When an object or phrase is a window through which the winds of emotion blow.
Film and television writers
have learned methods of using symbols to give characters, scenes, and stories emotional depth and resonance. In games, the ideal is to go one step further and create Usable Symbols—symbols that have emotional power, but that are also useful in gameplay. This chapter shows a few ways of creating such symbols.
Films and television shows use symbols. In The Matrix, the city of Zion is a symbol of rebellion and hope, even though we never see it.
Advertising uses symbols. The McDonald's arches? They're symbols.
The American flag is a symbol. And that photo on your desk of your loved ones? That's a symbol too.
Symbols resonate with emotion. They can be quite powerful.
When you create a symbol, you're not trying to create an intellectual puzzle, where the player tries to figure out what the symbol means. Such an intellectual exercise would work directly counter to the goal of increasing emotional immersion.
Instead, symbols should evoke emotions—even though, when you do your work well, most of the players won't consciously notice the symbols you use. It's not necessary for a player to notice a symbol to be emotionally affected by it.
It's certainly all right if a relatively small percentage of players who consciously notice your symbol might stop and think about the symbol's meaning or meanings.[1] This is only acceptable if, at the same time, the symbol generates in them an emotional experience too. This chapter will give you guidelines as to how to accomplish this.
Games often offer an opportunity that films do not. Symbols in film can enhance emotional depth. As you'll see, they cannot only do this in games, but they often can be used or given a function in gameplay as well.
Let's look at a few types of symbols that can add depth to a game.
This is a kind of symbol that you use in a specific game moment or situation, but that you might never use again in the game.
To use this type of symbol, show an image on screen or have one of the characters say something in the game that reflects what one of the characters on screen is going through emotionally.
To understand how you might use this type of symbol, consider some examples from television and film.
In one episode of Star Trek—Voyager, Captain Janeway finds herself in extended battle with the captain of a rogue Federation ship. The captain and crew of that ship are killing harmless aliens in order to use the chemicals in the aliens' bodies to propel their ship. Janeway is horrified that a trained Starfleet officer could so deeply violate the most basic Federation ethical principals. She takes the captain's murder of the aliens quite personally.
Janeway becomes so obsessed with stopping the other captain at whatever cost that she crosses the bounds of ethics and good judgment. In doing so, she imperils her crew by exposing them to extreme dangers. This generates a series of arguments between her and her first officer, Chakotay. In short, Janeway's obsession to stop the rogue captain, who has become a terrible leader, turns Janeway into a poor leader herself.
A metal plaque that reads “U.S.S. Voyager” falls off a Voyager bulkhead during a battle with the rogue ship. This plaque is a symbol that the spiritual core of Voyager—the moral codes of the Federation, the Starfleet tradition of honor and humanity, and the moral compass of people who uphold these codes and traditions—has been damaged. It's a Symbol of a Condition or Change in Condition of Janeway and Chakotay.
The plaque falling off the bulkhead affects us emotionally. If people make only an intellectual connection between the plaque and the abandoned Federation values, then the writer hasn't been artful enough in creating the symbol.
In the 1957 Academy Award-winning masterpiece Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson, who commands a group of British soldiers captured by the Japanese and forced to work like slaves in a POW camp in Burma.
I won't reiterate the convoluted plot, but suffice to say that, due to his ego, Nicholson has his men help the Japanese build a large, strong, and beautiful bridge. He tells his men it's to help keep their discipline intact and their morale high. In reality, it's because he thinks that this masterpiece of engineering and aesthetics will be a tribute to his own greatness.
The result is, in building the bridge, Colonel Nicholson has helped the enemy. But, near the very end of the film, during a battle at the bridge, he has a powerful realization, and says, “What have I done?”
At that exact moment, he reaches up and touches his commander's cap. This is the Symbol of a Character's Condition or Change of Condition. His touching the cap is a symbol of his changing back to becoming what he once was—an honorable British soldier.
An explosion goes off nearby and he is knocked to the ground, wounded from the shrapnel. When he stands up, his cap lies on the ground, but he's too dazed to immediately see this. He reaches for the top of his head and realizes that the cap is gone. Nicholson then bends down and picks it up off the ground. His reaching toward his head for the cap, and then his picking it up off the ground, again is the same Symbol of a Character's Condition or Change of Condition, signifying that he has become the honorable man he once was.
