Advice Needed For Pacing And Story Structure

[Victor_Roland]

Hello, all!

I am in need of your help and advice. I have been working on an RPG for a few months now, but have a slight problem. Perhaps I am reading to much into this, however, I have noticed that my RPG is more or less becoming a Visual Novel. The beginning is almost 10-15 minutes long, mostly composed of dialogue and automated movement, and tells a non-interactive story for the most part. While this may be needed to convey the "slice of life" beginning I need, I'm concerned about my players' attention span. As the project is now, I have introduced all three main playable characters (or, protagonists), established mood and theme, and thrust the player into the main world at the 15 minute mark. All this is fundamental to telling a good story ... in a book or novel. Therefore, I have come up with two solutions. And please, if you have comments or advice, share them.

1) Go the Final Fantasy VII Route

One option is to place an action prologue before this first act, establishing secondary characters and the main world through gameplay and quick dialogue. Replaying the first Bombing Mission from FFVII gave me this idea: an interactive tutorial that is related but somewhat independent from the main prologue. The purpose of this is to give the player a taste of the main story, so they know the game is not completely made of cutscenes and dialogue.

2) Go the Kingdom Hearts Route

No, I don't mean Kingdom Hearts II. Somewhat related to the concept above is the "Dive Into The Heart" staple of the Kingdom Hearts series. This needn't occur at the beginning per say, but if it did, I can introduce my main character in a dreamlike setting, introducing necessary mechanics (combat, movement, etc.), while alluding to the main plot. While more subtle than the first option, this may loan itself better to the story I'm trying to write.

3) Go the Amnesia Route

My final idea is to chop this opening up, and tell it through various flashbacks. In this method, I'd throw the player into the main story from the get go, allowing them to find objects (i.e. key items) that trigger flashbacks to earlier events. This method would allow me to tell the main story and the opening almost simultaneously, something that would be hard to do well, but if I somehow pulled it off, it could make for an excellent beginning over the course of 25-30 minutes.

Bottom line, I know in my heart that 10-15 minutes of pure cutscene in the beginning is a great way to lose the player, but I also have a story I need to tell. So please, tell me how you wrote your story, and what techniques you've seen work wonders, and others fail miserably. Thank you all for your time. 

 

[EternalShadow]

I just realized I never actually started any of my games FF7 style. I always began with a "natural life" before the action.


Regardless, if it fits your story, then go the FF7 action route. Make the introduction interactive, not a long movie. Square Enix gets away with it because of the graphics and 3D (so it is basically an animated movie with pretty explosions, but that is far harder to do in RM, let alone our average budgets!) but this is sometimes at the expense of gameplay. Even FF3 began with an action sequence (straight into battle) then returned to a normal life.

 

[bgillisp]

I'd say go with what your story requires.

Seriously.

Reason I say this is trying to force something into the game that doesn't fit will just hurt the story you wish to tell. If the story requires a 30 minute long intro, then a 30 minute long intro it is.

Plus, I wouldn't worry too much about losing the players. I've played many an RPG where I went 1 hour before my first battle, or even my first dungeon. Just make sure it is not a long intro of crazy names and places that no player is going to remember without a journal, and tells what is strictly necessary.

 

[ArcaneEli]

^ Basically go with what your stories requires, but if you want to keep attention span, like for a Scene where ActorA enters ActorB's house to find their child dead. You can have the people control ActorA with a dreamlike/foggy feeling so they know it's not the Main Character, and have ActorA walk around the foggy/dreamlike town and talk to people to get the background details.

Personally for my games I have really short intros, most of the time you see what the villian is doing. Then in about 2-3minutes you are controlling the character, and there is somebody with you giving you subtle knowledge of the land etc...

   ex: Oh Jim I can't believe the raiders are attackign villages! Yes Kerry, and the guard isn't doing anything! What about dem cookies doe?

 

[Matseb2611]

Yeah, 15 minutes of cutscenes might not be the best way to start. If it's not possible to shorten it at all, then splitting it up might be best. Players aren't going to remember a 15 minute chunk of the game right away as soon as they sat to play the game. That's what info dump is, and it's something many amateur devs commit unfortunately.

You need to hook them first. Players don't care about the backstory in the first few minutes, because they are not emotionally attached to the setting and characters yet. My personal advice is to do both FFVII and Amnesia route - have the game start on a fast pace, and then have the first cutscene after that. Break the backstory up. Reveal a little bit, but keep the rest a mystery. It will get the player interested to keep playing till the next backstory cutscene, and so on.

 

[bgillisp]

Yeah, 15 minutes of cutscenes might not be the best way to start. If it's not possible to shorten it at all, then splitting it up might be best. Players aren't going to remember a 15 minute chunk of the game right away as soon as they sat to play the game. That's what info dump is, and it's something many amateur devs commit unfortunately.

Not just amateur games do that. I remember Persona3 and Persona4 both had a long section at the beginning of the game before I got to actually play.

