Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
For example, you may find yourself in a position where you're a “cold”
audience member—you haven't been exposed to the development pro-
cess or what was intended for any given narrative sequence. As such, your
reaction to said sequence upon seeing it for the first time might be invalu-
able feedback to those who created it, hopefully at a point in the process
where it's still possible to adjust course.
More important, because you have some distance from the material,
you may have a better chance of noticing narrative problems than those
who actually created the story content. These “bugs” might relate to any of
the topics we've discussed in this topic, such as structure, characterization,
exposition, consistency, believability, dialogue … you name it.
What if a game level and its narrative unintentionally feel less intense
than the ones before them?
What if a character's mission objectives conflict with something she in-
dicated about her beliefs in the previous cutscene?
What if something happens in a cutscene that you know violates the
physics that have been established in the rest of the game?
What if there's a VO line that is playing incessantly?
What if you simply don't “buy” the surprise that just exploded into the
story and game from out of left field? Or worse, what if you felt it was un-
fair?
Of course, it can be a delicate matter providing feedback to developers
on their work—especially on a topic as subjective as storytelling. You may
want to first ask the relevant team members whether they're interested in
receiving feedback on the story elements. Any narrative professional worth
her salt will welcome your perspective, even if she doesn't always end up
acting on it—either due to time or scope constraints, or a simple differen-
ce of opinion.
So, if you are a QA tester and your reading of this topic has expanded
your understanding of game narrative—or if you already had a good, solid
understanding of story development—you should consider yourself an-
other line of defense against sub-par fictional content making its way into
the games you test.
In fact, you're the last line of defense.
