Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
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What do you believe your target audience's expectations will be re-
garding your game's narrative? What percentage of the players do
you believe will be story-philes versus story-phobes?
It's important to understand and be clear with other game design lead-
ers regarding the role that narrative elements are likely to play within the
overall game design, and how those elements will be prioritized versus
other aspects. This will drive smart decisions early in the process, and set
the tone for the rest of the game's design development process.
Matching Player Verbs to Narrative
Core game designs and mechanics are always directly linked to what the
player character can
do
… the verbs she is able to express within the con-
fines of the game space. Some common verbs in video games include
walk, run, jump, aim, shoot, crouch, block, climb, float, fly, swim, drive,
build, and collect. Many games also have contextual verbs that are only
available when the player character moves within range of a certain in-
game location or object: open door, use computer, talk to NPC, pick up
item, etc.
Player verbs can be expensive in terms of development effort. Just im-
plementing a new verb will require additional code, and often also imply
new art, animation, and/or audio. Verbs also tend to open up gameplay
possibilities that must be accounted for, and doing so can take a lot of
time and effort. Level designers must constantly take all verbs into consid-
eration, or disallow specific verbs at certain times (often leaving Narrative
to justify a seemingly arbitrary restriction).
The lower the number of player verbs, the easier it is to control the vari-
ables and rein in scope. However, a low number of verbs can result in
more and more onus being put on out-of-game narrative mechanisms to
convey a story. For example, if all the player verbs in a game have to do
with combat and none have to do with traversal movement, then how will
you bridge from one combat context and location to another? With no
option to provide the player an interactive journey from Point A to Point B,
you will likely lean upon noninteractive storytelling techniques to establish
a change of location and a new reason and context for the next battle.
This can range from the simple, five-second panning of images in
