Storytelling in Games

          One of the main reasons I got into gaming in general is because of the story of Final Fantasy IX. It was the first RPG I ever played and it had something I had never seen in other games: a plot. Granted, it was a complicated plot that rivals that of Final Fantasy VII in terms of “what is going on here,” but a plot nonetheless. I would say nostalgia makes me think fondly of that game’s story. However, upon looking at the plot summary, I realized I didn’t truly understand Final Fantasy IX at all! I can recall the events of Disc 1 and 2, but when we get into 3 and 4, I get so lost. Mainly because I was eight at the time, so many elements of the story went over my head. 

          Anyways, the game got me into wanting to create worlds with stories that take place in those worlds. For a while, I thought games were an excellent medium to do this with. In a way, games can tell a good story. At the same time, we have very few examples of storytelling in games. I might can recall a game with a complicated story that also has characters with depth, but could not tell you the actual plot. They just weren’t memorable enough. I think that’s mainly because the developers are telling stories incorrectly with games. It’s either cutscenes with character dialogue or moments of the game that stop the action to let text scroll across the screen. This effectively turned the game into a temporary movie. In fact, cinematics are what usually sell the game for people. I see Blizzard’s cinematic trailer for their newest WoW expansion Legion and think “Awesome movie. Where’s the gameplay?” After playing that game for years, I have yet to see it tell its story, let alone its lore, through gameplay. They have to stop everything to fill the players in on what’s going on.

          So what’s the best way to portray a story in a game? Through gameplay, of course! Let me just use Journey as an example. It’s simple, but I understand the sequence of events. The plot is basically this: you control a nomad in a red cloak. You must reach paradise at the end of your journey. You will brave strange lands and encounter marvelous things. But you also risk death before reaching your goal. The game’s story ends after the player reaches paradise and their final resting place. The game also has you start over from the very beginning which might imply reincarnation.

          How well do I remember the plot of this game? Almost perfectly. I remember walking through the sandy ruins, releasing some trapped sentient scarves (Banners? Rugs? I’m not entirely sure what they were), sliding through archways, avoiding draconic beasts, and braving the bitter cold of the wastelands. I especially recall making it to the very end and nearly dying. Then I awoke to paradise and flew through the air admiring all the colorful scenery and relishing in the gorgeous music. All of that was accomplished in ninety minutes of gameplay. No cutscenes, no dialogue, no QTEs, no cinematics, and no epic boss dropping twists in the plot whilst leaving around a bunch of plot holes to bait me into buying a sequel that may or may not ever come to be.

          Let’s do Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons next. This game was more about puzzle solving and using each brother to operate different mechanics. The plot is simple as well: their mother passed away and it left the younger brother depressed. Now their father is sick and both brothers have to find a cure. They encounter opposition in their travels, discover amazing places, become involved in other people’s conflicts, and even go through a life changing moment or two. I think the story itself might actually be about the little brother. The game starts with him mourning over his mother and it ends on a similar note. After his brother is gone, the little brother has to assume his role. Guess how I found that out? Whilst the little brother was by himself, he could not pass a certain obstacle without his big bro’s assistance. I pressed the button to operate the big brother (despite his absence) and the puzzle was solved. He literally had to become the older sibling now that he was alone. This was jaw-dropping; I hadn’t seen any other game portray and element of their story like this. Granted, some lines of text in games can blow your mind, but it felt more impactful when I realized what I had to do in order to progress.

          Those two games used their mechanics to tell their story. The plots were simple, but it still worked. Games may be at that stage where they can’t quite tell a complex story with mechanics alone, but they are getting closer and closer. For now, we still rely on text and cutscenes. If they work for your story, fine. Use them. If they detract from the plot and stop the player from being engaged with the game, they may just forget your game had a story in the first place.

Gamer Instinct

            Gamer instinct is a term used to describe what the player feels is natural to do in any situation, similar to real world instinct. Stomach growling? You look for something to eat. Drowsy state and yawning a lot? You think about going to sleep. The same things apply in virtually every game out there. The player uses instinct to avoid getting hit by projectiles, leaping over obstacles, and getting food when their health starts to run low. Some games defy gamer instinct, although for good reason. But before I get into that, let me just provide some more specific examples of how developers design a game to appeal to the instinct in all of us.

            Alright, so you have a plane game before you. The rules are simple: shoot stuff and don’t get hit. Getting hit means death. Naturally, you learn to avoid everything the enemy throws at you. Rules vary game by game, but this one instinct carries over. It is just a common rule to not get hit by your opponent because taking damage brings you closer to failure. Some games are lenient on this and let you make many mistakes, but that instinct will always tell you to dodge everything bad. This is especially true if the game’s sprites read well as a hostile threat. Take a glowing red ball of fire. Obviously that would kill you outright, so you steer clear. But what about this sparkling blue gem? How do you know THAT won’t kill you, too? Designing your sprites to read well to the player makes their instincts kick in so they don’t have to consciously think about what they are doing. They just will their actions and they happen. By the way, that gem is useful. Might as well pick it up.

            Knowing gamer instinct is invaluable when making an exploration game. The player will see a wide open sandbox to play in, but they need some kind of guidance as to where to go first. If the world looks quite literally like an empty sandbox, they could go just anywhere. But if you were to, say, make an arch of trees that lead to a big prairie, just about every player will head that direction and ignore everything else. It takes a conscious effort to look away from the trees and at the expanse of nothingness. Knowing how to draw the eye of your player is also helpful for teaching mechanics without a convoluted tutorial. This technique is known as conveyance. I might just go over this in more detail in another article, but point is conveyance is a way to teach the player about the world without implicitly telling them. 

