游戏邦注：本文原作者是游戏作家兼设计师Chuck Jordan，他在文中探究游戏与玩家叙述式有互动方式，为研究玩家和媒介故事的互动开辟了一条新路径。

当今的游戏开发者仍然在定义电子游戏的故事叙述手法，在此情况下，主要的挑战在于剧情（开发者的预设剧情）和游戏过程（玩家与游戏的交互作用之间）的紧张关系。这个难题构成不像是剧情和游戏机制之间的紧张，而像是作为媒体的电子游戏与作为活动的电子游戏之间的紧张关系。

媒介和游戏的天平

想象一个统一体，一端站着《An Inconvenient Truth》（一部关于全球变暖的纪录片），另一端站着《俄罗斯方块》。一个是完全文字式的：它只是把创作者的想法传达给观众。另一个是纯粹抽象派的：不带文字信息，但却为玩家了提供了一个玩乐的环境。一个是媒体，另一个是活动。

任何电子游戏、任何电影、书籍、电视节目、专辑、舞蹈节目等任何创作，都可以放在这个统一体上的任何一点，判断标准只是“这个作品想表达什么（如果有的话）？”

基于以下几个原因，我们仍然认为这个标准有所用处：

第一，它对两个极端都不存在价值判断。讨论电子游戏的内容（而不是电子游戏的机制）通常充满令人误解的术语，例如有趣和有意义。

当人们为从未遭到炮哄的想法（游戏邦注：例如“游戏不需要意味任何东西！”、“游戏是有意义的！”、“认为趣味性超过其他一切的想法是对媒体的幼儿化！”）辩护时，这些术语常常

对讨论造成干扰，甚至使讨论离题万里。受这个标准的庇护，抽象的、“休闲”游戏逃脱了被摒弃的命运（因为其比剧情游戏肤浅）；此外，该标准使这样的断言息声——高度维护抽像游戏设置的纯洁性；任何想要把游戏做得更线性、更叙事性的人还是去做电影更好。

第二，该标准避免将剧情和游戏分化。作为游戏背景的剧情和靠剧情支撑的游戏，二者之所不应有所倚重——即应把二者当成整体的一部分来看待。

最重要的是，此标准承认了交流（不只是陈述游戏）在游戏设计中的重要性。如果一个电子游戏开发者选择通过游戏来讲述剧情，那么她已经把自己的项目当成媒体了。她不得不考虑这个游戏打算向玩家传达什么信息。

反馈循环

人们往往会下意识地厌恶将游戏归入媒介行列，或者不由自主地反感游戏是不是剧情驱动这样的讨论。因为这种归类和讨论从某种角度上讲亵渎了游戏本身的纯粹性和价值。

但把电子游戏当做讲述故事的媒介并不会平庸化游戏设计，正如用电影来讲述故事，将电影艺术及其剪辑艺术平庸化了一样。任何艺术家选择一种媒介时都有责任决定这种媒介的独特之处，及如何把这种媒介运用发挥到淋漓尽致。

媒介式电子游戏的独特之处当然是它们的交互性。它们在开发者和玩家之间搭建了一座持续的、直接的、系统的、有规则的、双向交流的桥梁。这就是所谓的“游戏”。

当我们考虑将游戏作为媒介来设计剧情叙述过程时，剧情和游戏之间的典型差别看似愈加不得其所。在“思”和“做”之间画清界线毫无意义，“开发者之言”和“玩家之语”的离间也说不通。这么做意味着开发者在游戏中对牛弹琴，而玩家则在游戏中鸭子听雷公。

但过场动画和脚本事件并不是故事。整个游戏才是故事，所有的故事都通过游戏设置来讲述（使这种媒体显示了独一无二特点的元素正是游戏设置）。游戏的目的是得到故事的结局，但游戏的规则却是加诸玩家角色的约束。过场动画和脚本事件阐明了这么一个规则：角色是干扰，此路不再通，碎魔晶才是目标。

