作者：Terence Lee

在本文中，我将解释为什么剧情必须以游戏的交互性为中心，如何判断优秀的游戏剧情以及理解交互性的重要性。

想象一下，有一天，你突然灵光一现，想到一个故事，一个绝对没有别人写过的故事。它具备了优秀的故事应该具备的所有元素：扣人心弦的情节、生动饱满的角色和引人共鸣的背景。

你会把这个故事写成一本书吗？

首先，我们来了解一下文学作品是一种什么样的媒体：作者用文字表达想法，把文字以各种能够把读者带入这个故事世界的方式组织起来。作者用描述性的语言来唤起读者的共鸣；他们构造对方以表达个性；他们把字词连成句子、段落和章节，最终形成流畅的、有节奏的故事。

现在，假如你在不理会上述所有原则的情况下写了一个故事，也就是说，你用乏味的描述、单调的词汇，以粗糙的手法塑造角色，那么这本书可能会出现如下句子：

“这是一个夜黑风高的晚上。Bob是个坏人。他对好人John说，‘我恨你，我要杀了你。’”

你继续用这种糟糕的语言风格写完整本书，莫名其妙地仍然成功地把你所想象的好故事叙述出来了。

读到这本书的人都会笑。即使它确实有了好故事的大纲，但作者并没有把文字合理地组织起来—-你可以说它没有充分利用文学这种媒体的表达方式。故事和叙述不是同一回事；你只是陈述了故事的表象，而不是它的精华。

当然，你的水平不会这么差。假设相反地，你的语言表达很美，确实写出了一本空前绝后的好书。现在，你有一个新任务：你必须把你的好故事像电影一样表达出来。

现在，我们再来了解一下电影这种媒体。文学的特性是使用文字表达意义，而电影则增加了第二个维度的表达法：感觉输入。

提供视听体验的电影是一种全新的艺术表现形式。书中的一整页描述语言可能只需要电影的一个镜头就能表达。角色的肢体语言、语气和批出拍摄技术强化了角色之间的对话。

所以，为了制作电影，你要做什么？这里有一个操作办法：让演员演绎文字版的故事并拍摄。也许你还需要一些漂亮的场景镜头。这就算是电影了，对吧？因为这就是用声音和画面传达意思。

尽管这部“电影”包含了最优秀的小说情节，但它还是失败之作。还是那句话，它没有充分利用电影这种媒体的表现法—-没有正确地使用声音和画面使故事生动起来。任何人看了这部电影都会嘲笑制作者竟然妄想在完全无视电影的感觉维度的情况下叙述故事。如果电影只是看一个傻瓜大声念书，那还不如自己去看原著。

那么漂亮的全景镜头呢？好是好，但如果它们没有与叙述元素统一起来，那么再漂亮也只是让观众分心。电影的画面和声音是叙述故事的主要工具；它们不应该仅仅被当成这种媒体的工具。电影全景镜头必须贯穿于整个叙述，你不能把电影分成故事部分和影像部分。否则通过点缀莎士比亚戏剧中的名句来拯救一部糟糕的小说。你不可能把影片打上某本小说的标题就叫它原著的电影改编版。

当然，还是那句，你的水平没这么低。再做一个相反的假设，你的电影拍得非常好。现在你只剩最后一个任务了：用电子游戏来表达你的好故事。

我们说，电影是一种二维文学，第一维是文字，第二维是感觉输入。电子游戏则引入了第三维：交互性。

在书籍中，深度来源于你所阅读的文字；在电影中，额外的细微差别出自听到和看到情景。在游戏中，你可以通过参与情景而发现更深一层的深度。当你扮演主角时，你就有了感受主角的动机和情绪的机会。你通过你自己的发现听到和看到事情，而不是通过拍摄者的镜头。我们要以说，电子游戏通过体验传达叙述的深度，而电影通过视觉化的方式。

所以，把你的故事改编成游戏，你必须：把你的故事的电影版分成独立的情景，然后制作能够再现这些片段的电脑程序。你还编写了一些有趣但与故事无关的玩法元素，并将它们分散在电影情景之间。

尽管有了精彩的故事、生动的文字版和精良的电影版，这款“游戏”还是没有充分利用这种媒体的表现法—-它没有把交互性融入到叙述中。那么你点缀在情景之间的有趣玩法元素算什么？就像你分散到糟糕的小说中的莎士比亚名句，和穿插到糟糕的电影中的全景镜头，这些玩法元素并没有促进叙述。你所做的不过是把游戏分成剧情部分和玩法部分。无论玩法部分多么有趣，无论故事部分多么精彩，如果二者没有互相融合，那么你就不能说游戏这种媒体成功地表达了故事。你所做的不过是把玩法元素拼凑到电影中。

