Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
between Angry Birds worlds all the way up to the sumptuously rendered,
ten-minute cutscenes from the Metal Gear Solid series. As you make the
hard decisions about player verbs, keep in mind that the more narrow your
focus in this area, the more you might be overburdening the noninteract-
ive narrative tools at your disposal.
Another point to consider with regard to player verbs is that people and
fictional characters are, in many ways, defined by the choices they make
and what they do. In a game, a playable character ends up doing only the
things the designers allow. Thus, the gameplay verbs that are available to a
player character define, in a very basic way, who that character is . We will
dive more deeply into the issue of game character development in the
next chapter, but for the time being it's important to realize that player
verbs and the player's character are inextricably interwoven, and should be
concepted and developed concurrently.
Further, if you are using a pre-existing character as a (or the main) play-
able in your game, be aware that the character may come with baggage
that includes a bevy of implied verbs. Spider-Man, for example, has inher-
ent wall-crawling and web-swinging abilities that can cause waking night-
mares for your level designers and camera designers/engineers. Other
characters may imply other abilities.
Game Story versus Player Story
Another important decision that will have massive implications for the
game narrative scope—and possibly its quality—will be how much of the
story you are planning to craft beforehand versus what you allow to
emerge naturally during gameplay.
Will you go for a tightly crafted, largely linear cinematic game like Un-
charted or Batman: Arkham Asylum ? A narrative-heavy experience with
multiple, story-impacting branch points such as Mass Effect or The Walk-
ing Dead: Season One ? An open-world sandbox more loosely held to-
gether by a largely linear storyline like Grand Theft Auto, Fallout 3 , or Red
Dead Redemption ? A mainly emergent story design like FTL: Faster Than
Light ? Or an almost purely systemic offering such as The Sims or League
of Legends ?
Most games that incorporate any kind of storytelling include, to one de-
gree or another, two narratives running in parallel. There is the game
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