这个规则并不是引人注目的新定义，却是理念的细微转变。开发者的叙事过程与玩家活动并没有分离，所有人都在讲述剧情的过程中齐心协力。

讲述剧情的语言不同于我们所认识的传统媒体语言——对话、摄影或者设计等等；但游戏设置的语言却是开发者和玩家之间进行双向交流的语言。

开发者阐述新规则或新情节，玩家则提供一些输入，游戏作出响应——这种投入与反馈的循环，也是电子游戏交流活动最基本的元素，正是这种循环使得交互式娱乐在叙事媒介中独树一帜，并且是电子游戏意义的存在方式。

这种循环还在一定程度上定位了剧情游戏设计之间的极端：传统的故事 vs.系统的游戏结构、线性和控制 vs.开放性和不可预测性、艺术 vs.科学、先天才能 vs.后天努力、客观 vs.主观、直觉 vs.观察。

简单地看待各个电子游戏与玩家产生共鸣的时刻也是有意义的，就算共鸣的程度可能只存在于交互娱乐媒体中。游戏如何超越开发者和玩家各自唱独角戏的模式？游戏如何闭合玩家-开发者-玩家的循环圈？

选择

从书籍《Choose Your Own Adventure》到游戏《质量效应》，封闭这个循环圈的最显著、最有力的方式是，在关键剧情的选项里分支叙述剧情。这样，玩家的行为对剧情发展就有了直接的重要影响。

但分支叙述显然存在着完全实用主义的缺陷：资金和时间上都消耗巨大。即使只是一个单纯的善恶选项也可能得制作双重的关键场景，同时，更细微的选项会大大延长游戏开发时间。因为预算的增加，开支越来越难平衡，因为相当大一部分游戏内容是玩家从来不会看到的，而开发者仍然必须在这些内容设计上投入资金。

自从人们开始制作电子游戏，这种想法——分支叙述剧情的问题只是当前技术的极限，就已经存在了。

这个产业的圣杯，或者更准确地说，这个产业的永动机就成了剧情叙述的发动机，它用有限的内容源源不断地生成选择。

但如果我们把电子游戏看成开发者和玩家之间的交流，那么，剧情叙述的发动机真的是必然的、最理想的终极目标？玩家能立即收到偶然选择的反馈，但玩家仍然会保持与开发者的对话吗？

为冒险游戏《Sam & Max》 或 《Strong Bad》设计迷题的那阵子，我想为玩家重现在工作室里设计游戏的经历。玩冒险游戏时，我们经常谈论“啊—哈”时刻，但设计冒险游戏我们也常常“啊-哈”。

设计剧情冒险游戏的过程与玩剧情冒险游戏的过程（情节发展过程，某种程度上）类似，工作室里的每个人都努力想出最有趣、最新奇、最令人满意的方式来引出下一段剧情。

我们所想的方式未必是最好的或者有逻辑的，但每个人都会对此感叹：“是啊！那太完美了！”给玩家一个机会，让他们尽其所能去想他们的方式也并非我们的目标。事实上，有那么几次，玩家在论坛上和游戏测试中提出的建议，比游戏中使用的更有趣、更合理。

但所谓理想，不是简单的玩家说了算，而是与玩家分享这样一个时刻——我们所做的点点滴滴最终完美契合、玩笑中产生妙语联珠、持续关注得到回报和剧情言之有理（就《Sam & Max》而言，是差不多了）。

当开发者追求建立一种平台（让玩家完全掌控剧情的开放性环境）的目标时，他们必须保证交流的感觉没有遗失。另外，开发者并不是在授权给玩家，只是把玩家封闭在一个回音房里，让他们自言自语。

角色代理

对于电子游戏，玩家角色甚至比玩家选项的概念更根本。即使当自身的活动不能直接改变故事进程时，玩家引导剧情走向的体验，一定程度上可以与剧情产生共鸣，这是传统媒体不能复制的。

从电车轨道第一次穿过黑山的时刻，《半条命》系列就已经建立了玩家角色的概念。Gordon Freeman目睹了所有事件的发生，没有他的辅助，贯穿世界的电缆不会有电流通过，红色大发射键不会被按下。

