Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
archbishops, and eventually Egyptian pharaohs. These images and animations, elements of
context that appear during the play of the game, tie in with the noninteractive story elements
that appear in the comics, creating a simple, silly world. The context isn't strictly necessary for
the game system itself. We could have also created a similar game using abstract enemies and
defenders rather than chickens and eggs, but together, all the pieces of context and story cre-
ate an experience with a uniquely ludicrous flavor.
Story as Exertion
Cutscenes like the animations of
Pac-Man
or the comic-book pages of
Egg vs. Chicken
show up
when the player's successfully completed a certain level, at a moment of rest and reward. They
don't necessarily have much to do with what the player just accomplished, which is why they
often feel like an intermission. As short breaks from play, they often just involve watching or
reading the story rather than interacting with a system. Because games almost always involve
some level of interactivity and choice, it's tempting to get the player more involved in the story.
Could the player feel more like they're part of the story? What if the story couldn't proceed
without them?
Adventure games, which started to appear in the 1970s and 1980s, usually put the player in
control of a character who has to overcome various challenges to progress toward the end of
the game. The earliest adventure games, like
Adventure
(1979) and
Zork I
(1980), had little in the
way of story; the nameless adventurer was simply trying to find and collect every valuable trea-
sure in the game world. Later adventure games started to provide more context in the form of
other characters to talk to, who often give the protagonist quests to undertake. In
King's Quest
(1984), the main character is a knight trying to find three treasures; along the way, he meets a
woodcutter whose wife is starving. This dilemma can be solved if the player finds a magic bowl
that can create food, which fortunately happens to be lying on the ground not far away. In
exchange, the woodcutter gives the knight a fiddle, which turns out to come in handy later for
dealing with some angry leprechauns who can be pacified through music. By finding the cor-
rect solution to these problems and pushing into the game's resistance, the player participates
in the story and moves it forward.
Since then, many kinds of games have given players quests and undertakings to complete
and drive the story of the game forward. In massively multiplayer online role-playing games
(MMORPG) like
World of Warcraft
(2004), players experience sections of a particular character's
story piece by piece as they complete various tasks: locating missing items, slaying dozens of
nearby enemies, carrying a message or package from one place in the game world to another.
In single-player role-playing games, it's often necessary to grind through many enemy battles
in the game's combat system before reaching the next area of the game where the protagonist
can talk to new characters and find out what happens next in the overarching plot. Even social
games such as
Farmville
(2009) and
Cityville
(2010) have realized the lure of storylines, creating
