Good article on story-telling in games

[Mouser]

Got a link to this yesterday, just got around to reading it. An interesting article on how to write/create a story driven game - what are the important elements to have, and what things to avoid. The author lists some recent games and where he feels they failed. To The Moon is held up as one of the games that comes closest to 'hitting the mark', in his opinion.

The item that got me thinking about my game is his opinion on 'gated content'. It's a valid point, yet some of the best story driven RPG's I can think of are a series of 'gated' sections. You don't get to jump straight to the end of the story without going through all the middle pieces first. Xenosaga used the technique of constantly changing "the world", so in that sense there weren't "gates", but each world had a fairly linear (and often literal) path you had to follow.

Some good comments about the article and a few other links there, as well.

 

[whitesphere]

I think there is a huge difference between an obstacle which seems to exist solely to lengthen the game, and a core task the player must do which is central to the plot at that point.

In Chrono Trigger, virtually everything is a type of obstacle.  But, every obstacle makes sense.  And, in accomplishing it, the player feels like s/he's done something meaningful to advance the plot.  First, you go to the past to save Princess Marle.  When you get to the castle, you find she abruptly vanishes, so you need to rescue the real Queen, and so on.  These each unlock different areas, but it is seamless to the player.  Yet each task to complete is straightforward.

So, if the player feels s/he is accomplishing meaningful, plot centric goals, which just happen to unlock areas, it's a net gain for the player.

I'm not a big fan of too-open-ended RPGS, because I never know what to do next.  But I like to feel I'm accomplishing something besides "unlock the next area"

There are also many ways to block an area which are more subtle.  Maybe an area has much tougher monsters, or even just one major guardian.  Or, the Queen will not see you unless her Knight agrees, and her Knight is at war, so you need to go find him, etc...  In my game, a Captain won't take his ship anywhere while the Orcs are raiding ships...

I think the article is against arbitrary obstacles which don't directly serve the plot.

 

[whitesphere]

For an interesting contrast:

When I played the open world RPG Skyrim, it didn't feel it had any type of story.  There was a ton of backstory unveiled through tons of in-game books.  But I always felt  most of what I was doing was trekking through the huge in-game world "Looking for the next quest."  Events in, say, the College of Winterhold, rarely had any intertwining with events across the world.  Granted, they might have all tied together in an epic storyline, later in the game, but I felt disconnected with the game, so I stopped playing.

The game has lavish 3-D graphics, a huge skill set and a wide variety of equipment, but I didn't feel engaged in the game world enough to care, after awhile.

That is why I feel story driven RPGs need a bit of "obstacle to make the player follow the plot," but it's crucial to do it well.  If not, it becomes tedious.

 

[Titanhex]

To be fair you may have missed the mark playing Skyrim.

Skyrim is more about Roleplay than it is about RPGs. There's a strange double-definition of Roleplay that splits itself between the open-ended form of story creation, aka creating a narrative on the go, and the more game oriented form of playing through the story of a character you create which, while somewhat open ended, has a more linear path to follow with a clear narrative.

Skyrim is the former, whereas Xenosaga is the latter. Both have a slightly different audience and goal.

 

[cabfe]

A very interesting article, thanks for sharing.

This is exactly what I'm trying to achieve with my game, since it's an interactive story.

And it looks like what I've done so far was not so bad considering I'm OK with his 5 criterias.

I'll try to keep them in mind while creating the rest of the game, like a guideline.

 

[whitesphere]

To be fair you may have missed the mark playing Skyrim.

Skyrim is more about Roleplay than it is about RPGs. There's a strange double-definition of Roleplay that splits itself between the open-ended form of story creation, aka creating a narrative on the go, and the more game oriented form of playing through the story of a character you create which, while somewhat open ended, has a more linear path to follow with a clear narrative.

Skyrim is the former, whereas Xenosaga is the latter. Both have a slightly different audience and goal.

Aaah, it sounds like it.  I was expecting Skyrim to be more a story-driven RPG, since those are what I enjoy and am used to.

 

[Mouser]

Aaah, it sounds like it.  I was expecting Skyrim to be more a story-driven RPG, since those are what I enjoy and am used to.

The whole Elder Scroll series (except that weird 3G phone game) are like that. One of the biggest complaints about Morrowind (a MUCH larger world than Skyrim from what I've read, though it, in turn, is much, much smaller than Daggerfall) was that it was too easy to just start playing your character and completely forget about the main quest, or not even be sure what the "main" quest was.

I've got the strategy guide for that one. It's the size of a yellow pages with type half the size (seriously, seriously small font).