Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Much as early movies initially mimicked the conventions of stage plays, today's
video games continue to ape the conventions of this era's dominant storytelling
forms: the movie and television show. But over time, this medium will evolve its own
narrative conventions and forms, best suited to its unique abilities and strengths.
The most forward-thinking of game designers and writers are already preparing
for this sea change. “I love to write game stories,� admits 2K Boston founder and
Bioshock Creative Director Ken Levine. “But, frankly, any game story I wrote won't
be half as interesting as the emergent experience you [the player] create based on the
variables we throw out and you set in motion.� 4
In keeping with this final chapter's theme of wistfully gazing to the horizon, the
Game Story Generation System is only a fanciful imagining of what the narrative
elements of a futuristic game might someday look like. We may never get there, but
like a guiding star, it represents the general direction we should probably be headed.
So, instead of concentrating so much effort on making even more realistic-looking
CGI hair and fur simulations for games, perhaps some savvy technical folks could
get started on this little project instead? It's hard to exaggerate the transformational
impact that could result from the unleashed imagination of a game storyteller be-
ing married to the almost incomprehensible computing power of future home game
consoles.
Traditionalists, fear not: the game writer of the far future will still need a deep
understanding of classic story structure, characterization, and drama in order to gen-
erate starting story parameters and to evaluate and help improve the performance of
real-time story generation systems.
And regardless of whether this system or something like it ever becomes a reality,
it seems clear that the game writers of today and of the near future will need to know
more and more about how games are really architected and created. Familiarity with
many kinds of games, deep knowledge of game development processes, and fluency
with various proprietary storytelling engines and tools will no longer just be what
separate successful game writers from the “slumming� writers from other media—
they will be required to get in the door at all.
The long-term result will be video games with superior narrative content, fur-
ther differentiating them from non-interactive narrative media, evolving a new and
unique kind of storytelling...and perhaps someday offering the most compelling
stories ever to be experienced.
4 Electronic Gaming Monthly , May 2006, 55.
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