Storytelling in Theory - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 194

And so on. Then pull them out of a hat, no peeking, and give each character two or three
traits. The result might surprise you and you certainly avoid the clichés this way.
Interactive Stories
When people first started making motion pictures, they started out with filming a theater stage.
That was a way of telling stories that they understood. Then pretty soon they discovered all the
different things you could do with movies that you hadn't been able to do on stage. The old
lessons learned on the stage still applied, but new techniques blossomed with the new media. So
it is with games and interactive stories now. We can learn a lot from the structure of topics and
films, but there are also new things to consider. Interactive stories are still a very new medium
and we are still developing new methods to explore their full potential. Here are a few
considerations.
First of all, we can allow the player to influence the story. Let them have a say in what will
happen. This is actually similar to how stories were told in the old days. The storyteller would
listen to the response of his audience and alter the story to fit the mood of his listening crowd.
Because the players are actively participating in our story, there is a lot of opportunity to let
them have a real impact on how the events unfold.
Let's look at a few new tricks we can use in a game and try them out on our own game
Shadows on Deck.
Branching
One way is to let the player make the choice (rather than the player character) at certain key
points in the story. Depending on what the player chooses, he will see a different story.
If, for instance, the player didn't trust Archie the parrot in our story, he might not take his
advice to hide on the pirate ship once they attack. He could instead choose to fight alongside his
friends on the merchant ship. If we let the player choose this action, then the story has now
branched out and from here on there are effectively two stories running; one where Flynn hides
and gets to the pirate town and one where he stands and fights. That story could either end in his
death, or the merchant ship could go on to its destination or it could even go back home if it was
damaged badly.
If Flynn did trust the parrot and got to the pirate town, then we could now give him a
different choice. He could either help the prisoners escape and get information that way, or he
could try to make friends with the pirates by behaving as badly as they do. One option makes him
law-abiding and good, and the other makes him a rascal and a pirate. Depending on which, the
boss at the end could either fight him or help him willingly.
As you can see, this way of branching stories to give the player more control can quickly
mean that you have to write a lot more story than you first intended (see Figure 8-3). We now
have several stories to write and they all have to be interesting and have a satisfying ending.