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Book Excerpt and Review - Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames
However, having said that the player is expected to be the center of the experience does not automatically equate to the player being at the center of the plot in the beginning. For instance, a game may be set at the fringes of a major event in the game world, but the story focuses on events that at first seem trivial and perfunctory. Usually, however, this is a ruse to misdirect the player, and the trivialities will eventually coincide with the larger events, thrusting the player into the center of events. This happens, for instance, in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2002). The player’s initial motivation for action is rescuing Link’s sister. Only later does it transpire that Link is a more significant player in world events than at first it seems. With all these points in mind—the similarities and differences from other media, the unique requirements of a narrative that is both flexible and constrained, and the central role of the player—the pragmatics of game writing are that it often involves writing many consecutive variations on the same theme. Almost every writer working in videogames has had to deal with a task such as writing hundreds of variations of a line like “Arrgh! He shot me!” (This sort of task is so common, that short interjections such as this have even picked up their own term: barks.) This micro-scale scripting is neither glamorous work, nor rewarding, but it is a necessary task writers must tackle to fully implement a game narrative. WHAT ARE THE BASICS OF GAME WRITING?Having looked at how game writing is both similar to and distinct from writing in other media, we are ready to look at some of the central tenets of game writing. Chiefly, the basics of writing for a game involves:
When writing for games, it’s absolutely essential that the gameplay and the writing remain closely tied to one another. Some core elements of traditional writing— lengthy exposition, internal monologue, switching character perspectives—can be utterly deadly to gameplay if not handled carefully. The players wants to play, they (generally) want to keep playing continuously, and they don’t want to be given the impression that they are merely escorting the main character through a predefined set of actions. Consider the Splinter Cell series of games. One of the techniques used to remind the player of his next objective is, in fact, internal monologue. Sam Fisher often gets short reminders to himself that he needs to disarm a bomb, take out a particular enemy, and the like. What he does not get are lengthy ruminations on the nature of his relationship with his formerly estranged daughter, X-rated musings about his sexy krav maga instructor, or a detailed economic assessment of the geopolitical situation in which he finds himself. The narrative technique (internal monologue) is used to support the gameplay (going off and achieving objectives) and not derailing it (subjecting the player to the writer’s deathless prose). What is important, then, is continually asking: “how does this support the game?” Does it reward the player, advance the action, provide depth without slowing the pace or otherwise move the player forward? If the answer is yes, then the gameplay has been kept in the writing. If the answer is no, if the reason something is in the script is to show off how incredibly cool it is, then the gameplay has been lost, and the writing is extraneous. No matter how wonderful a writer’s exposition of dwarven tiddlywinks rituals might be (unless there’s a key element of gameplay that hinges on a dwarf literally losing his marbles), it should generally be saved for the promotional materials, tie-in novels, or projects that are personal to the writer. Many players won’t want to hear it. As with every rule, there are exceptions. Certain adventure games, for example, have escaped criticism for their verbosity. Because the classic adventure is in many ways closely tied to the novel in terms of the narrative form employed, it is perhaps more acceptable for these games to indulge in additional exposition—especially if it can be organized so that the players can explore it at their leisure. Being able to find a book in the library on dwarven tiddlywinks is a different proposition from forcing the player to listen to a character drone on about the subject. This is especially true when adapting a game from a license, which is, in itself, relatively verbose. The same issues can apply to a cRPG, especially when the details of the setting must be conveyed to the player by some means—player knowledge and character knowledge is often mismatched, an issue that must be addressed. (Only so many games can use amnesia to sidestep this problem.) |
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