表面上，彻底沉浸在游戏中就是目标。但玩家从来没有彻底融入故事或所扮演的角色Gordon Freeman，很大程度上是因为角色并不重要，玩家沉迷的仍然是剧情讲述。玩家越来越熟悉环境的细节和关键位置之间的空间关系。玩家越来越意识到时光的流逝和时限压力产生的紧张感。

在《半条命2：第二章》中，有这么个场景，Freeman 和 Alyx Vance透过双筒望远镜观察到一队跨步者和其他联合军的车辆通过桥。玩家在这些场景中别无选择；所有玩这个游戏的人都会目睹这一幕。但与电影《世界大战》中的一个类似场景相比，玩家角色产生的不同点就清晰可见了。在电影中是不能让观众产生如此强大的存在感和直接感。

用户界面

游戏开发者面临的风险是，高估了玩家角色的价值，或者过分依赖毫无意义的交互性（这是游戏真实体验的替代品）。编写冒险游戏对话的一个惯用伎俩是，用一系列殊途同归的“选项”打断剧情阐述顺序。

这个把戏旨在把玩家引入互动活动中从而打散剧情顺序的单调性，但滥用这个手段会引起反作用——玩家甚至意识到更多的是他的选择不会真正影响结果、互动活动徒有其表。

过分依赖融入感也有一个风险。科幻恐怖游戏《死亡空间》设计出游戏地图解释、HUD或玩家互动面板，着实是费了一番功夫使用户界面趋于完美。

这份努力确实让用户界面更加突出，然而，因为大多玩家已经受够独立用户界面，所以很难接受不带解释的用户界面。

如果把游戏当作玩家和开发者之间的对话，那么，开发者应该认为游戏角色和融入感是交流沟通的工具，而不只是装饰。

让玩家掌握控制权，游戏能传达什么？这种用户界面式的互动有意义吗？还是说只是给玩家打发封闭剧情顺序时胡乱拍的按钮？

同情心

游戏角色最有效的用途之一是激发玩家对玩家角色或其他角色的同情心。玩家在这种心情的驱使下，不得不考虑自身行为的后果，即使这些行为是开发者事先设定好的并且不限于分支剧情。

这种同情心能更微妙、更令人信服地传达某种理念，这是任何说教式的过场动画所不能及的，因为玩家渐渐意识到自身在剧情中的角色。

在游戏《Ico》中，牵引公主越过障碍是游戏的核心游戏设置。开发者润物细无声般地在玩家头脑中灌输依恋和守护的感情——这又是任何过场动画望尘莫及的。在游戏《传送门》中，Valve公司给Chell的同伴“超重量级二阶魔方”（对Weighted Companion Cube的戏称）安了一颗心，从而完成了类似的小规模游戏设置。

《Shadow of the Colossus》在这个概念上更上一层楼——将玩家置身于更加不明确的场景中。该游戏的基本结构完全是常规式的：玩家打败一连串越来越难搞定的BOSS，然后救出公主。但本作的陈述方式将玩家的标准游戏冒险体验转变为关于失去、悲恸和无奈的学习体验。

colossi实现了从典型的电子游戏怪物到神圣高尚的生灵的转变，尽管没有文本或对话把这种转变挑明。玩家的选择与此无关——除了退出游戏，玩家并没有所谓的真正选择。但游戏仍然在传达着这么一个理念：玩家的行为影响了结局。久而久之，玩家开始为杀掉这些基本无毒无害的物种而染上罪恶感，甚至当玩家对些情况有所察觉时，他也法从这种情绪中脱身。选择、必然和结果这三个理念，也是《生化奇兵》的重要组成部分。该游戏从表面上看主要是做出一系列的善恶选择——拯救或收服Little Sisters（游戏邦注：这两种选择各有专门的控制键和分支最终动画）。

但玩家与Big Daddy的关系更显微妙。无论玩家选择拯救还是收服Little Sisters，都必须杀掉各个Big Daddy。这些家伙一路高歌并笨拙而颠狂地在地上走着，他们的存在只是为了守护Little Sisters，并不会伤害玩家。