He puts his conversion immediately into action, for, as he dies from the shrapnel hit, he directs his fall onto the dynamite detonator, which in turn blows up the bridge he had so painstakingly guided his men to build.
As was the case with the Voyager example, most people in the audience wouldn't consciously notice this use of a symbol. And yet it would still contribute to the depth of their emotional experience. It's a strange moment when, as a writer, you realize that a great deal of your art involves trying to create emotional effects that won't be consciously perceived, perhaps ever, by anyone.[2]
In the provocative film American Beauty, the character Ricky Fitts (played by Wes Bentley) is a teen without fear of teen social pressures, and with a deep appreciation of the beauty all around him. He seems, in some ways, to be enlightened.
Contradicting his supposed enlightenment is the fact that he sells drugs, is completely emotionally detached, and is fascinated by death. In fact, his veneer of serenity is what I call a Mask, or false front (see Chapter 2.1, “NPC Interesting Techniques”).
At a certain point in the film, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey's character) drops by Ricky's house to buy some dope from him. Lester is especially interested in some of the really potent marijuana he smoked with Ricky a few nights earlier. Ricky pulls out a bag of the dope and explains that it's:
RICKY: ...top of the line. It's called G-13. Genetically engineered by the U.S. Government. Extremely potent. But a completely mellow high, no paranoia. LESTER: Is this what we smoked last night? RICKY: This is all I ever smoke.
Why is this a verbal Symbol of a Character's Condition or Change of Condition? Because Ricky, unknowingly, has just described himself. Ricky used to be a passionate young man, until his control-freak military father, as punishment for Ricky's perceived disobedience, had Ricky committed to a mental institution for two years, where he was heavily drugged.
This experience broke his spirit. So Ricky himself, his spirit crushed both by his Marine father and the mental institution, has been government engineered. His fake serenity (his Mask) is that of a completely mellow high. This Mask of serenity allows him to, in his core, remain numb. Thus, he's got no paranoia. But like all chemical highs, Ricky's is not real.
Sometimes, in the television business, you need to write a sample script just to show you can adapt your writing style to different shows. I wrote a sample X-Files script that has gotten me no end of work in the game industry.[3] In the story, Mulder no longer fits in professionally with Scully and Doggett. He was always driven in his paranormal quests by the search for the truth about his missing sister. But, with that case solved in the series prior to the point when I wrote my screenplay, Mulder no longer has a dream or ambition to push him forward.
In the middle of an awkward conversation with Scully, Doggett, and Skinner, in which Mulder is being forced out of the X-Files, Mulder notices Skinner's office clock. Checking it against his own watch, he says, “Is that clock right?”
No one responds to the question—the conversation merely proceeds. (Quite frequently, in dialogue, not every statement or question gets a response.) Why the throw-away line about the clock? It's a Symbol of Mulder's Condition or Change in Condition. In this case, it symbolizes that he's out of sync, or out of step with all the others. In effect, his time has passed.
Will anyone reading the script (or seeing Mulder say the line) consciously understand what I was going for with the line, or even notice it at all? It's unlikely, any more than they would note the line by Ricky Fitts in American Beauty about the government-engineered marijuana. As with the other examples, the symbol operates outside the audience's conscious awareness.
In Chapter 2.11, “Player Toward NPC Chemistry Techniques,” we looked in depth at the game Ico.[4] (Please note: If you don't want to know the ending, please skip the next few paragraphs.)
Near the very end of the game, the boy you play obtains a magical sword that crackles with a kind of spiritual electricity. This is a Symbol of the Boy's Condition or Change in Condition. It symbolizes that he's attained a level of power: The demonic creatures that used to attack him now flee him and the sword. And it also symbolizes that he now belongs with the girl, for the spiritual electricity the sword exudes looks exactly like the mystical energy that the girl can wield when she needs to, and that has the same magical abilities. So the sword symbolizes two conditions: the boy's attainment of power and his attunement to the girl's soul.
Because the boy uses the sword to accomplish his final tasks, this is a Usable Symbol, serving double duty: working to deepen the emotional experience, but also playing a role in gameplay.
Let's say, in a sword-and-sorcery game, during a fight to save some villagers, the wisest and most beloved village elder is killed. The villagers are stunned. A cloud could pass in front of the sun at that point, throwing a shadow over the village. It would symbolize the villagers' sadness—and perhaps yours as well, if you had found the old man endearing (which you would have, if the character was rich enough and the dialogue excelled due to the application to the NPC Rooting Interest Techniques discussed in Chapter 2.10).