 

[Harmill]

I am more likely to play an RPG if it's story is reputed to be very good. However, I am less likely to tolerate a game blasting me with 15+ minute cutscenes before any game play. My time is much more limited these days, and I feel like an RPG can tell a really strong story without requiring they spend 15 minutes in a cutscene. Obviously this varies from story to story, but you are making a game, not writing a book.

I'm aligned with what Matseb2611 said. I don't care about the characters in that 15 minute cutscene yet, so I'm less likely to be interested in what's happening to them - ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS NO CONFLICT IN THOSE FIRST 15 MINUTES. Conflict does not mean fighting. Conflict can mean that the protagonist is dealing with a difficult situation - a situation that can create the first link of sympathy and attachment between the player and the protagonist. If your first cutscene does not have this, and it's just people talking about events you have no insight about and places you have no idea about, then your player's interest could be in jeopardy. I know mine would be.

I'm inclined to say that if your story REQUIRES 30 minutes of cut scenes before the player gets control, you need to rework your story pacing.

FF7 is a good example of throwing the player into a situation with lots of upfront gameplay. FFX has more of a balance between cutscenes and gameplay in its introduction, and I think if your story really needs SOME sort of upfront information, FFX could be a good reference. You are fighting monsters within 5 minutes, 10 minutes after that you are watching a cutscene that lasts a few minutes, then you're back to fighting monsters, then more cutscenes, and so on.

You mentioned Kingdom Hearts' dream sequence, but the other thing that worked with their introduction on Destiny Islands is that you can spar with Riku, Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie. You are not just watching cut scenes and picking up logs or coconuts. In my opinion, if you couldn't spar with those characters, that whole sequence on Destiny Islands would be one of the best examples of what NOT to do for a game's beginning. But you can actually learn a lot about the game's combat mechanics by practicing against Tidus, Riku or Wakka in a no-punishment-for-failure context, and they were legitimately very fun fights that made me interested in progressing further in the game to get more of that. In fact, Wakka's fight is extremely well designed for teaching the player how to "parry" attacks, revealing more depth to the combat early on.

 

[captainproton]

Golden Sun : Dark Dawn was very cutscene-heavy, too.

Personally, i'd recommend presenting the opening prologue in a mostly-interactive way: There's a minute or so of dialogue, you're told to go do something (check this, go get that) and control shifts to the player so they can perform the task. If the player decides to run away instead, someone says, "Hey, don't go; you have Do the Thing," and the player is prevented from leaving. The player does the Thing, and then there's more dialogue.

Essentially, you're funnelling the player through the cutscene, making them do the things you would otherwise be autorunning. You get the initial, essential exposition in, and the player gets the feeling of control that keeps their attention from wandering.

The pokemon games do this in every generation, and the zelda games have used this method very effectively, too.

 

[bgillisp]

@Captainproton: You have to be careful with that approach, as you can end up with what is called the unskippable tutorial, which tends to turn off players too (or, they find a way to mod it out, like Skyrim, Baulder's Gate 2, etc). At least with a cutscene, you can (usually) skip it at least, not so much with this option.

 

[cabfe]

Starting with a fight can also be bad if done too quick.

If I don't even know who I am and who I'm fighting against, I'm losing interest. I need a reason to fight.

What's happening during those 15 minutes?

Isn't there a way to let the player walk and explore (even if limited to a room) between two cutscenes?

 

[captainproton]

@bgilisp: this is true. Unskippable tutorials are a pain unless the game really does have a unique system.

But the "go do this" instruction doesn't have to be mechanics-related. It could be something like:

Mom: go get the box from the basement, please.

*go downstairs*

*interact with box*

*Shiny Thing found behind box!*

*go back upstairs*

Mom: Oh! You found the Thing! Well, that's important! Go take it to Mr. Enpeesee and get quested up.

 

[bgillisp]

@CaptainProton: True, that helps, some. However Baulder's gate 2 attempted something like that, and people eventually got sick of doing that sequence over and over that they eventually modded the game to allow them to skip what they called the tutorial dungeon.

Though, this probably goes to show that no matter how you set up the start of your game, not everyone is going to be happy.

 

[kvk]

Hi everyone!

To me, 15 minutes is really to much. After 5 minutes, I want to play! I don't know if the intro will take 5 or 20 minutes more!

If you compare to a TV show, 15 minutes is 1/3 of an episode, and a lot happen during these 15 minutes.

And if a lot happen during your intro, then...the player should play it, not watch it.

You should focus on what you need to communicate to the player so they can enjoy the first part of the game.

Basically, they need to know what their character is, what are their immediate concerns / objectives and maybe their long term objective.

The rest, mostly background, should be given through the mood, the decor, the NPCs, the objectives and so on.

Just divide the intro. 

Why the cutscene should introduce you the three main protagonists, when you can introduce one and meet the two others in the first half hour of the game?

NPCs talk about the first one you will meet, so you create expectation and prepare his entrance.

