How do designers use story to enhance the player experience?
Within games, the story has a lead role in engaging the player. It should aim to enthral the user with an experience that cannot be replicated in their day to day lives. When it is done effectively, the story will be able to successfully carry the narrative and progression of the game and the world that is built around it.
Forms & History of Storytelling
Storytelling has always been a major part of history and is the way in which we express our interpretations of the world. The way in which it is recorded has developed massively throughout time – from physical carvings into rocks, to moving pictures in homes and cinemas.
Cave Painting
There have been many paintings and engravings found in caves from up to 40,000 years ago. These pieces of rock art feature things such as stencilled hands and handprints and much more often animals like mammoths, cave bears and more. For humans in this time, it appeared to be a documentation of life and experiences.
Oral Traditions
Oral tradition is the most widespread form of communication between humans. It is used to transmit knowledge, art and ideas and has been used for storytelling concerning things such as fables, myths, legends and more.
Fables were tales that taught about morality and explored positive and negative human behaviours whilst highlighting what is right and wrong. These short stories were used to criticize the government at the time – this was discreet, and so people did not suffer the consequence that would otherwise occur from speaking out directly towards authority. A famous collection of fables were told by Aesop, originating roughly around the mid 6th century: Aesop’s Fables.
Here is an example: The Horse & Groom
A groom used to spend whole days in currycombing and rubbing down his Horse, but at the same time stole his oats and sold them for his own profit. “Alas!” said the Horse, “if you really wish me to be in good condition, you should groom me less, and feed me more.”
Moral: A man may smile yet be a villain
Myths are symbolic narratives that allegedly relate to real-life occurrences and are heavily associated with religious beliefs. Some well-known examples are found within Greek mythology, such as the Twelve Olympians.
Zeus, for instance, was known as the governing deity of them all – the sender of lightning, rain, and wind.
Despite its age, it is still a very influential part of history. We see this in media in different forms such as games like God of War, which uses Greek and Norse mythology, or Okami, which uses Japanese tradition and mythology.
Modern Media: Text, Theatre, Film & Television
These are the most current forms of storytelling that we use for both informative and entertainment purposes. Stories have evolved into being told through books, scripts that are turned into plays, television series, movies, animations and so on.
This development has allowed for combinations of features to be used at once – for example, the Studio Ghibli movie Howl’s Moving Castle uses a script that is turned into dialogue, still images that are sequenced to create moving images and sound that is tailored to the events of the film to create a single piece of storytelling.
Books and comics offer storytelling through text and images. Whilst comics tend to be non-fictional, books can convey fictional topics as well as fantastical ones.
It is often that novels can then have a movie or TV series adaptation as a production company works with the original author where possible to bring their creation to life in a different form of media. Examples feature the movie adaptations of The Maze Runner book series by James Dashner or the TV series adaptation of the Noughts & Crosses book series by Malorie Blackman.
Theatre is a performing art which utilises live actors working from a script. It originated in Ancient Greece in the 6th Century B.C. where audiences would enjoy three genres of drama in a grand colosseum: comedy, satire and tragedy.
Game Genre & Representation
Genre
There are many ways for a player to progress through a game and they aren’t always driven heavily by the story. This all depends on the genre as the gameplay, game mechanics and pacing change in different ways to create various player experiences – for example:
Adventure
Adventure games are usually heavily story-driven with the player having to read through dialogue when interacting with other characters to find out what challenges may need to be completed in order to progress. It is often that when conversing with NPCs, multiple-choice questions are presented to the player and how they respond could potentially affect the relationship with that character. This can even sometimes alter the way in which the whole story plays out.
This chronological development of story and relationship building with other characters helps to engage the player and allows them to grow with the plot and feel as though they have truly become part of the game experience.
Strategy
Strategy games are almost opposite to adventure games in the sense that the aim is not to complete the story but rather, the plot is presented to the player in its entirety to set the scene. The narrative becomes the state of the game as opposed to being something that you need to journey through. The main goal of these types of games is to upgrade your resources as much as possible and complete the same kind of mission, working through a map.
For instance, in Clash of Clans, you attack enemy bases on a map and must earn a certain amount before moving to the next level. With the gains that you collect, you upgrade your troops, weapons, and resources and complete more stages that get progressively more challenging.
Role-play
Role-play games (RPGs) are similar to adventure games in the sense that the story will unfold as you complete objectives, but less so in the way in which you can go about completing those missions. RPGs have more aspects of the open-world genre, and so you can progress through the main story at your own pace just as long as you complete the relevant quests. The main focus tends to be gaining experience points (exp) and getting stronger by upgrading your abilities and gear.
Character Representation
Stereotypes are used all throughout media to create characters that successfully appeal to consumers due to their exaggerated personalities and traits. In modern gaming, developers are looking to challenge the strategy of using character archetypes and, instead, create protagonists that they feel audiences can relate to more.
A well-known example of stereotyping in games is the representation of women in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. They are only useful to the main male character as a form of pleasure and minor perks become available, such being able to escape law enforcement by calling them on the phone.
In Super Mario 3D Land, which was released in 2011, Princess Peach is still a typical damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by Mario after being taken by Bowser.
A countertype of the helpless female trope in games is Lara Croft who stars as the main character in the Tomb Raider series. She fends for herself throughout the game, relying on her own skill in combat, gunmanship and agility to navigate dangerous environments when infiltrating tombs to find lost artefacts.
Despite this, her character still falls into typical stereotypes. For instance, her outfit in earlier games was sexualised and didn’t really look like the practical get-up for the scenarios she was supposed to be in. This was used as a way to make her stand out and appeal to players as an attractive woman – the defining factor was focussed on her looks.
In the most recent game, however, she no longer wears a crop top but a full-sized tank as well as cargo trousers instead of the short shorts. With time, the developers made her character more appropriately presented in terms of the nature of the game, which some may highlight as an attempt to stray away from stereotypes that seemingly reduce women to their appearance.
Whilst the examples are endless, modern-day games are working to diversify their characters with hopes that they can appeal to a wider demographic and ultimately portray gaming as an inclusive and communal experience for everyone.
Jasmine Cooper 