions would a player be likely to feel? (Check each emotional response you believe your game will elicit in players and total that number at the end of the list.)
__ | Challenged |
__ | Determined |
__ | Motivated |
__ | Fear |
__ | Inner conflict |
__ | Humor |
__ | Joy/elation |
__ | Pride |
__ | Hate |
__ | Love |
__ | Sense of belonging/acceptance |
__ | Betrayal |
__ | Rejection |
__ | Ostracism (expulsion) |
__ | Satisfaction |
__ | Relief |
__ | Gratitude |
__ | Magnanimity (ability to encounter danger/trouble with tranquility and firmness) |
__ | Anxiety and anticipation |
__ | Disappointment |
__ | Guilt |
__ | Desire |
__ | Forgiveness |
__ | Hope |
__ | Anger/rage |
__ | Frustration |
__ | Embarrassment |
__ | Jealousy |
__ | Curiosity |
__ | Suspicion |
__ | Shame |
__ | Empathy |
__ | Sexually titillated in some way |
__ | Sympathy |
__ | That uh-oh sinking feeling |
__ | Confusion |
__ | Surprise |
__ | Attraction to someone else |
__ | Attachment to some person or thing |
__ | Sense of accomplishment |
__ | Wow! |
Total of Emotional States __________ | |
How many emotional states did the game you are testing contain? Which ones? Are there ways to invoke other emotions that could be included in this game?
Place a checkmark wherever you think your game scores a true response. Then total up the number of checkmarks at the end.
__ | The Hero’s Journey. How does your hero’s story match with Joseph Campbell’s stages of the Hero’s Journey? (Not that this is a prerequisite, but it’s a great way to come up with new ideas for your story, especially if you’ve left out stages and could add something to increase the power and flow of your game.) See “The Hero’s Journey” section earlier in this chapter for a brief look at the Hero’s Journey structure. |
__ | Key Events. Are there events that take place as the story unfolds that significantly move the player’s experience forward and increase his motivation to continue, solve puzzles, complete the story arc, or delve further into the game? |
__ | Fortunes Change. Are there significant moments in the story where the player’s fortunes are raised or lowered? Draw a graph of the rise and fall of the player’s fortunes throughout the story arc. This can even apply to a mission-based game where there is at least an ongoing story component. |
__ | Emotional Scenes. Does the player witness scenes that can cause an emotional reaction? For example: |
| |
__ | Interesting Characters. Does the player encounter interesting characters (with some depth and interesting traits) during the game? (Check Chapter 12, “Character Design” for some ideas.) |
__ | Character Interactions. Are the interactions between characters in the story (player with NPCs, player with other players, NPCs with NPCs) more than superficial? Do character interactions have depth? |
__ | Plot Twists. Are there twists and shifts in the plot that cause the player to respond emotionally? These would be different from key events. |
__ | Dramatic Moments. Are there moments in the story that enhance the player’s response by their dramatic intensity? |
__ | Sound. Is the sound used intentionally to intensify the experience and the emotional impact of events? |
__ | Music. Is the music used intentionally to intensify the experience and the emotional impact of events? |
__ | Power of New Information. Do you reveal new information to the player in the course of the game that can have an emotional impact? |
__ | Power of New Locations. Does the player encounter locations that expand his horizons or that elicit an emotional response? |
__ | People You Care About. Does anything happen to other people in the story—people the player cares about? |
| |
__ | Communication Systems. Do you find interesting ways to communicate with the player? (See Chapter 30, “Ways to Communicate with the Player.”) |
__ | Surprises. Are there surprising elements, plot twists, events, or characters in the game? |
Score ___________________ | |
How many of these elements did your game contain? How could you improve your game by adding more of these elements?
The goal of this section is to show ways to further enhance the player’s response to characters in the game. This invests the player more deeply into the experience and ultimately makes the gameplay far more satisfying. This kind of technique is common in literature and in movies, and the same techniques can easily apply to games where there’s significant story content and more complex characters.