现在，玩这款游戏的人会嘲笑它的故事叙述多么糟糕，对吧？不是的，他们不会的。

如果我告诉你，几乎所有大制作的游戏都是那种方式（按故事-玩法-故事-玩法……的结构，基本上不重叠）来叙述故事的，你可能会非常吃惊。

故事vs.叙述

等一下：这种方式其实不算太糟糕的叙述，对吧？我的意思是，人们喜欢这些游戏，难道不是吗？这些游戏卖得很好，人们总是对它们的精彩故事津津乐道。

好吧，是的，我承认这不是太糟糕的叙述。但这不是说游戏本身一定很糟，或者它们的故事很糟。与电影或文学不同，叙述不是自动成为游戏的重要组分。交互性是使游戏之所以成为游戏的特性—-确实，玩法出色的游戏往往就是好游戏。然而，许多游戏似乎都有强大的叙述野心，但它们的执行办法却是把操作和交互性的错配的拼图块搅在一起。

你的故事有多好并不重要。重要的是首先你的叙述要好，这取决于承载你的故事的媒体是什么，是书籍、电影还是游戏。上述具有叙述野心的游戏虽然故事很好，但叙述很糟。

那么，什么才是优秀的叙述？我们如何鉴别糟糕的叙述？

游戏评论

在回答上述问题以前，你们也许会觉得：这不是完全主观的吗？如果人人都喜欢它，那么还会有失败的游戏吗？

判断一款游戏的叙述是好是坏，这是主观的吗？部分地。以故事为中心的游戏，与所有创意性表达方式一样，是一种表达行为。游戏设计师的目标是向玩家表达某种体验和主题。主观的东西是那种体验和主题的价值是什么。

然而，表达这些想法的效力并不是主观的。大部分关于游戏故事的评论都倾向于讨论主观的主题，且把主题的明确和表现当作理所当然的。就好像评论者们讨论我们以前制作的的恐怖游戏，只根据叙述的故事内容来给它打分，而忽略了故事是以恐怖的方式来表达的。

但人们喜欢这些游戏；他们玩得很开心，他们喜欢这些故事。我不是说减少它们的积极体验。相反地，我希望证明，更有趣得多的体验是可能制作出来的。我们的标准会非常低，主要是因为榜样太少。这个问题又被热门的游戏新闻评论恶化了，因为它们其实只是拓展了游戏行业的营销手段，确保玩家们只看到最容易被消化的游戏概念。

当有许多完全未被探索的可能性存在时，我们认为真正需要的是带有交互性的电影。如果你想一下理论上完美的游戏叙述应该是怎么样的，你会意识到，现在的游戏落后了一大截。我们已经有接近完美的文学和电影，却甚至不知道理想的游戏是什么。

本文的目的是告诉读者，游戏甚至不知道如何体现主题，我们应该首先关注如何正确地利用游戏这种媒体作为表现工具，然后再关心应该表达什么。

如何衡量艺术性

在我们谈叙述以前，我们先说说如何判断一款游戏的品质。艺术品质或优秀的设计的最重要指标之一是，个体元素如何有效地结合起来表达主题。在一部优秀的电影中， 从影片的色调到摄像的角度，再到音乐、演出和化妆，一切都要统一起来表达一个主题。如果这些元素中的一个与主题不符，那么它就会显得特别突兀，削弱主题信息的表达效力，或至少不能强化主题信息。

例如，在《黑客帝国》中，色彩被用来突出相反现实的想法。发生在虚拟的黑客帝国世界的所有情景都呈淡绿色，包括道具、衣柜和灯光；而发生在冰冷而残酷的现实世界中的所有情景，都呈淡蓝色。这种视觉线索帮助观众下意识地区分这两个相反的世界。这是巧妙地强化主题的好办法。

如果色调是随意选择的，那么对比现实这一主题就会被削弱，失去一致性。优秀的摄影师会利用色调来强化想法。类似地，在游戏叙述中，我们也发现了利用游戏元素如交互性和决策等来强化故事信息的办法。在无视主题的情况下设计这些元素，会导致叙述体验被削弱。这其实是在重复上文提到的观点，为了有效地叙述故事，我们必须充分利用游戏这种媒体的优势。

带着这种态度创作，会做出让人觉得精致而一致的作品，因为它成功地传达了许多相关的想法。相反地，失调的游戏会让人觉得没有重点、混乱和矛盾。如果我们想判断差劲的叙述，那就找找这些特征，也就是一边玩游戏，一边寻找是否有让我们觉得不和谐的地方。

三种“不和谐”

认知冲突：这是一种内在的心理矛盾，通常是相当微妙的。当你同时持有两种互相冲突的信念或观点时，你就会产生认知冲突。当我们玩游戏时，我们会感受到哪些不和谐呢？以下是我已经确认的三种不和谐。

