作者：Vaizard27

我在浏览论坛时总会看到各种人在询问如何为电子游戏编写故事。而答案其实非常简单：“尽管动手写就对了！”

互动故事总是围绕着一个故事展开。游戏向玩家传达故事的方式多种多样，这也是电影和书籍所望尘莫及的。

有些游戏已经掌握了如何使用这一媒体。但是游戏产业中也有许多开发者因为过分关注好莱坞的大牌电影而忽视了如何创造属于自己的互动故事，从而导致今天的许多游戏都变成了互动电影的翻版。比如第一人称射击游戏：

射击目标，出现过场动画，重复“打哈欠”。

这便是玩家在游戏中的经历。这让我想到一款独立游戏——《堡垒》。

这款游戏本身并没有什么特别之处，但是其艺术风格以及故事的阐述方法却能够有效地渲染玩家的游戏体验。

大多数内容都是由叙述者进行说明。虽然游戏的配音员不是非常优秀，但却非常机智。我们可以在一些笨拙的过场动画中感受到他的才能。基本上来说他便是在解释玩家的每个行动。当玩家死亡时他便会以机智的嗓音述说到“随后，孩子便死去了。好吧，这只是在开玩笑。”这种设置让我想到了早前的《波斯王子》。

但是却不止如此。当你改变武器时他会对此做出评价，当你使用盾牌进行防御时他也会评价，当你成功杀死一名敌人时他还会评价。你可以将叙述者当成是游戏的核心机制之一。他能够将玩家进一步带进游戏世界中。这款游戏想要呈献给玩家一种感觉，即一位长者在陈述着你的故事，即一名拯救世界的英雄，重复体验所有事件。

是不是所有游戏都能基于这种方法将玩家带进游戏深层次的故事中？当然不是。我们也可以通过关卡设计去讲故事。有些关卡可以不发出任何声音地陈述它自己的故事。有时候你只会从中察觉到发生了什么事；有时候你能在此找到故人的备忘录。《传送门》在这点上就做得不错。在所有关卡中玩家将能找到一些密室，其中竖立着信息墙。同时玩家还会找到电脑中的备忘录。尽管在游戏中，唯一能与角色进行对话的只有GLADOS（游戏邦注：一个虚构的人工智能电脑），但是玩家所掌握信息的却远比GLADOS所述说的还要多。《生化奇兵》便也采用了备忘录和信息墙的方法。

The Neverhood(from facebook)

其实关卡的作用不止如此。关切可以使用文本呈现出游戏完整的背景故事，让玩家可以略过那些乏味的过场动画。早在1996年，《粘土世界》便成功地做到了这一点，也就是在游戏中将没有任何人会说话。玩家需要自己找出相关注释而明确接下来该做什么。并且最后他们将发现一条填满了游戏世界历史背景的走廊。我并不敢保证有多少玩家愿意完整地看完这些历史内容。但是至少这款游戏提供给玩家选择权，如果他愿意的话就可以继续深入阅读，而如果觉得乏味的话大可就此打住。现代游戏仍然能够使用这种方法。让我们想象那些复制粘帖（但也拥有高分辨率）的墙上纹理能够呈现游戏背景故事；让我们想象《天际》中的坟墓上所雕刻的铭文能够提示玩家宝藏的所在等等。玩家通过自己的努力找到这些提示所获得的奖励是预渲染的过场动画不可能给予的。

这并不是关于揭示秘密，从技术来看，这是从心理角度去呈现游戏故事。

像《天际》等游戏便利用玩家的好奇心去吸引他们的注意力。这是一种能够吸引玩家好奇心的核心机制。如果玩家能够从中挖掘到更多内容，包括暗示，珍宝，甚至是一些小故事，他们便会更加欣喜。除了过场动画还有很多其它隐藏的内容。但是玩家总是很容易忽视这些内容。也许那些发现了这些隐藏内容的玩家会将其刊登在网页/论坛/维基百科上，并吸引其他玩家再次回到游戏中去寻找这些隐藏的提示和故事内容。

