Writing Tutorials, or Press Start. . . to Start - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 127

the most interesting part of the story and should not be overshadowed by a fabulous
backstory that is more interesting than the story the player is playing. If the backstory
is more appealing than the game story, then why didn't the writer set the story then?
Overshadowing doesn't always mean that the backstory is more interesting than
the narrative. It can also mean that the game narrative has been overloaded with
information from the backstory. What is relevant to the player is what they are expe-
riencing in the game. Backstory that does not shed light on the present is redundant.
Military games seem to fall particularly foul of the trap of redundant information.
Many such games mistake elaborate, unbelievable biography for character. “Lieu-
tenant Bostain played professional football for the Cowboys and took part in the
Olympics as a pentathlete before serving with the Green Berets, SEALs, SAS, CIA,
and becoming the first man to climb Everest carrying a grand piano.� Worse still,
such biographies are often the cue for the entry into the game of a mindless drone
who occasionally shouts “Huh!�
Backstory is there to help the development team, but it must remain relevant.
Expert Characters
While a game character may be a trained FBI agent, hitman, space pilot, or foot-
baller, the player could be a schoolgirl, plumber, or a microbiologist from Swansea.
While the character is an expert, the player might not even know how to make their
character walk around.
It is possible to ignore this problem. The player knows they are playing a game
and are sometimes prepared to suspend their disbelief to a degree. That said, the
smoother the writer can make this process the better.
Removing a character's powers. One simple way to level the player and the char-
acter is to remove the character's skills or their equipment. Far Cry opened its story
by sinking the character's boat and stripping the character of their equipment. Such
an approach doesn't alter a character's physical powers, but it does allow the player
to be gradually introduced to weapons in the game, thus helping with the game's
difficulty curve.
Removing powers is more difficult when dealing with physical powers or knowl-
edge. A hackneyed and overused method for removing knowledge is to give the main
character amnesia. This removes the character's skills and also presents an opportu-
nity to fill the character and therefore the player in on the back story, but the overuse
of this technique renders it hackneyed and so will damage the player's interest in the
story.
Physical powers often require a physical explanation for their removal. In Metroid
Prime 2 , Samus suffered battle damage that resulted in the loss of her extra special
abilities. This can be a useful technique, as long as the method used to remove the
abilities is believable.
The player as tutor—teaching others. When creating Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix , the development team faced the problem that while the central char-