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 Features
Book Excerpt and Review - Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames
 DEFINITION OF TERMS
To explore the meaning of game narrative, let’s consider the definitions of some basic terminology.
Story
In the context of game development, story is often confused with design. The story is what happens, the flow of the game that can be separated from the game mechanics and retold as a narrative. For example, the story in Grim Fandango (LucasArts, 1998) can be summed up as “The adventures of a travel agent for the dead named Manny, who uncovers corruption in the afterlife and sets out to do something about it.” The story in Godzilla: Save the Earth (Pipeworks Software, 2001) can be described as “Aliens come to earth to steal Godzilla’s DNA, and he fights a bunch of monsters in order to stop them.” Of the two, Grim Fandango’s story takes considerably longer to tell, but they both serve essentially the same purpose.
Character
Characters are the actors (or in the case of player characters, avatars) who exist in the game world and perform the in-game actions. Lara Croft is a character. So is the loathsome Morag from Neverwinter Nights (BioWare, 2002), the friendly henchhippo Murray from Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (Sucker Punch, 2002), and the gabby but not terribly bright guards from Far Cry (Crytek, 2004). Every character in a game should be designed to serve a purpose. Lara Croft is someone you want to be as you move through the world, whereas the guards are enemies to shoot and sources of information to eavesdrop on. The character or characters the player controls are sometimes referred to as player characters (PCs), although the term avatar is becoming standard. Everyone else in the world is referred to as NPCs (non-player characters), or occasionally as AI (artificial intelligence), although this technically refers to the algorithms controlling their behavior rather than the characters themselves.
Setting
The setting defines the world that the action of the game takes place in, including character races, languages, laws of physics and metaphysics (do you have spells, blasters, or both?), and pretty much everything else necessary to define the game world. For an overtly “realistic” game such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (Ubisoft, 2002), much of the setting goes without explanation, as we all have a pretty good idea of the real world. For a steampunk extravaganza such as Arcanum: Of Steam-works & Magick Obscura (Troika Games, 2001), the equation expands to include something much broader because a world of dwarves, zeppelins, and tech needs more detailed and specific explanation for players to feel comfortable in this more esoteric setting.
Backstory
Backstory is the history leading up to the events of the game, the explanation of what has produced the situation that will be played through. Related to setting, it can be defined as “who did what to whom, and what does the player have to do in order to fix it?” The backstory of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (Ubisoft, 2003) includes World War II bank looting, the deportation of an elderly businessman from his home in South America, and the fascist Ustache regime. None of these are things that the player will interact with directly in the game, but they frame the game’s narrative and action, giving the player the information he needs to immerse himself in the fiction and move forward with the action.
Cut Scenes
Cut scenes refer to in-game movies—sections of noninteractive footage that the player watches. Some are prerendered for a high level of visual polish, whereas others are produced with the in-game engine to provide visual continuity. Either way, cut scenes refer to events or conversations that the player sits back and watches with (usually) no interaction. They can be used to reward the player with a spectacular visual, provide an opportunity for conversation or exposition that would get lost in gameplay, or contain events—such as the death of a character, the pillaging of the main characters’ equipment, or a villain’s escape—that can’t be left up to chance. At best, the player can look around during a cut scene, but more often than not, they have a theatrical presentation the player watches.
When many cut scenes are collected together, the result is a noninteractive sequence known as a cinematic. Game introductory sequences are generally cinematics, as they provide a perfect opportunity to explain setting and backstory before the player needs to use any of the information.
Scripted Events
A scripted event is a part of the game where control of some aspect is taken away from the player. Although related to cut scenes, they are distinctly different both in how they are made and how they are experienced. A single scripted event can be as simple as quickly pulling the camera angle around to show a looming surveillance camera (also known as a camera case) or as complicated as setting up a sequence of events involving multiple NPCs to illustrate a game point. Stealth games frequently use the former technique. Half-Life 2 (Valve, 2004) made good use of the latter, letting the life-or-death struggles of NPCs in the game world illustrate environmental perils to the player vividly.
In-Game Artifacts
In-game artifacts are rather self-explanatory; they are objects in the game world that serve to advance the narrative. They can roughly be defined as narrative that the character, not the player, finds. Frequently, in-game artifacts take the form of documents of one sort or another—diaries, letters, books, and the like. By reading these, the player gains valuable information about what’s going on and the world the player’s moving through. The answering machine message the player overhears in Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Remedy, 2003) is another example, as are the radio broadcasts in Far Cry and the emails Sam Fisher hacks into in Splinter Cell.
In-game documents are not the only way for artifacts to move the game narrative along; sometimes an object has symbolic significance. An example is the Tsortese Falchion in Discworld Noir (Perfect Entertainment, 1999) around which the plot of the game revolves. Players have seen their avatar slain in the opening cinematic with this very weapon, so when it is discovered during the course of the game, it has especial significance. It cannot be used as a weapon or a useful item for solving puzzles and exists in the game solely for its symbolic value.
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