After great effort and many struggles and battles in other portions of the game, you attain the highest rank a warrior can achieve. At that moment an eagle flies diagonally overhead in the sky. It's a symbol of your lofty attainment.
To reiterate: It doesn't matter if no one consciously notices these symbols. They deepen the experience nonetheless. They have emotional impact.
note
In Chapter 2.9, “NPC Character Arc Techniques,” and Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques,” I spoke at length about giving NPCs and even the player a Character Arc, in which a fear, limitation, block, or wound (FLBW) is overcome with difficulty. The discussion on Symbolic Subplots is founded on information and techniques in those chapters.
In many stories, some of the most compelling emotional moments are wrapped around a character wrestling with, and eventually growing through, his or her emotional FLBW.
Some writers insert a symbol into the story that represents the character's Arc. That is, as the character changes and grows, the symbol changes right along with them.
A Symbolic Subplot is a Plot Deepening Technique, because it continues throughout all or most of the plot (unlike the Symbol of the Character's Condition or Change in Condition, which occurs in one moment or situation within the game).
In the Star Trek series, Enterprise, one of the crew, Ensign Hoshi Sato, is a woman with extraordinary linguistic abilities. In one of the early episodes, she's having a hard time adapting to life on a starship. She wants to go home, back to Earth.
She has brought a pet along with her—a yellow slug. And the slug isn't doing well aboard the ship. Environmental conditions threaten its health.
By the end of the episode, after discovering how much the crew needs her, she has made her peace with working in space. She drops the slug off on an Earth-like planet, where it will survive just fine.
Thus, the slug is a Symbolic Subplot. The slug not doing well in space equates with her not doing well in space. The slug being put on a new planet and doing well there equates with her surviving and thriving away from Earth.
With a Symbolic Subplot, you can know how the character is doing in their Character Arc, just by checking up on what's happening with the symbol.
Just as was the case with a Symbol of a Character's Condition or Change in Condition, a Symbolic Subplot may or may not be noticed by the audience or player.
Let's go back to the example from the Enterprise episode. In this case, unlike most, we are quite aware that the slug is a Symbolic Subplot, for the doctor on board the ship even points this out to Hoshi. That is, while speaking to her, he compares her difficulties to that of the slug.
This violates the guideline of having the Symbolic Subplot operate just outside most people's conscious awareness. In my opinion, this was a mistake. I think Hoshi's slithering slimy sick slug symbol would have generated more emotion if it hadn't been pointed out to the audience. “Look, here's a symbol” is usually not the best way to go. However, as every writer knows, to every guideline there are always successful exceptions.
The film Wonder Boys effectively uses an interesting Symbolic Subplot. In that film, Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a character who wrote a great novel decades ago, and who is now a washed-up creative writing teacher at a prestigious liberal arts college. His life is a mess. He's depressed, and has been working seemingly forever on a sprawling, unfinished novel that he hasn't shown anyone.
The Symbolic Subplot is the novel he's working on. The novel equates to his life. We learn that he's been working on the book for decades. Then we learn it's a sprawling jumble, with plot-lines going off in all direction but without a focus (just like his life). It's comprised of tons of details without a unifying thread (just like his life).
Further along in the film, the pages of his manuscript—the only copy he has—are blown to the wind (symbolic of his life falling apart). Later still, when someone asks him what the novel was about, he can't answer—meaning he has no idea what his life is about. By the end, once he feels his life assumes meaning and direction again, he starts a new novel. This one has power and focus.
As we saw in Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques,” trying to build in a Character Arc for a player opens up a can of worms. This upcoming section presupposes that you are completely familiar with that chapter.
A Symbolic Subplot can reflect the emotional growth not only of an NPC, but can also be applied to a First-Person Character Arc. In such cases, the changes in the symbol reflect the changes your character undergoes as he or she progresses through the rocky path of his or her Character Arc.
Remember that a First-Person Character Arc isn't just about the character you're playing growing; you, the player, should actually experience some change as well.
Let's say that in a game, the player's character is a samurai swordsman. He's a master of many weapons. Armed with a full range of finely honed steel instruments of death and sushi cutlery, he leaves his samurai Master's training to rescue his Master's niece from an evil warlord. This mission will start a much bigger plot in motion.
