Should there be a section on storyline or storyboarding and how many layers should your games story have?
For instance good TV series and even the Marvel Movies usually have at least two layers or arcs to the story, a big season one then episodic arcs. Often interwoven with returning arc/themes characters.
I tend to just make a game, in a minimalist (story/theme) world e.g. Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Shooter / FPS or like that movie or game.
And are the best games story driven, with the best of those having a multi-layered set of interwoven story arks.
Or to put it another way if your game wrote a book would it be any good?
I think my games stories would be up there with the bestā¦
Iām assuming youāre talking about a sub-forum on the Unity forums when you refer to a āsection?ā If so, Iām not sure how much value it would add to the community. Why? Because not every game is going to have a story arc; there exists plenty of games where there is no story at all. Others, especially open-world games, thrive off of presenting a world to the player to explore and to play through their own story, though these games will often times concentrate more on back-story rather than a central main arc. Others will have the episodic format that you described.
I wouldnāt necessarily say that the best games are story driven, as whatās considered the ābestā is often times held in the eye of the beholder. Some people would say that an online multiplayer, deathmatch game is the best, with little to no story line. My coworker thinks that an open-world, procedurally generated game such as Dwarf Fortress is the best simply because no two games are alike. Others may say that story-driven games such as the Mass Effect series is the best. It just depends on several factors including the genre and your audience.
Depends on genre, goals and target audience. Thereās no single answer.
There are Visual Novels, which are pretty much reading all the time.
There are text heavy RPGs with a lot of writing, like Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Pillars of Eternity, Planescape: Torment, etc.
Then there are less story-heavy games, where story still plays an important factor (for example, Silent Hill, comes to mind).
Then there are sandbox games with little to no story.
Then there are games which attempt to create emergent storytelling (Dwarf Fortress).
In my opinion, a good enjoyable experience is when the game drops enough hints, but doesnāt explain every single detail to the player. This approach allows player to imagine stuff beyond anything the game designer could come up with. A good example of this applied to practice is Half-Life.
I enjoy discussing game stories, but those threads typically donāt get very many replies at all. Most people donāt write very well, and arenāt particularly interested in doing so. Certainly not for a game.
This. Story discussion fits in the existing game design and general discussion forums. When they get flooded with too many posts about story, then it will be time to create a subforum for stories. But not before.
I think a much better sub-forum would be mobile lighting/shadows - cause Iām struggling with it right now! And most of the lighting threads are focused on highest quality - best visuals.
But I will say that writers tend to not want to hear actual feedback and often just want to talk up their stuff. I think the section would be overrun by people pitching stories and very little feedback.
Yes. Yes, I think a subforum for storyboarding and story development would be a good thing. Other game development forums have their story/writing forum seperate from the game design subforum, and while not necessarily getting a lot of traffic, there always seems to be something going on there.
I feel that writing for games is even less appreciated by many Indie devs than game design or sound creation. At the same time, when you start reading up upon it and watching youtube vids about it, you start noticing just how much there is to learn and say about writing. Writing for video games adding even more complexity like branching stories and adjusting for the interactive element just adds to that.
+1 for a narrative/story/writing subforum from me.
I agree, itās often overlooked and is the cause of many failures. Are there any channels or articles you can share that are informative about this topic?
I donāt feel the same. I love to write, but I also love to discuss writing. I used to spend abnormal amounts of time every day discussing Bioware game stories and lore. I would also be quite happy to talk about any video game stories that people come up with here.
Has anyone considered a language based analysis of game design, e.g. the actions and interactions in the game are the games language and then to consider how complex a story you could write using your games language?
e.g.
Pong: Up/Down/Ball Hits Bat/Goal
Pac Man: Up/Down/Left/Right/Eat[dot/powerpill/ghost]/Die.
Perhaps more accurately, once you get up to some minimum level of interaction, you have the components for a very diverse range of stories.
As much as I hate RPGMaker games, you really donāt need anymore interaction than their engine provides to write a story of pretty much any complexity. itās just that some of the actions will be things you see rather than do.
Look at the mechanics of Bioshock (shooting things, and upgrading the variety of ways in which you shoot things) and then the story which is told with it (shenannigans arising from a clash of ideology after a bunch of rich elitists decide to build their own city/kingdom).
In most adventure games you solve puzzles by combining and/or using objects, tangentially advancing an arbitrarily plot. Hey look, I used the paperclip on the water wheel, so now I can walk through the dimensional gateā¦
Or what about games like Splinter Cell, where the mechanics are all about sneaking around places youāre not wanted and the plots are generally some kind of lite political intrigue.
Iām not sure precisely what you mean by stories here, but I think VR will create a much more āphysicalā and immediate experience, as opposed to an overarching story. I guess āatmosphereā is the term for what I think VR will be very good at.
Probably not. Good stories happen when the control remains in the hands of the content creator. Itās why books and movies almost universally have better stories then games.
If anything VR puts the player more firmly in control of their character. Meaning less control in the hands of the developer. And less opportunities for story.