Fairness. Somebody innocent is falsely accused.
Victims. Somebody weak is victimized by somebody strong.
Good Deeds. A character goes out of his way to help somebody else.
Bad Deeds. A character goes out of his way to do something mean.
Unnecessary Cruelty. Someone takes a vanquished foe or prisoner and intentionally inflicts pain, suffering, or maiming out of sheer cruelty.
Checked Out. A character is unaware of how he affects others and does things that cause dissension or anger.
Show More about the Character. A character reveals something about his past.
Strong/Weak. A strong character reveals a weakness.
Weak/Strong. A weak character reveals surprising strength or ability.
What the Character Likes. A character likes dogs or flowers or teddy bears. For instance, perhaps a ruthless gangster is very attentive to his mother or really loves his son/daughter. Or, conversely, perhaps a priest likes to rip the wings off flies... oh my!
What the Character Hates. A character hates injustice, Walmart, people who wear retro clothing, people from other countries, people with different-colored skin, and so on.
Beauty. A character is very beautiful.
Ugliness. A character is very ugly.
Humor. A character is funny and makes you laugh.
Annoyance. A character is annoying and gets on your nerves.
Reliance. You rely on someone and/or he relies on you.
Mutual Goals. You and another character have mutual goals. For example, perhaps you both want to kill the boss, Devastator, or you both have to get to the Big City, though for different reasons.
Complementary Goals. You and another character have complementary goals. For example, perhaps you want to kill the boss, Devastator, but the other character simply wants to get him out of the way to usurp his power. This trait is not as powerful as having mutual goals.
Conflicting Goals. You and another character have conflicting goals. For instance, you want to kill the boss, Devastator, and the other character wants to keep him alive (or in the case of Devastator himself, he wants to stay alive and probably kill you in the bargain).
The Gatekeeper. A character stands in your way. You must satisfy him or get past him in order to progress or accomplish some goal.
The Good Fairy. A character can be relied on to help you in some way. For most emotional responses, it should be possible to call upon this character for help more than once. For even better emotional response, you should not be able to call on this character without imposed limits, and there should be times of stress when you wish you could call on this character, but for various reasons you can’t.
Accidental Bad Fortune. Something bad, unexpected, and accidental happens to a character, such as being hit by a bus or being attacked randomly by a wild animal. The emotional response the player will have depends largely on his relationship with this character, although this could be the first encounter, and a relationship is created after the event. Perhaps with his dying breath, the character tells you a horrible secret, entrusts you with a great task, or gives you something of great value that you must protect with your life. Or he recovers from the accident with your help and becomes your staunchest ally. Or maybe he is an ungrateful scoundrel and steals you blind.
The Protector. A character is strong enough to protect you from danger. This is most likely in the early part of the game or during a segment of the game where you have to go into territory too dangerous for your character’s current condition.
The Strong Ally. This character is especially strong and fights side by side with you. You tend to rely on his abilities to balance yours.
The Buddy. This character is like a friend or companion who sticks with you throughout the story (or much of it). He may be funny and make you laugh, or he may be just loyal and a good companion. If something bad happens to the buddy, it can have a greater effect emotionally than if something happens to another character.
The Object of Desire. Another character can be desirable, perhaps in a sexual or romantic way. Or, she might just be very rich, and you want her gold and/or possessions.
Too Cool for School. This is a character who is just very interesting, with an unusual and powerful persona. This may be an intriguing villain (once again, Hannibal Lecter comes to mind) or someone on the good or neutral side who is just very impressive. This kind of character probably relies on a strong and possibly flamboyant personality to stand out from the crowd. Other examples might be people of great presence, such as Jesus walking among the multitudes, or Gandhi.