The obvious Character Arc is to have the character (the player) go from being a novice swordsman to being a master himself or herself. Because this is the obvious one, let's toss it out.[5]
So let's change your character's Arc to: attaining a spiritual connection to the universe. This was the Arc undergone by the boy in The Karate Kid. He wins his final fight in the first movie not because he's stronger, not because he's better at karate, and not because he's more courageous. By the end of the film, he achieves an understated spiritual connection to the universe. This is symbolized and demonstrated by his ability to easily maintain the “crane pose,” standing on one foot with his other foot tucked under him and his arms extended.
In your game, as your character attains spiritual wisdom or abilities, perhaps the world will start looking different in some way. Perhaps he'll be able to do extraordinary moves similar to those by the fighters in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Can we give this Character Arc a Symbolic Subplot?
Here's one possibility: Your Master has given you a sword. It makes a harsh, ringing noise when you swing it. But, as you progress along your Character Arc, the noise becomes more and more beautiful and harmonic.
Or, you recharge your life force by returning to a little, beautiful bamboo meditation hut suspended over a small stream. In the beginning of the game, the stream is muddy. But, as you progress along your Character Arc, the stream becomes increasingly clear.
In either of these two examples, the player might or might not notice the change in the symbol. This is just what we generally want: for your Symbolic Subplot to work just at the edge of the player's conscious awareness, or just outside of it.
With the first example, perhaps it's when your sword makes its most beautiful, harmonic sound that something extraordinary happens. There's an old, frail man in the village who, in fact, is much more than the peasant he seems to be. When he hears that beautiful sound, he knows you're spiritually ready—and gives you some special weapon, amulet, potion, or secret that aids you as you struggle to accomplish your final and most dangerous task.
Or, taking a cue from Ico, perhaps it's only when the sword makes this beautiful sound that it's fully charged and able to be useful against your final and most formidable enemy.
You could also find a way to turn the river beneath the meditation hut into a Usable Symbol. Maybe it was your Master who built the meditation hut over the river, and he imbued it with magic of which you're unaware. Let's say your Master dies along the course of the game. But, when you attain your Character Arc and the stream becomes clear, your Master's face can be seen in the river and he gives you advice crucial to accomplishing your final task.
note
In the previous examples, the suggested Symbolic Subplots would help the game's artfulness and aesthetics but not particularly deepen the game's emotion unless the First-Person Character Arc they symbolized truly had emotional power in it's own right. Means to achieve an emotionally powerful First-Person Character Arc can be found in the Chapter 2.20.
The same goes if the Symbolic Subplot echoes the Character Arc of an NPC. That is, the subplot might add some artistry to the story, but won't deepen the emotion unless we're emotionally caught up in that NPC's growth through his or her FLBW. How to achieve this can be found by combining techniques from Chapter 2.10 (to give an NPC Rooting Interest) and Chapter 2.9, “NPC Character Arc Techniques.”
I don't think a symbol needs to be used in gameplay to justify its being there, for it's main purpose is to enhance the depth of the emotional experience. It's obviously an ideal situation, however, when it can also function as an element of gameplay.
In the game Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage, one of the close friends to the character you play is an NPC who's a reluctant knight. Though the knight has sworn off the violence of battle, he's continuously forced to fight for his king, both for his own honor, and to support a noble cause. He carries a pole bearing a flag or banner of the kingdom he serves. As a tool of gameplay, the banner has certain protective functions.
But it often gets ripped in battle—symbolizing how the knight's heart is torn every time he violates his decision to abstain from fighting. Furthermore, the banner, when torn, prompts discussions by the knight and those around him as to the ethics of his fighting in battle versus being a man of peace. The banner is a Symbolic Subplot, indicating, at any given moment, where the knight stands as he wrestles with the difficult decision to be, or not to be, a warrior.
This is one of those examples where a symbol serves double duty. Not only does it deepen the emotional experience, but it also is a Usable Symbol with a function in gameplay.
Does this Symbolic Subplot deepen the emotion of the game? That all depends on whether you feel that, as your character grows and changes, you, the player, are also experiencing growth and change, at least to some degree.
Here's another Plot Deepening Technique. Though it only appears in one specific game moment or situation, it prepares us for something coming later in the plot. In foreshadowing, once again you're creating a symbol that usually operates outside the conscious awareness of the gamer or audience. The symbol, or what occurs to the symbol, suggests something that will occur later in the story to one of your main characters—usually something bad.