Now that the player has been draw to the prairie, we put up two portals that lead to different areas. One of the portals is brightly colored and looks positively inviting. The other is crooked, misshapen, and emanates a bad vibe. Chances are, the player will go through the bright portal as it looks safer. But what if the portal is on the right side of the player’s view? What if the dark portal is on the left? Naturally, players may still opt for the bright portal, but more often than not players will take the left option over the right option. I’m not sure why this is, but it also applies to gamer instinct. We just like picking left first. As for those portals, what is actually in them? A developer can make those portals do anything! The bright one could lead to a fun filled paradise, or it could just outright kill the player. The second option goes against gamer instinct and in some cases can make a game more interesting to play.

Going against gamer instinct is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s rewarded such as following a guide arrow to a destination, but taking the other path to find a secret. This is a common trope in games that encourages exploration, although it’s a little pointless in linear experiences. Leading a player through a hallway with a few closets here and there does not make for a good exploration game. As for those portals mentioned earlier, what if the developer wanted to challenge the player’s will? That spooky portal might actually hide some brilliant gold or a wondrous location. One would expect it to lead to a creepy forest or a dark room with little illumination, but it could literally be anything. There are some examples of bad attempts of going against gamer instinct.

There is only one part of Cave Story I dislike. You just beat a boss monster and you enter the next room. At the start, a brief cutscene shows a friendly NPC from earlier falling from the top of the room to the bottom. Naturally, due to gamer instinct, you go down and talk to this person. Doing so rewards the player with an item that lets you boost yourself a little, almost like flying. Except that is the wrong choice! You can get a much better item if you IGNORE THE NPC! You have to deliberately march on ahead knowing full well that a man could be down there injured and you are the only living thing that could conceivably save him or at least listen to his last words. Later the same guy shows up again all fine and dandy. He gives you a stronger version of the booster which lets you direct exactly where you fly. I never figured this out on a natural playthrough with no walkthroughs or guides. I had to see a video online to figure this out. It was maddening to me.

            That’s all I have on gamer instinct. Hopefully you as a reader have gained some knowledge on how players think, how they read visuals, and how it can be fun to trick them into following their instincts and make them defy conventions in order to progress through the game.

Analyzing Games

          What does it mean to analyze a game? It could mean several things, actually. Most commonly it just means examining how a game operates on its mechanics and dynamics. It’s also helpful to know what makes a game terrible and what makes it great. This is crucial to game design and even when reviewing games. 

          For designers, it’s good to know how to analyze so you can figure out how a game works. The best way to do this is to take any game you own and just play it. If you’ve played for a long enough time (in my case since I was barely 4), you can spot things that can break a game. I’m not referring to glitches or graphical errors. I mean certain mechanics that do not entertain you or something redundant. An example: in Twilight Princess, rupees are a type of currency. Thing is, you may only carry up to a certain amount. The game gives you way too many rupees to work with and most of the time you end up losing out on getting rupees simply because your wallet is full. Fortunately, the developers did try to combat this, but did a poor job of it. There is a suit of armor that supposedly grants the best protection. As you wear it, your wallet is drained of rupees. This was meant to combat the excessive amount of rupees lying around, but it drained so fast that within minutes I was broke. The worst part is once you have 0 rupees, the armor inhibits your movement. It’s a terrible piece of armor and this issue could have been fixed by simply making rupees more scarce or possibly making items cost more.

          Another example is taking an existing game and making something that could arguably be a clone of it. I’m not saying “copy this game.” I just mean look at a game and see if you can come up with something better. Galactic Café did this with Freedom Planet. They made a game clearly based around Sonic with similar mechanics and dynamics, but it ended up being a lot better. As revered as Sonic may be, the biggest problem I had with that game is being forcefully slowed down. The point of that game is to zip through levels at high speeds. The thrill of being in control of something that powerful is what made the game franchise amazing. Then they throw these obstacles that stop your movement completely and the worst part is you can’t see them coming because the screen is moving so quickly. Freedom Planet did away with that and let you run as fast as possible. They also threw in explorative level design and added a timer that counted up rather than down. You could take as long as you wanted on a level, but that timer just let you know how long you’ve been running around. It was a fantastic game thanks to those changes.

          As for a game critic, you analyze games mostly for their entertainment value. You may have to give some feedback on the aesthetic and graphics quality, but the most important part is the gameplay itself. Should the game prove to be boring, a critic’s job is to point that out and explain why it’s boring. This can be subjective based on the critic’s skill at games overall and if the game is meant to appeal to a certain demographic, especially if it’s a children’s game. Providing feedback on these games is helpful to game developers as it tells them what they did wrong and how they can make improvements in a future title. 

          The best way to improve in your analyzing skills is to, of course, play as many games as possible. It’s even better if you vary up the genre. What if you don’t have a games console? That’s alright. You can learn a ton about game design just by watching people play. You just have to know what to look for. Look at gameplay for a big mainstream title that didn’t do so well critically and compare it to an indie game that ended up being a hit. The differences can be mind blowing! Compare simple mechanics to complex rules and you will notice a difference. Good games do not have to be expensive to make nor do they have to be overly intricate. Just try to make something fun and understandable to start off.