尽管杀掉Big Daddy并不是完成游戏的必须步骤，许多玩家还是毫不犹豫地这么做了。与Big Daddy的恶斗也成了游戏中最精彩的一个场景。直到游戏的后半部分，玩家目睹了关于选择的错觉这部分关键情节，才不得不思考他在整个游戏过程中的所作所为。玩家看到了Big Daddy的诞生和成长，终于明白同情是一种什么样的感觉。

关联性

使内容与玩家个体产生联系显然不是电子游戏的专属，但这种关联经常被忽视。如此众多的游戏，在开发过程中致力于世界观的打造和融入感的培养，导致开发者不但忽视了从游戏世界里提取关联性并直接告之玩家，也缺乏对关联性的兴趣。

我最难以忘怀的电子游戏体验之一是在Dreamcast上玩日本世嘉公司的《Seaman》。这种体验只可能存在于互动娱乐中。

我的宠物人面鱼到达成熟期后，为了更了解我，他曾问我一个私人问题。通过麦克风和语音识别技术，玩家可以与自己的人面鱼交流。在聊天的开头，我的人面鱼偶然问我，我最喜欢的电影是什么。

我知道这个游戏的语音识别技术还不成熟，但开发者为了防止第一次识别失败，给了玩家第二次回应的机会——开发者的工作真是周到。

对这个问题，我决定先说出我真正最喜欢的电影，如果没有被识别出来，我就改说更普遍的回答——《星球大战》。

听到我的回答《Miller’s Crossing》后，人面鱼双目放光，说：“啊，那你是科恩兄弟的粉丝咯！我猜你和你的朋友们成天坐在一起引用《Raising Arizona》的台词聊天吧。”我丢下控制器，惊恐地躲开显示器。

《Seaman》让人记忆犹新的是它独特的概念和以假乱真的创造。但选择Jellyvision作为英语翻译是对原版游戏的最完美的补充，因为该工作室制作《You Don’t Know Jack》系列的非传统的当代内容时在这方面有过经验。

选择这么一种怪诞的回应突破了该游戏的独特前题，并大大强化了玩家融入感。有那么一会儿，我不再使用难以捉摸的技术与3D模型和反应决策树对话，因为我不想再被一个如此了解我的家伙研究着。

当这种打破第四堵墙的工作奏效时，这种关联性就运作得出奇得好了。这种风险当然牺牲了游戏的普遍性。如果玩家做出的回答不在数据库的备选答案中，那么该玩家将不会收到针对他的回应。通过那次游戏经历，我还清醒地感觉到游戏作者和翻译者的存在，我是在与他们本人对话而不是与他们创造的角色交流。

交流渠道

游戏开发者有多种可用交流渠道，因此并非所有游戏要表达的理念都需要展示在动画上。更细微的环境线索可以强化通过“主要”渠道传达的想法，或者只是强化与游戏开发者的交流概念。

在《半条命2》里，玩家经常进入环境障碍的的区域，反而不是遇上一伙前来战斗的敌人。为了把他的快艇开出水库，Freeman不得不建一个坡道；为了上升到理想高度，Freeman不得不操纵升降机。这些举动有可能把玩家拉出剧情的虚幻，推回正在玩电子游戏的现实——玩家不再是击退外星生物的物理学家；而只是一个正在解决电子游戏迷题的家伙。

但几乎所有的区域都有细微的环境元素，用画在附近的用第十一个希腊字母表示。这些环境元素又把虚拟拉回到现实——这不是简单地解开游戏开发者设下的迷题；更是靠顽强的抵抗力来帮助Freeman通过关坎。

这些环境元素同时暗示了开发者和玩家之间的交流正在进行；提醒玩家存在着解决难题的理想方法；玩家不仅仅是陷入一个完全开放的游戏世界，孤立无援。游戏不是一个开放性的模拟，而是一次精心构建的体验。