In the film Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) is a man who has been unjustly sent to prison. There he runs afoul of the warden, and the two become enemies. Later in the film, a another man is sent to the prison who has information that could clear Dufresne. The warden finds out about this and asks the man to step out with him into the prison yard at night. The warden grills the new prisoner, who confirms his knowledge of information that could help Dufresne.
The warden, finished, tosses his cigarette on the ground, and steps on it to put it out. He walks away—and the prisoner is shot from an unseen source in a guard tower.
The extinguishing of the cigarette was the foreshadowing that the prisoner—or at least the information he held—was going to be snuffed out. It's emotional: It gives us an ominous feeling when we see it happen.
Let's go back to our samurai swordsman. Your Master has a bonsai tree that is 150 years old—cultivated, and handed down to him by his own Master who is long since deceased. Your Master has used the careful cultivation of the small tree to perfect his patience.
Then, during either a cinematic or during gameplay, the villain destroys the tree. This would foreshadow the fact that your Master is going to be killed.
The bonsai tree could be turned into a Usable Symbol, with a function in gameplay—its magic could heal you when you're injured or restore your life force when depleted. Thus, its destruction would not just foreshadow your Master's death; it would also affect gameplay by depriving you of a source of healing and thus increasing your jeopardy.
This is another Plot Deepening Technique, as it too tends to extend throughout an entire plot. It can either be an object or a verbal phrase.
The American flag is an example of this type of symbol. What does the flag mean? It means a lot of things—democracy; courage; the right to live the life you choose; freedom of speech, thought, and religion; a nation ruled by law; Yankee ingenuity, and more.
Remember, when we look at the flag, we don't intellectually think of all these meanings. They're more like emotional experiences we associate with the flag. When we see the flag, we feel these emotional associations.
Symbols shouldn't make you think—they should evoke feelings. Or, if they do make you think, they should also evoke emotions.
When a symbol reappears over and over again during emotionally charged moments, some of the emotion rubs off on the symbol and the symbol literally takes on more and more emotional associations.
An interesting symbol recurs throughout the film Braveheart—a thistle, and then a handkerchief with a picture of a thistle sewn into it. This symbol (the thistle and the handkerchief with a thistle) takes on more and more emotional associations as the film goes along.
Braveheart centers on William Wallace (Mel Gibson), an historic revolutionary leader in Scotland. When Wallace is a young boy, a little girl, Murron, gives him a thistle at the funeral of his father and brother, who were killed by the British. So the thistles are associated with love. When they're older, the two begin dating, and he gives her back this same, dried thistle. Once again, it is associated with love. When Murron marries him, she gives him a handkerchief with a picture of a thistle sewn on it. It still is associated with love.
Later Murron is murdered. Had symbolizing love been the only way the handkerchief had been used, whenever Wallace looks at it with sadness, we would understand and feel his personal anguish. It would evoke in him (and in us) emotional memories and feelings about Murron's specialness, the beauty of their love, and the sadness of her passing.
The handkerchief, however, continues to take on additional emotional associations throughout the plot:
When Murron is killed by a British magistrate, Wallace kills the magistrate, then later stares at the handkerchief. By now it has begun to be associated with revenge.
The handkerchief is with him as he becomes a leader of the Scots in their fight for independence, so it eventually comes to be associated with freedom.
After Wallace is killed, wishy-washy land owner Robert the Bruce (Angus MacFadyen) takes up the fight. He overcomes his indecisiveness, his cowardice ends, and he leads his men into battle, holding the handkerchief, which now is associated with courage.
Throughout the film, the handkerchief with the thistle keeps reappearing, always during emotionally charged moments, and always associated with love, revenge, freedom, or courage. By the end, the handkerchief seems saturated with emotional associations, just like the American flag.
As when we see the American flag, or when we see the handkerchief in Braveheart, we don't think about all these meanings or associations. Instead, the handkerchief evokes feelings in us drawn from all those emotional experiences (the loss of his wife—the anger of revenge—the passionate struggle for freedom, and so on).
How, in a game, could we create a Symbol that Takes on Increasing Emotional Associations and at the same time make it a Usable Symbol (something that has a function in gameplay)?
Let's say you're designing a game with a Tolkien-like story. (Yes, it's overdone, but we're just using it for instructional sake.) You play a relatively powerless Hobbit-type, going up against a fearsome enemy with supernatural powers.