冲突的体验

这是第一种也是最明显的一种—-叙述矛盾。什么意思？当你观看游戏的过场动画时，主角为家人分离感到难过，然后在下一个场景，他却开车碾死了许多人—-这就是叙述矛盾。

当优秀的战士同伴独白自己是多么聪明和勇猛时，在下一秒却绕着圈跑，老是挡着你的路并且一枪就被打死了—-这就是叙述矛盾。总之，叙述矛盾就是故事所说的和玩家所做的或经历的不匹配。

当你把叙述和玩法分离开时，游戏往往会出现这种不和谐，因为负责叙述的编剧，而玩游戏的却是玩家。这种矛盾导致玩家难以理解故事到底在说什么，因为它与我们的实际经历产生冲突。

“我是谁？”

第二种不和谐是身份冲突。为了解释这个概念，我们先倒退到文学、电影和游戏的类比。这三者的另一个区别是越来越亲近的视点。对于书籍，大量文学作品以第三人称描述故事：由第三方—-作者口头地描述事件，再由你自己独立解读文字。

而电影，通常是第二人称叙述：你观看展现在眼前的事件，看到什么就是什么。游戏却是第一人称叙述：你就是存活在故事之外的演员。你不是简单地被告之发生什么事或看着它发生，而是亲自体验它！

然而，在恶劣的游戏叙述中，我们通常会遇到很大的身份冲突。彼时你是一边探索世界一边打怪的主角；彼时你眼睁睁地看着你的角色不受你控制地与其他角色互动、行走和交谈。

这时，你就从第一人称切换到第二人称了。你是谁？你是演员还是观众？游戏应该保持视点的一致。如果你总是觉得游戏似乎不信任你，那么你的行为的重要性就被严重削弱了。

小说创作的基本原则之一是，要显示，不要平铺直述。如果你想说明某个角色很聪明，不要直白地说“Bob身手了得”，你要显示他的敏捷：“Bob躲开了落下来的石块。”对于游戏，基本原则应该是让玩家做，不要显示。不要播放你的角色躲开落下的石块的动画，要让自己去操作。关键是让玩家自己觉得灵活，而不只是让他的角色显得灵活。把角色培养转变成个人成长是增加故事沉浸感的关键。

过场动画的问题

最后一种不和谐是怪异的模式转换，这经常发生于游戏笨拙地在“叙述模式”和“游戏模式”之间切换。这一分钟你还在玩游戏，下一分钟你就变成看电影了。这破坏了沉浸感，时时提醒你，你只是在消耗一种媒体。不仅如此，它消除了游戏过程中培养起来的所有紧张情绪。

想象一下，当你在紧张地游戏时，你在为生命而战。你处于相当困难的处境：你小心翼翼，生怕走错任何一步。你感受到的紧张和压力是真实的，不只是因为你的角色陷于枪林弹雨或僵尸包围的危险处境，更因为你自己面临挑战，你试图掌握玩法，战胜困境。这部分正是良好的叙述：玩家正在经历的情绪符合当前的主旨情景。

当你正在玩这部分时，突然之间，镜头缩小，过场动画跳出来了。你的紧张情绪一下子烟消云散了。你放下控制器，靠在椅背上一边休息一边看。既然屏幕上的角色现在可能处于更加危险的情境，比如跳下直升机，作为玩家的你也不会再关心他了。因为你知道现在是“电影模式”：现在发生的一切都是必然要发生的；因为它就是“故事的一部分”。

你之前在游戏模式中犯的任何错误其实是很重要的：它们让你经历了真正的压力。但现在，因为你不再控制角色了，你看到你的角色在电影模式中犯的任何错误都是“计划的一部分”。你不再沉浸于游戏。当游戏切换到这个模式时，你觉得非常放松。你居然在故事的高潮时感到放松！本应该是游戏中最激动人心的部分现在却成为你放松肌肉和深呼吸的时刻。为了争取更加“电影级”的名头，游戏浪费了玩家好不容易培养起来的情绪！

每一次游戏从游戏模式切换到电影模式，你对玩家角色的依恋之情就会从完全投入掉到完全分离。这真是太不和谐了。

关于这种模式转换，还有另一个非常不同的例子，它发生在游戏之外：无声电影。这些电影有好的拍摄技术和非常出色的表演。你可以说它们丰富了视觉体验。然而，这时候弹出了字幕。

字幕是出现在屏幕上用于描述事件或包含对话的注释。当出现字幕时，电影就退步成一维的—-它无视感觉体验这种使电影之所以成为电影的东西，而直接把文学作品放在屏幕上。如果我们用曲线图来表示无声电影的进程，那么这个曲线图大致如下：