回到原点

本文显然不是一份详尽的清单。本文的目的不是定义一系列用于与玩家交流的可能方法供游戏开发者使用，而是鼓励理念上的微妙转变。

当我们想到剧情游戏时，无论是做还是玩，我们总是把他们当成两个异体的结合物：一个是传统媒体的叙述技术，另一个是更死板的、更系统的游戏研发技术。如果我们把剧情和游戏当成同一个对话的两部分，我们将会有深化剧情和综合剧情叙述方式的可能。

电子游戏给我们每个人都留下了最喜欢的瞬间，那是其他媒体不能复制的时刻。即使我们不能非常清楚地说出来，我们都明白游戏的所能。这些时刻很可能不只是一种深刻的电影式的设计或者考虑周全的设计的产物，或者一个严格平衡的核心游戏设置，还是游戏世界的创造者和我们之间产生了真正的联系，从而结出了果实。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Closing the Loop: Fostering Communication In Single Player Games

by Chuck Jordan

Game writer and designer Chuck Jordan (Telltale’s Sam & Max, Strongbad) visits ways in which games interact with the player narratively and offers a new way of looking at player interaction with story in our medium.]

As game developers continue to define how video games can be used for storytelling, the predominant challenge is the tension between story — the developer’s predetermined narrative — and gameplay — the player’s interaction with the game. A slightly different way of framing the problem is not as the tension between story and gameplay, but as the tension between video games as a medium and video games as an activity.

An Inconvenient Tetromino

Imagine a continuum with An Inconvenient Truth at one extreme and Tetris at the other. One is completely literal: it exists solely to convey an explicit message from the creator to the audience. The other is completely abstract: it has no message, but exists solely to provide an environment in which the audience can play. One is media; the other is activity.

Any video game — or for that matter, any film, book, television program, album, dance performance, any creative work — can be placed somewhere along that continuum, based on a single criterion: “What, if anything, is this work trying to communicate?”

As thought experiments go, this one is admittedly pretty facile, but it’s useful for a few reasons:

First, it places no value judgment on either extreme. Discussions about video game content (as opposed to video game mechanics) are often filled with loaded terms like fun and meaning.

These can often derail the discussion into unproductive tangents as people defend ideas that were never under attack: “Games don’t have to mean anything!” “Gameplay is meaning!” “Focusing on ‘fun’ above all else is infantilizing the medium!”

It also avoids the tendency to dismiss abstract, “casual” games as more shallow than storytelling games; or, conversely, to claim that purity of abstract gameplay is of the utmost importance, and that anyone who wants to make a more linear, storytelling game should instead be making movies.

Second, it avoids making a distinction between story and gameplay. Focusing on the overall message — instead of story as set dressing for a game, or shallow gameplay that’s bolstered by an interesting story — means treating both components as parts of a common whole.

Most of all, it acknowledges the significance of communication in game design, not just presentation. If a video game developer chooses to tell a story with her game, then she’s placed her project towards the “media” end of the continuum. She has to think about what ideas the game is trying to communicate.

Feedback Loop

There tends to be a knee-jerk revulsion to any classification of games as media, or the discussion of games as being primarily story-driven. The objection is that doing so somehow violates the purity and value of game design for its own sake.

But using video games as a storytelling medium doesn’t trivialize game design, any more than using films to tell stories trivializes the arts of cinematography or film editing. Any artist choosing a medium has a responsibility to determine what’s unique about that medium, and how to use the medium to its fullest potential.

The unique aspect of video games as a medium is, of course, their interactivity. They provide ongoing, immediate, systematic, rules-based, bidirectional communication between the creator and the audience. This is also known as “gameplay.”

When we think about the process of narrative game design in this way, the typical distinction between story and gameplay seems even more out of place. It makes little sense to draw a line separating “thinking” from “doing,” or “developer’s narrative” versus “player’s narrative.” That would imply the creator and audience are speaking entirely different languages, engaged in completely separate activities that only occasionally intersect at cutscenes.

But cutscenes and scripted events aren’t the narrative. The entire game is the narrative, and the story is told via the one thing that makes the medium unique: gameplay. The objective of the game is to get to the end of the story, and the rules of the game are the constraints on the player’s character(s). Cutscenes and scripted events introduce or clarify the rules: this character is an obstacle, this path is no longer accessible, this crystal shard of darkest magick is now an objective.