Your motivation for undertaking this heroic quest is that the villain wiped out your family. It's your responsibility to both seek revenge and stop the villain from killing other innocents.
Before he died, your father gave you a pendant with your family crest, which had been handed down through the generations. The first time we see the pendant is in a cinematic, when your father gives it to you as he lies dying. So it is associated with love.
As you go on your quest to bring down the villain, you can recharge your life force (if you don't do it too much) by bringing out the pendant and clenching it. So the pendant comes to also be associated with life.
At some point, you need to permanently (or so it seems at the time) give the pendant to a fallen, dying friend—to save him by recharging his life force. So now the pendant is associated with self-sacrifice for a friend.
And if the pendant eventually comes back to you and gives you a decisive super-boost of life force for the final battle, it would then be associated with victory.
Although it would operate outside the gamer's conscious awareness, this would be a Symbol that Takes on Increasing Emotional Associations and it would add emotional depth to your story.
Because the pendant plays a role in gameplay, however, it's also a Usable Symbol, serving double-duty (enhancing the depth of emotion but also serving a function).
In Max Payne, above the rough-and-tumble squalor of the city float billboards for the mysterious Aesir Corporation, with its logo (the R in AESIR has a little wing on it) and its slogan, “A bit closer to Heaven.”
At first, the billboards have the emotional quality of taunting residents of the city by reminding them of class distinctions. After Max (played by you) discovers that the Aesir Corporation is responsible both for the city's decrepit condition and the murder of Max's wife and child, the logo and slogan are now associated with the enemy. And, when Max triumphs in the end and finally attains some inner peace, he adopts the slogan “A bit closer to Heaven” as his own. The phrase now is associated with transcendence.
If you played the game and this symbol only made you think about these associations, it was, to a great degree, unsuccessful (although still a wonderfully bold and inventive attempt at creating Plot Deepening). But, whether or not it made you think about the associations, if it evoked in you a variety of emotions that accompanied these different associations, then it was successful.
In the example game depicted here, set in a rough-and-tumble futuristic world, you play Kenneth Lassiter. America has dissolved into warring anarchy, with each man out for himself.
What brought the country to its knees? It was the creation, in a secret government lab, of RK-36, a metal that acts like a mighty fuel—a fuel that is never expended.
It could have been used to help mankind, but instead it was funneled into a covert weapons project. When the man in charge of that weapons program went insane and tried to blackmail the government with the threat of using the weapon on a series of domestic targets, perhaps the country's leaders should have met his outrageous financial demands. They didn't believe he'd carry out his threats.
In the conflagration, the country was all but destroyed, and so was all the RK-36…except one piece of the metal, which an artist fashioned into a hood ornament shaped like the head of Hermes.[6]
This ornament, when placed on the hood of a car and connected to the engine, powers that car to travel five times the speed of any other vehicle. In a land dominated by armed cars, this hood ornament has become the most sought after item in the land. Its energy can also be channeled into the guns on the owner's vehicle, making them significantly more powerful.
Because of RK-36's both incredibly constructive and destructive properties, the hood ornament would provoke a feeling of both fear and cautious respect, much like nuclear power is viewed in our own world today. Fear and cautious respect are its first emotional associations.
As everyone is scrambling for the hood ornament, it only falls into the hands of those tough enough to kill to get it. Over time it passes from one violent warlord to another. Thus, the ornament becomes a symbol of (becomes emotionally associated with) power.
Later in the game, when a young man takes possession of it, his own family steals the ornament and hides it to protect him from the ruthless warlords who will surely come gunning for him. The family's plan backfires: The local warlord wipes them out and reclaims the ornament.
This family has helped you in the past, and you've come to care about them. When they're killed because of the ornament, it takes on another emotional association: tragedy.
The young man was a member of the Book People. These people have a huge 18-wheel truck loaded with books—the only books still remaining in the world. They need to escape to a safer part of the country, where they can open up a school and begin to teach. They're the repository of all civilization.
Imagine if, earlier in the game, you were one of those selfishly jostling for power in this world. That is, let's say that the game encouraged you to do this.
But one of your missions accidentally results in the death of two of the land's most knowledgeable teachers—some of the only people capable of passing on knowledge.
Consequently, many Book People are emotionally devastated. Some are friends who have helped you in the past by sharing with you critical pieces of information that help you survive—information they know from books.
