Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Video games that don't include a story, that is, games that primarily entertain via
the challenge and achievement of gameplay, don't try to arouse complex emotions
in their audiences. They limit themselves to the thrill of victory and the agony of
defeat, or perhaps to the frustration of repeated failure. But with a story, you can
create other kinds of feelings as well. By crafting characters that the audience cares
about and subtle relationships among those characters, you have a chance to make
your audience feel (in sympathy with the characters) betrayal by a lover, satisfaction
at justice done, or a protective instinct for a child.
However, the nature of the interactive medium imposes some limits on what you
can do. This section looks at the emotional limitations of nonlinear stories and of
avatar-based interaction models.
Emotional Limits of Nonlinear Stories
When you tell a nonlinear story, you give the player the freedom to make choices that
significantly affect the relationships among the characters, which may include
decisions that feel emotionally wrong—or at least that don't conform to what you,
as a storyteller, would like the player to do. Suppose that you tell a story based on
Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, but you give the player controlling Hamlet a number of options.
In the play, Hamlet discovers that his mother and his uncle have conspired to kill his
father, the king of Denmark, and usurp the throne. Hamlet's father's ghost appears
to him and demands that Hamlet seek revenge, but Hamlet is unsure of what to do.
In your game, the player, acting as Hamlet, could simply run away and never come
back; he could ignore his father's ghost and forgive his mother and uncle; he could
try to assassinate his uncle and assume the throne himself; or he could just kill
himself. None of these outcomes is quite as interesting as what Shakespeare actually
wrote; in fact, some of them would bring the story to a bland and unsatisfactory
conclusion.
By offering the player the power to change the course of the story—or at least to
change the ending—you agree to accept the player's decisions, even decisions that
are not ideal in ordinary storytelling terms. You cannot guarantee that the player
will experience the most emotionally powerful resolution you feel that your story
offers unless you confine the player to a single resolution (and even then, the
player may prefer a different ending because individual taste varies).
Designers often restrict otherwise nonlinear stories to a single ending simply to
guarantee that the players experience the emotionally meaningful outcome the
designer planned. That means that the player's agency before reaching the ending
is merely an illusion. Players tolerate this in exchange for a satisfying ending, so
long as you don't promise them that their choices will change an ending which, in
fact, is fixed from the start.