比起添加额外的深度，还有什么更好的方法吗？

对于我来说，互动故事拥有自己的必杀技。

通过机制讲故事。

也许这听起来很奇怪，但是请不要就此略过。有什么会比在游戏过程中感受故事更有吸引力呢？此时我便想起了《暴雨》。虽然从未玩过这款游戏，但是我却观看过它。

从机制上来看，《暴雨》可以说是一款经过细心编辑的小游戏，基于故事的呈现方式，这可以说是一款有价值的游戏。但是这却不是我想要的。让我们想象游戏是因为故事能够反应玩家的行动而具有价值，想象游戏机制能让玩家改变游戏的发展等等。开发者应该创造出能够让玩家觉得像是故事的机制，而不是创造一些会让玩家忽视机制的故事。这才是真正贴近互动故事的内容。

游戏中的决策（特别是角色扮演游戏中）通常都很难让玩家感到满足，因为它们总是未能与机制联系在一起。游戏故事亦是如此。我知道我只是在陈述一些早前的内容，但是为什么我不能在Aeris身上添加Pheonix Feather？为什么在现代的每一款角色扮演游戏中我都必须扮演英雄的角色？这些游戏突出了哪些决策？难道我们不能只是杀死那些厌烦的好人而到酒吧喝上一杯威士忌吗！

独立游戏也已经开始使用机制去陈述故事。

《我的世界》和《Terraria》便是如此。它们让玩家能够创造自己的故事。现在我知道这些游戏只是未拥有自己的故事。

但是是否真的如此？玩家可以轻松地告诉好友他在这些游戏中的冒险。所以为何不使用游戏所提供的机制而写下自己的故事呢？

在《天际》中，告诉其他玩家自己是如何通过绕道而找到隐藏的地下城比谈论主要任务有趣多了，不是吗？

总之：

游戏已经开始摸索讲故事的重要性。我们也能在一些AAA级游戏中再次看到让我们兴奋的内容。

我总是说，游戏仍然非常年轻，还有许多等待我们挖掘的新内容，它们与玩家间的交流方式更是多种多样。只要一想到这里，我对游戏领域未来的发展便充满信心。

原文发表于2012年1月15日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Interactive Storytelling

By Vaizard27

Something more theoretical. Finally I found a topic I can write something about.

When browsing forums I often see people who ask how to write a story for a video-game. Well the answer is pretty easy: “Just start damn writing!”

But interactive storytelling just starts out with a story. There are so many ways a game can deliver a story to the consumer movies and books can only dream about.

Some games have already scratched what is possible to do with our medium. The industry is just too focused on hollywood with all their shiny movies to realize what they could do if they put some effort into a real interactive story. Many games nowadays play like interactive movies. Yeah FPS-games I’m looking at you here.

Shoot stuff, cutscene and repeat *yawn*.

Hell games can do much more than that. Again it was an indie game that made me really think about this: Bastion.

The game itself is nothing special. But the artstyle and the way the story of it’s world is told to the player are solely there to enhance the experience the player has.

Most of this probably comes from the narrator. The voice actor is not just good he is brilliant. And it’s not some crappy cutscene where his talent can be seen, no it’s throughout the whole game. He basically just explains what the player does. You fall to your death and he just says “And then kid fell to his death… just kidding.” in his smoky and wise sounding voice. It reminded me of the old Prince of Persia games.

But that is not all. You change weapons and he comments it. You block with your shield he comments it. You kill an enemy perfectly and he comments on it. You could go as far as to call the narrator one of the game’s core mechanics. It draws the player deeper into this world. It conveys the feeling of listening to an old guy telling the tale of you, a young hero who saved the world, while reliving all the events.