This section guides you to create a story of your own, using the elements in this book as a reference. You will do this in two stages. First, as a foundation test, you will create a game story based on another movie or game you like, changing some aspects of it, such as the time and location. Following that, you will create a story using your own ideas and the suggestions found in this book. To begin, consider what elements a story game must have:
Setting
Location(s)
Time
Style
Main character (player)
Characters, allied or neutral
Characters, enemies
Current situation
Goals (main, supplemental)
Think of a movie or game (or another source, such as myth or literature) that you absolutely love and know inside out—something with a great story and characters.
Move it somewhere else in location, situation, and time. Make changes to the names and characters’ activities to match the new setting. For instance, suppose you took the myth of Ulysses and set it in modern times. Or, look at how The Magnificent Seven, an American western, was based entirely on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. If you are familiar with either of these movies, what other settings and situations might these movies inspire? Perhaps you could set the scene in a remote village in Russia during World War II. Or a human colony on an alien planet that must fend off the local intelligent life form intent on using them for nefarious, or possibly culinary, purposes.
Use the main elements of the story to create a new game. Say it’s Star Wars. Then your creative challenge would have to consider the main locations, characters, and relationships and create some kind of inspired connection between them and places, people, and events in another location and time, such as a samurai movie. (Lightsabers are special samurai swords, and so on.)
This gives you a scene-by-scene framework that you know works, so you can delicately test many of the ideas in this book to add or modify characters, emotions, situations, and so on.
So use the elements you find in this book to develop something you love into an entirely new story and develop a game idea around it. Especially use this chapter, Chapter 17, “Game Worlds,” and Chapter 12, “Character Design,” but draw from all the other relevant parts of the book as well. For instance, you might find some inspiration in Chapter 11, “Scenarios,” Chapter 27, “Puzzles,” Chapter 28, “Controlling Pacing,” Chapter 29, “Time Limits and Time Manipulation,” and so forth.
While you may find it easy to create a game when starting with an established story or setting, since a certain amount of the creative visualization has been established already, what about creating a game without a specific story to inspire you?
There is no one “right” way to create a story. In fact, stories can be created from real-life experiences, from news stories, from historical research, from chance encounters, or even from dreams. Anything can be the inspiration for a story. So, what follows is simply a possible way to inspire you to create stories for games.
Note that the story you create can be independent of the type of game you are creating, though it is probably desirable to have some concept of the game genre you want to make. For instance, it may be that you’ll spend a little less time developing game story structure in a Real-Time Strategy game or Action-Based Shooter than in a more RPG-like or adventure-oriented game. Still, having a strong story with strong characters and good structure can help almost any game, even if much of the detail is not really included directly in the gameplay. As an example, imagine you were creating a game like Doom or Quake, but you started with a complex story in which the main character had a history—a background and relationship with the enemies he faces—and in which the character ultimately will learn something about himself. So, given the story structure, you have the opportunity to create more varied and interesting interactions between the character and the world he is blowing up. The action is still there, but a story and character arc are also present. If handled correctly, the end result will be even more emotional release and satisfaction upon defeating the end boss or otherwise completing the game. (Of course, some games do not have explicit story structures. Most puzzle games lack stories, and games like SimCity have only the implicit story that the player finds for himself.)
Some designers think explicit storytelling in games is both unnecessary and counterproductive to the goal of the game, which is—in some ways, at least—to empower the player to make choices and deal with consequences. If a story is too linear or predetermined, it may not be the best game vehicle. Often, the best game stories are stories that emerge from the gameplay. However, it is possible to create a story and plot, characters, and all the other elements of a story and let the player discover that story in different ways. Likewise, you can create the characters and the settings—the props and locations—and let the player explore the world and discover what stories emerge from interacting with those characters and settings.