Now you've got to undo the damage you did in accidentally getting two of their teachers/leaders killed. So, as seen in the illustration, you steal the ornament (taken by the warlord from that family he slaughtered) to put on the Book People's truck, so can speed the truck to safety. At this point, you've helped make up for the damage you did earlier.
If the emotions evoked are real and the game's Emotioneering is done well, the ornament will take on the emotional association of redemption.[7]
When the Book People, in their truck with the ornament on the front, rocket through enemy lines to freedom, the ornament takes on the emotional association of hope.
So, along the way, the hood ornament has picked up the emotional associations of:
Fear
Cautious respect
Power
Tragedy
Redemption
Hope
Just like the handkerchief in Braveheart, the hood ornament becomes a Symbol that Takes on Increasing Emotional Associations.
But, as befits a game, and as mentioned earlier, this would also be a Usable Symbol.
This chapter has covered four of the many distinct techniques for evoking emotional depth by using symbols. Each use of symbols is quite different from the other. They can, by the way, be used in combination. When you integrate symbols such as these into your games, if no one notices your skillfully imaginative work, that's just fine—in general, they're not supposed to notice.
It's always good to avoid cliché symbols—that is, ones we've seen many times before. Clichés don't involve us emotionally because they stand out like a sore thumb. For example, I don't recommend that a scary, mysterious man in a black robe, his face hidden by a black hood, have a seemingly chance meeting with one of your characters in order to foreshadow the fact that the character is about to die. The man in the black robe and hood is a cliché symbol of death.
When using symbols, you're not creating intellectual puzzles (having people try to figure out what a symbol means). Using a symbol for that kind of mind-game would detract from the emotion. Instead, when you use one or more of the techniques presented here, you're trying to deepen the player's emotional experience in the game, by letting the symbol evoke emotions in the player.
In short, when you create a symbol artfully, players will be emotionally affected by it, even though they probably won't consciously notice the symbol.
As we saw, quite often these different types of symbols can serve double-duty, also having a function in gameplay by being Usable Symbols.
[1] A loose rule I often apply is that I want about 25% of the players to consciously notice a symbol I use in a game, with about 75% of the players not consciously aware of it. Of course, although they may not be explicitly aware of the symbol, they're still emotionally affected by it. If many more players than this are aware of your symbol and it's supposed meaning, then there's a good chance you're being heavy-handed. The emotional power latent in your symbol will be diminished or destroyed. I suggest that you avoid having a symbol in your game be obvious unless you have a specific reason for having it be that apparent.
[2] But, on the other hand, it's not as strange as the expression on your parents' faces when you first tell them you're going to devote your life to video games.
[3] As you might recall from Chapter 1.4, “17 Things Screenwriters Don't Know About Games,” I think game companies make a huge mistake if they hire a writer for their games solely based on previous work the writer did on other games. He or she might have simply done a lot of poor writing on a lot of games, but in doing so built up a game resumé. That's why I think it's critical that the game company reads not just some of their game work, if it's available, but also a piece of the writer's linear writing—a film or TV script—as well. This is to see if the writer really has what it takes, and if the writer can create complex, interwoven emotional effects that unfold through time in a story. These abilities are absolutely needed in game writing, just as much as is the skill of being able to create compelling characters who speak just one or two lines of dialogue.
Personally, I've never yet found a writer who has the “right stuff” who isn't a member of the WGA (the Writers Guild of America). That doesn't mean that such writers aren't out there; it means that you'll be looking for a needle in a lot of very large haystacks. And even many WGA writers who I've “auditioned” have been less than stellar. Most of the truly great ones are making so much money in film or television that they can't be lured into games. Thus the dilemma.
[4] To briefly recap: A boy in a different land or perhaps on a different planet (the character you play) helps lead a beautiful girl with mystical powers out of a towering castle where both of them are trapped. He bravely overcomes many terrifying obstacles in his journey, which is more focused on freeing the girl than on helping himself.
[5] As I often tell my writing students, when it comes to characters, lines of dialogue, scenes, or plots, a good general guideline is: “Find the cliché—then throw it away.” This also means that the Master had best not be a cliché “wise Asian” character either.
[6] In Greek mythology, Hermes was the messenger between men and the gods. He wore a winged helmet and sandals.
[7] I'd like to thank Terry Hayes, George Miller, and Brian Annant (screenwriters of The Road Warrior) and Ray Bradbury (author of Farenheit 451) for loaning me pieces of their plots for this example.