But is that all games can do to draw a gamer deeper into the story?
No, not by a long shot. Storytelling is even possible through leveldesign. Some levels just tell their own stories without any voiceacting at all. Sometimes you just see what happened. Or you find a memo of someone who once lived there. Portal did this very good. Throughout the levels you would find some secret room with messages written on the walls. You would find computers with memos. Even tough GLADOS was the only one ever talking to you, you knew far more than she would tell you. Bioshock did something similar with the memos and wallpaintings.

But it’s possible to go even further. Levels can cover the complete background history of a game through text without making the player listen to a cutscene he might want to skip. The game The Neverhood already did this a long time ago(1996). In the game actually nobody spoke. All you could find were notes on what to do next. But eventually you would find a long passageway filled with the complete history of the world. Text and pictures would tell you what nobody else did. The Neverhood of course was about being alone. And I’m not sure how many players actually read through that whole history section. But it was there to find for the player. If he wants to read it he can. If he doesn’t want, he’s not forced to.
But even modern games could use this. Imagine some of those copy-pasted (but high-res) wall textures to convey some of the games background story to you. Imagine an inscription on a grave somewhere in Skyrim that points you to a hidden treasure somewhere on the map without updating your questlog. The reward a finding like this holds for the player is so huge you could not make it up with a thousand pre-rendered cutscenes.

This is not about implementing secrets. Well technically… it is, but from a psychologists point of view it’s something completely different.

Games like Skyrim use the players curiosity to keep him engaged. It’s basically a core mechanic to keep him curious. He would only appreciate it if there was even more he could find out. Hints, treasures, even parts of small stories. Everything can do for this. And it’s not much work compared to a cutscene. Of course many players are never going to see this stuff. But there will be enough of them. Somebody will find out and post this on the web/forum/wiki. And maybe other players will come back to see some more of the game to find those hints and stories that were hidden throughout the world.

And what is better than adding additional depth to your game?

And then there is the holy grail of interactive storytelling. At least for me it is.

Storytelling through mechanics.

This sounds somewhat strange but think about it. What could be more immersive than to really feel the story while you play it. When talking about this I often hear the name Heavy Rain. I haven’t played the game but I basically watched through it. It is a good start, but by far not what I am trying to make you think about here.

Mechanically Heavy Rain is just a compilation of minigames that have worth because of the story they take place in. I want it the other way around. Imagine a story that’s worth playing through because it reacts to everything you do. Imagine a mechanic that allows the player to actually change the course of the game. I can’t start to grasp how much work would be involved with a project like this on AAA-scale but the ideal is something I think worthy of straving for. Creating a mechanic that makes the player feel the story. And not a story that makes him forget the mechanic. This is somewhat closely tied to the interactive sound stuff I wrote about last year. But probably much more complex again.

Decisions in games, espacially RPGs, are not really statisfying because they are often not tied to the mechanics. The same goes for the events that take place in the story. I know I’m digging up old stuff, but why the hell was I not able to drop a Pheonix Feather on Aeris? Why do I have to be the hero who saves the world in every goddamn RPG that’s made nowadays? Those games feature decisions? No I can’t just kill off every annoying good guy and go to a damn bar to drown myself with whyskey!

And again Indie games have already started to make mechanics tell a story.

Minecraft and Terraria are basically doing what I said up there. They let the player play their own story. Now of course I know those games just have no story at all.

But is that really true? You can tell your friend about your adventures in those games without problem. So didn’t you write your own story using the mechanics the game provided you with?

Telling people about your detour to some hidden dungeon in Skyrim is much more exciting than talking about the main quest, isn’t it?

So to sum it all up:

Games have just started to scratch what actually can be achived with storytelling. And the triple A titles are once again not the nes where we will actually see the big shiny new mindblowing stuff.

I’ve said this often, but games are still young. There is so much more to discover about them and the channels they can use to touch people it’s unimaginable. When thinking about this I’m getting excited for the furture.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope you got the idea and are thinking about it right now.(source:vaizards-game-design-blog)