The theme can be established through the first quest.

Try to translate your texts as objectives, gameplay or decor.

Try telling your story with game semantics.

Rewrite your intro with bullet points and action verbs.

Remove any dialog part that don't provide anything useful for the first part of your game, the part the player will play.

As you said yourself, a player has little attention span. You can't expect them to remember more than one or two strong ideas, especialy if these ideas are feed to them in a passive way.

This is a meal, and you don't enjoy a meal if you eat it one bite.

That would be my suggestion anyway.

Good luck!

 

[Wavelength]

The "in media res" technique of FF7 is a really good way to capture the player's attention and get them invested in your game.  America's War on Terry is a great example of a simple RPG Maker game that does it brilliantly - within a minute of the opening you're already trying to follow fast, frenetic action and wondering what the heck is actually going on.  In this kind of opening you don't want to focus on explaining everything; instead, focus on developing a few core aspects of the plot and each character.

If you can get across all of the narrative and character development that you were going to anyway in your opening, the "dream sequence" start of Kingdom Hearts can be fine.  But if not, you end up worse than you were before - you still have to go through the "boring bits" after this average start.  Not good.  I wouldn't recommend that.

The flashbacks method can be very good as well.  Amnesia per se is a tired trope that doesn't inspire a lot of awe, but it sounds like you're not using amnesia per se.  So the quick flashes back as you see different objects, etc., can be good, especially since the player can basically control how much they want to see.

Even pure cutscene can be fine, but you have to tell the story very well.  The first two to three hours(!!) of Persona 4 were essentially nothing but a cutscene with several dialogue choices, and yet a majority of people enjoyed it because it was so well-written and atmospheric.  Would it have been better with a technique like in media res?  I'm not sure.  Either one probably could have worked well when the writing was that good.

 

[Anastylos]

Having slice of life does not mean it could not be done as quests and you do not have to forcefeed the player with a bunch of information.

For example: your protagonists are plaing a suprise birthday party for someone who will be killed by the main villain at the end of the prologue. There are different tasks to do. One has to distract the person who will be suprised and talks to him. You can introduce some lore about the past, maybe something about the main villain without getting the player involved. The second character is preparing the home where the party will be. He decorates and talks with the guests who will tell him a bit more about the lore. A mage might talk about the guild of mages and a soldier about rumors about a war etc. Maybe the npcs are talking with each other and you can decide to listen to them to discover new lore or just prepare the decorations. The third character goes to the bakery to get the cake and on his way home he interacts with different people, corrupt cityguards, veterans from the last war, etc. So he discovers the city and a bit more lore.

The player is busy, is not forced to listen to all the lore but free to explore. In the end the main villain raids the city and your party has to rescue the world and avange the death of all those who have been killed, just as if you just told it to them all the lore.

Remember that people want to play a game when they download your game, they do not want to watch a movie.

 

[cabfe]

(...)Remember that people want to play a game when they download your game, they do not want to watch a movie.

Yes, most of the time.

There are a lot of games with little to no interactivity that still were successful.

The story&characters were well crafted and enticing, so it was counterbalanced, I guess.

 

[Victor_Roland]

Sorry, I've been doing my day-job for a bit. Thank you all for the feedback! I really appericate all your time and effort. I think my RPG is heading in the right direction for now. But I think I should clarify the beginning takes place in a modern setting, so I'm not using a lot of setting exposition, most of it is character interaction. Does this make any difference?

 

[Wavelength]

But I think I should clarify the beginning takes place in a modern setting, so I'm not using a lot of setting exposition, most of it is character interaction. Does this make any difference?

No.

 

[bgillisp]

Maybe the ideal solution is to make it skippable? That way the player who doesn't care about the character development or who wants to just jump right in can skip that opening 15 minutes, and those who want to see it can see it. I think either way you are going to alienate someone if you don't allow the skip option, so it might be something to keep in mind.

 

[RampartCratylus]

If you manage to effectively convey an economy of information and presentation within the first 15 minutes you should be golden. What I mean by this is basically what others have said- as long as having a 15 minute intro is consistent with the nature of your project, it shouldn't be a bad thing explicitly. It's only bad when you need to recourse to that as a way of 'forcing' needed information out.

I think MGS's intro is a great example. It intentionally paints the game as a sort of movie, while giving you the basic gist of the operation in question as you enter Shadow Moses. Doing it this way allows the information presented to 'marry' the way in which it is presented (aided of course by Kojima's game cinematography). 

Understanding how to build immersion is ultimately the key point. If the cutscene inhibits immersion or prevents it from developing at all, kill it. 

____

Also, you said there's a slice of life aspect to this? Well- taking into account that it depicts character interaction, I'd say that this cutscene should be as much about the characters conversing as the 'setting' they're conversing in. Basically- remember background and foreground in cutscenes- the context and the content. Because to some extent (especially in slice of life) the characters are extensions of their environment. Just make it a conscious effort.

Those are my two cents