It’s not a dramatic redefinition, but a subtle shift in philosophy. It’s not the case that the developer’s engaged in telling a story while the player’s engaged in an activity; it’s the case that they’re both collaborating in the process of telling a story.

And the language of the storytelling isn’t what we’ve borrowed from traditional media — dialogue, cinematography, set design, etc. — but the language of gameplay, that bidirectional communication between developer and player.

The developer presents a new rule or new scenario, the player provides some input, and the game responds. That cycle of input and feedback is the most fundamental element of video game communication, it’s what makes interactive entertainment unique among storytelling media, and it’s how video game stories provide all their meaning to the player.

It’s also positioned halfway between the extremes of storytelling game design: traditional narrative vs. systematic game mechanics, linearity and control vs. open-endedness and unpredictability, art vs. science, innate talent vs. rigorous study, subjectivity vs. objectivity, intuition vs. observation.

So it’s useful simply to look at individual moments when a video game resonates with the player on a level that’s only possible in the medium of interactive entertainment. How do games transcend the mode of two independent monologues, the developer’s voice and the player’s voice? How does a game close the loop of communication from player to developer and then back to the player?

Choice

The most obvious and immediately compelling way to close the loop, from Choose Your Own Adventure books all the way to Mass Effect, is to provide a branching narrative based on the player’s choices at key story moments. The player’s actions have an immediate, significant effect on the course of the story.

The most obvious disadvantage to branching narratives is a purely practical one: they’re expensive and time consuming. Even a simple, binary good/evil choice can double the number of key scenes that need to be produced, and more subtle options will increase development time even more. As budgets get larger, it becomes more difficult to justify spending money on content that, by design, a large part of the audience will never see.

For as long as people have been making video games, there’s been the idea that the problems of branching narratives are simply limitations of the current technology.

The industry’s holy grail — or more accurately, perpetual motion engine — has been the realization of a storytelling engine that can take a finite amount of content and intelligently and satisfyingly generate an infinite number of available choices for the player.

But if we’re looking at video games as communication between developers and players, is a storytelling engine really the inevitable and most desirable end goal? The player would be receiving immediate feedback for any choice he happens to make, but would he still be engaged in a conversation with the developer?

While designing puzzles for adventure games for Sam & Max or Strong Bad episodes, my goal was to reproduce for the player the experience of planning the game in the writers’ room. We often talk about “a-ha” moments when playing adventure games, but there are just as many that come up while designing them.

The process of designing a story-based adventure game is similar to the process of playing one — the story progresses to a certain point, and everyone in the room tries to come up with the funniest, most interesting, or most satisfying way to advance to the next story moment.

That’s not necessarily the best or most logical way to advance, but the one that makes everyone in the room say, “Yes! That’s perfect!” Giving the player the option to come up with any solution he can think of isn’t necessarily the goal. In fact, there’ve been several times that a player suggested a solution on the forums or during a playtest that was much more interesting or logical than the one we’d included in the game.

But the ideal wasn’t simply to empower the player, but to share a moment with the player — the exact moment when all the pieces finally fit together, the joke hits the best punch line, the attention to continuity pays off, and the story makes sense (or in the case of Sam & Max, close enough).

As developers continue to pursue the goal of building holodecks, open-ended environments that put players in complete control of the story, they need to make sure that the sense of communication isn’t lost. Otherwise, they’re not empowering the player, but simply locking him inside an echo chamber where he’s only speaking to himself.

Agency

Player agency is even more fundamental to video games than the concept of player choice. Even when the player’s actions don’t directly result in changing the course of the story, the experience of driving the narrative forward can make the story resonate in a way that traditional media can’t duplicate.

The Half-Life series has been built on the concept of player agency from the first moment of the tram ride through Black Mesa. Absolutely nothing happens that isn’t directly witnessed by Gordon Freeman, and without his assistance, power cables across the world remain unplugged and big red launch buttons remain unpushed.

