Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
narratiVe architecture
Using tutorials and level design to train the player illustrates one of the strengths of video
games: They can use the game's simulated physical space to structure player experience.
Unlike literature or cinema, which are well suited to depict events in time, games are
well suited to depict space. in his paper “Game design as narrative architecture” (2004),
henry Jenkins calls this type of spatial storytelling technique
narrative architecture
and
places games in the tradition of spatial stories, an honor they share with traditional
myths and heroes' quests as well as modern works by J.r.r. Tolkien (2004). simply by
traveling through the game space, a story is told.
Storytelling in Games
Many games have used storytelling to great effect. The
Half-Life
series stands out
as a particularly good example. The games from this series are first-person shooter
action games in which the player traverses a virtual world that seems to be vast but
which in reality is confined to a narrow path. The whole story of
Half-Life
is told
within the game. There are no cut-scenes that take the player out of the game, all
dialogue is performed by characters inside the game, and the player can choose to
listen or ignore them altogether.
Half-Life
has perfected the art of guiding the player
through the game, creating a well-structured experience for him. The practice is
often referred to as
railroading
; in this light, it is probably no coincidence that in
Half-Life
and
Half-Life 2
the player arrives on a train (see
Figure 2.2
). The disadvan-
tage of railroading is that the player's freedom is mostly an illusion. When players
go in a direction that was not intended by the game, the illusion can break down
very quickly. It takes a lot of design skill to prevent players from noticing the invis-
ible boundaries that prevent the player from exploring in other directions.
Creating interactive stories for games is not easy. Traditional techniques such as using
branching story trees have proven inefficient. You have to create a lot of content the
player will not experience in a single play-through. Creating vast open worlds for
the player to explore, as is often the case in many of the
Elder Scrolls
games, offers
much freedom to the player but often means that the players lose track of the main
storyline altogether. To create a coherent, storylike game, a delicate balance between
offering players freedom and restricting their freedom through the design of your
levels is required.