It would be intriguing to have NPCs of such depth and subtlety that they could be like real people, and interacting with them would produce unexpected stories and opportunities—something like The Sims, but even more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence is a long way from accurately modeling real human intelligence and responses, but even at a crude level, if artificially intelligent NPCs have simple, definable goals and motivations, then they may respond differently to the player under different circumstances. For instance, a pickpocket would respond differently to a player character who is obviously loaded than to one who looks dirt poor. But then suppose the thief gets caught in the act. And suppose he also has a motivation to stop being a thief. Could some kind of unexpected interaction occur between the player’s character and the thief, given multiple goals and motivations on both ends? Perhaps the person recognizes the urge in the thief to reform and, at the same time, needs someone with the thief’s skills to accomplish an important deed. Can you think of other ways to use these dynamics?
Or suppose the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world also happens to be the princess, and in order to gain her favor (and her father’s, presumably), you have to be wealthy and/or in some way heroic. So, the player is then motivated to do great deeds and earn money, possibly in order to be considered as a suitor for the princess. But perhaps the player doesn’t have to do that. There are other paths through the game, and the princess only represents one of them. In this simple way, gameplay and story can be inspired, and yet the actual player’s experience could be full of adventure, exploration, and action. Anyway, whether you choose to include explicit, implicit, or emergent stories in your games, some of the following tips should prove useful.
Assuming an explicit story is appropriate for the kind of game you want to produce, the first step is, optionally, to determine the type/genre of game you will create. After that...
What Is Your Story About? By this, I mean what is the high concept? What kind of story are you going to tell? More inspirations for the high concept can be found in this chapter, in Chapter 5, “Game POV and Game Genres,” Chapter 23, “Goals,” and in various parts of Chapter 12, “Character Design.”
Pick a Setting. Where and when does this story take place? Is it in the past, the present, or the future? Is it in a real place or a fictional place? If the place is fictional, describe it in some detail. If it is historical, research it. If it is modern, consider what kinds of settings you will include. Cities? Suburbia? Rural places? Wild places? Do you know this setting well? If not, how can you get more information about it? Check out Chapter 17, “Game Worlds,” for some ideas on settings you can use.
Create Characters. Go to Chapter 12, “Character Design,” and use it to help you create the main characters for your story. If your story is based on real or mythical characters, it will still help to know what their characteristics are with regard to the story you’re telling. For instance, it might be interesting to research the mythical Achilles and find out that, in addition to his heroic actions and his prowess in battle, he had vices and personal traits that made him more interesting. In fact, most of the greatest mythical heroes also had character-defining flaws. Defining what makes your characters tick will help you create more interesting situations for them and will also create more consistency in their responses to the world around them. Even more importantly, it will help determine how they evolve in the course of the story—something that a lot of game characters don’t do, but that is the essence of great storytelling. Look at Chapter 12, “Character Design,” and Chapter 14, “Enemies,” for more inspiration on designing your characters.
Consider the Structure of Your Game. How will the player interact with it and how will the story unfold? Review the section “Story and the Player’s Character” earlier in this chapter for some ideas of game story structure. Look also at Chapter 23, “Goals,” for ideas of different long- and short-term goals.
Consider the Specifics of the Character’s Journey through the Game/Story. Now that you have the setting and the type of story, the characters, and the structure, put in the specifics of the story arc. Create the beginning, middle sections, and ending of your story using all the tools you have available. Consider the flow of the story and the potential to create ups and downs, challenges and reversals of fortune, and so on. Borrowing from movie and fiction structures, can you create a game in which the story follows a traditional three-act structure? Can you create only the framework—setting and characters with motivations and goals—and set your players loose in that world? Refer back to the “Elements of a Good Story” section earlier in this chapter, as well as “The Basic Story Arc: Games and the Three-Act Structure.” Refer again to the “Joseph Campbell Meets Star Wars and The Matrix” section, as well as any of the other chapters in this book, all of which have useful information that you can use to create a better story.
Note
Optionally, check out the “Dilemmas,” “Timelines,” “Multi-Session Storytelling,” “Creating Comedy,” “Making Things Scary,” and “Enhancing the Player’s Emotional Response” sections, all in this chapter.
Pay Special Attention to Your Ending. Check out the “Ways to End a Story” section earlier in this chapter.