Ostensibly, the goal is complete immersion. But the player is never completely immersed in the story or role-playing as Gordon Freeman, mostly because the character is something of a cipher. Still, the player is immersed in the storytelling. He becomes more intimately familiar with the details of the environment and the spatial relationships between key locations. He’s more conscious of the passage of time and the tension that results from time pressure.

In Half-Life 2 Episode 2, there’s a scene in which Freeman and Alyx Vance watch through binoculars as a convoy of striders and other Combine vehicles cross a bridge.

There’s no player choice involved; everyone playing the game will witness this scene. But when compared to a similar scene in the recent War of the Worlds remake, the difference that comes from player agency becomes clear. There’s a greater sense of presence and immediacy that doesn’t come across in a film.

The risk for game developers is overestimating the value of agency, or the over-reliance on empty interactivity as a substitute for genuine experience. An over-used trick in writing adventure game dialogue is to break up expository sequences with a list of “options” for the player to choose, which all go to the same branch.

It’s intended to break up the monotony of a sequence by pulling the player back into the interaction, but can actually have the opposite effect when used too often.

The player becomes even more aware that his choices have no real effect on the outcome, and the interaction seems even more artificial.

There’s also a risk of over-relying on immersion to the point of distraction. The sci-fi horror game Dead Space puts considerable effort into making the user interface seamless, with a game world explanation for every map, heads-up display, or panel the player interacts with.

This actually causes the interface to draw more attention to itself, however, since most players have dealt with separate in-game UIs enough to accept them without explanation.

Considering the game as dialogue between player and developer, it’s important for developers to think of agency and immersion as tools for communication instead of just flourishes.

What idea or feeling does the game convey by giving control to the player at this point? Is it a meaningful interaction, or does it simply give the player buttons to mash during an otherwise non-interactive sequence?

Empathy

One of the most effective uses of player agency is to foster a sense of empathy for the player’s avatar or other characters in the narrative. The player’s forced to consider the consequences of his actions, even if those actions are predetermined by the developer and not subject to a branching narrative. This can convey an idea or a concept more subtly and persuasively than any didactic cutscene, because the player gradually becomes more aware of his role in the narrative.

In the game Ico, a core game mechanic is holding the princess’s hand to guide her through obstacles. The developers seamlessly and wordlessly instill in the player a sense of attachment and protectiveness, more effectively than any cutscene would be able. Valve accomplished something similar on a smaller scale with Portal, simply by putting a heart on the Weighted Companion Cube.

Shadow of the Colossus took this concept even further by placing the player into a more morally ambiguous situation. The basic structure of the game is completely conventional: to save a princess, the player has to defeat an increasingly difficult series of bosses. But the presentation of the game shifts the player’s experience from a standard adventure to a study on loss, mourning, and inevitability.

Although no text or dialogue makes it explicit, the colossi are transformed from standard video game monsters to majestic, even noble creatures. Player choice isn’t involved — the player has no real choice other than to stop playing the game — but the game still communicates the idea that all of the player’s actions have consequence. Over time, he starts to feel guilty for killing these ultimately peaceful creatures, even while he’s aware that he can’t stop.

That idea of choice, inevitability, and consequence, was also an important part of BioShock. The game ostensibly put its focus on a series of binary good/evil choices — save or harvest the Little Sisters — each with its own dedicated controller button and branching final cutscene.

But the player’s relationship with the Big Daddies was much more subtle. Whether the player chose to save or harvest the Little Sisters, he was forced to first kill each Big Daddy. And these characters were lumbering creatures pacing the floors of Rapture, singing whale song, doing no harm to the player but existing only to protect the little girl in their care.

Many players killed them without a second thought; even if they weren’t necessary to complete the game, the fights against the Big Daddies were the game’s most interesting set pieces. It’s only later in the game, after witnessing a pivotal story moment about the illusion of choice, that the player’s forced to consider what he’s been doing over the course of the game. He sees how the Big Daddies are created and, to drive home the sense of empathy, forced to become one himself.

Relevance

The notion of making content specifically relevant to individuals in the audience is obviously not unique to video games, but it is something that’s often overlooked.

So much of game development is devoted to world-building and immersion that developers either neglect to reach out of the game world and address the player directly, or they have no interest in it.

One of my own most memorable experiences while playing a video game, the type of moment that is only possible in interactive entertainment, was while playing Sega’s Seaman on the Dreamcast.

After my pet Seaman had reached a certain stage of maturity, he’d started asking me personal questions to get to know me better. For those unfamiliar with the game, it shipped with a microphone attachment and used voice recognition to allow the player to speak to the Seaman. At the beginning of one session, mine casually asked me what my favorite movie was.

I was aware that the voice recognition in the game wasn’t completely perfect, but the developers did an excellent job of giving the player a second chance in case the first attempt wasn’t recognized.

In response to the question about my favorite movie, I decided I’d first try with my actual favorite, and then in case it wasn’t recognized, fall back to the more obvious answer of Star Wars.

I answered “Miller’s Crossing.” The Seaman’s eyes lit up, and he responded, “Ah, so you’re a Coen Brothers fan! I bet you and your friends just sit together and quote lines from Raising Arizona all day long.” I dropped the controller and cautiously backed away from the screen.

Seaman will be primarily remembered for its bizarre concept and dedication to creating a completely alternate reality. But choosing Jellyvision to do its English language translation was the perfect complement to the original, because of that studio’s experience making unconventional and contemporary content with the You Don’t Know Jack series.

Choosing such an eerily relevant response broke through the bizarre premise of the game, simultaneously grounding it and also making it shockingly immersive. For a moment, I was no longer using unpredictable technology to talk to a 3D model and a decision tree of responses; I was being studied by a creature who knew me all too well.

When this kind of breaking the fourth wall works, it works astonishingly well. The risk, of course, is sacrificing the universality of the game. A player who had an answer not in the game’s database would not have received a response that seemed so directly targeted at him. I also became acutely aware of the presence of the game’s writers and translators, communicating with them instead of the character they’d tried to create.

Environmental Details

Game developers have multiple channels of communication available, and not every idea expressed by a game needs to happen in a cutscene. More subtle environmental cues can reinforce the ideas that are coming across through the “main” channel, or simply reinforce the notion of communication with the game’s developers.

In Half-Life 2, the player frequently encounters an area with an environmental obstacle instead of a group of enemies to fight. Freeman has to build a ramp to get his speedboat out of a reservoir, or manipulate an elevator to reach a higher level. These have the potential of breaking the player out of the storytelling and putting him back into the mindset of playing a video game. He’s no longer a physicist fighting off an alien occupation; he’s a guy solving video game puzzles.

But almost all of these areas have a subtle environmental element in the form of a lambda symbol painted somewhere nearby. These bring the fiction back into play — this isn’t simply a puzzle left by the game developers for the player; they’re tools left by the resistance to help Freeman past an obstacle.

They also serve as a subtle reminder that a type of communication is taking place between the developer and the player. They remind the player that there is an ideal solution to this obstacle; he hasn’t been simply dumped into a completely open game world and left to his own devices. It’s not an open-ended simulation, but a carefully constructed experience.

Closing the Loop

This is obviously not an exhaustive list. The intention isn’t to define a set of all the possible methods game developers can use to communicate with players, but to encourage a subtle shift in philosophy.

When we think about story-driven games, either making them or playing them, we continue to think of them as combinations of two distinct things: the storytelling techniques of traditional media and the more rigorous, systematic mechanics of game studies. We have the potential for deeper stories and more complex storytelling if we instead look at the story and gameplay as two parts of the same dialogue.

All of us have our favorite moments in video games, the moments when we’ve experienced something that no other medium can replicate. We all know what games are capable of, even if we can’t quite articulate it. It’s likely that those moments weren’t just the result of an effective cinematic, or thoughtful level design, or a rigorously balanced core game mechanic, but were the result of a feeling of genuine connection between ourselves and the people who created the world for us to play in.（source:gamasutra）