电影的视觉体验值通常非常高；然而，一旦出现字幕，感觉体验值就会下落到接近0。游戏的过场动画就是这么回事！

当出现过场动画时，你就忽略了整个交互性维度—-使游戏区别于电影的东西，而把电影直接放在屏幕上。游戏的过场动画是游戏的无声电影。无声电影是因为技术限制而存在，但游戏不应该找这样的借口。最糟糕的是，最重要的情节往往发生在过场动画中，而把玩家挡在安全距离之外，拒绝他们参与。

我们再看看过场动画的反例。《半条命》系列采用了另一种做法：不是播放电影，而是在玩法中自然地展开情境，玩家永远不会失去角色控制权。角色就在你旁边交谈，动人的影像就发生在你眼前，但你总是控制着角色。在这些部分中，你可能无法进入某些区域，但你仍然可以自由地行走和查看东西，观看活动发生同时保持控制。

这么做的效果非常好：你的沉浸感不会被破坏，你不会改变视点—-你始终是故事中的角色，亲身经历事件。但这么做仍有缺陷：几乎没有可预测性，且当你开始意识到“好吧，我现在在故事的空间里”，幻觉就消失了，但大部分时候这么做的效果是很好的，比过场动画好。

显性故事和玩家故事

我们已经说了很多关于游戏做错的东西。那么我们如何改进叙述？在此之前，我们必须更深入地理解“叙述”这个概念。

什么是“叙述”？是否所有游戏中都存在叙述？所有游戏都需要叙述吗？我们先下几个定义。首先，游戏中有两种叙述：一种是传统的叙述，当我们讨论情节、角色和对话时，我们指的就是这种叙述；另一种是玩家的个人体验的叙述。

第一种我们称之为显性故事。它就是游戏关于什么。比如，这款游戏关于打僵尸，这款游戏关于探索世界和拯救公主，这款游戏关于消灭恶人和拯救世界。它是游戏的美学情境，是由画面、声音和文字明确地表达出来的。并非所有游戏都有这种叙述，但大部分都有。RPG、冒险游戏和动作游戏通常非常强调显性故事。而有些游戏则完全避开显性故事，比如许多益智游戏和大部分传统的卡牌游戏。甚至像国际象棋这样的游戏也有少量显性故事：广泛地说，国际象棋是关于中世纪战争。

第二种叙述是我们所谓的玩家故事。它是玩家的亲身体验。在玩家玩游戏的过程中，玩家经历了许多事情，体验到各种情绪，认识角色和理解事件，在他们自己的行为和屏幕上的结果之间形成关联。这一切结合在一起，创造了另一种不同的叙述体验，这种体验有它自己的节奏、角色、情节和对话，与上述显性故事是不同的。

这些玩家故事算是真正的故事吗？是的，事实上，玩家通常会痛快地把这些故事告诉他人。比如，有人这样叙述自己玩《俄罗斯方块》的经历：

“我只是想得分超过好友。一开始我玩得不错，但到结尾时，我一直等不到竖条。胜负就取决于最后几行了，我终于等到一个竖条了！消除成功，我又可以继续赶超好友的高分了。”

这是一个真实的故事。也许当你用文字描述它时，看起来似乎没什么意思，但在这位玩家的心中，这是一个包含了矛盾、高潮和结果的完整体验。玩家的感受非常深刻，因为这是直接发生在他身上的事。

所有游戏都有这种叙述。甚至像足球这样的运动（游戏）也有它自己的故事—-人们不断地谈论激动人心的比赛。许多游戏同时具备显性故事和玩家故事。

然而，好的玩家故事应该总是作为最终目标，而显性故事应该支持它的发展。如果一款游戏的显性故事非常出色，而玩家故事却很糟糕，那就好比一本书有精彩的情节，但表述非常恶劣；或者一部电影的故事很动人，但叙述者和画面太差劲。你不可以把两个故事分开设计：正如我们之前看到的，有趣的玩法与显性故事分离会产生不和谐，也就是导致玩家故事脱节而混乱。

统一两种叙述

那么，如何才能保证游戏同时具有优秀的玩家故事和显性故事呢？首先要明确一点：优秀的游戏叙述要求显性故事与玩家故事融为一体，无法分割。

理想的情况下，当你玩游戏时，你永远不应该问自己，“我要做什么？”在好的游戏中，你应该想做什么就做什么。如果你在玩游戏时感受到的情绪和动机与游戏的情境自然交融，那么优秀的玩家故事就产生了。

以《传送门》为例。在这款游戏中，你扮演一个拿着传送枪的实验对象，你的任务是穿过各种试验室上；到接近结尾的时候，你坐上一个缓慢移动的平台，它将带你去拿你被告之因出色的测试表现而获得的奖励。然而，突然之间，你发现这个平台其实是送你去死。

当我玩到这个部分时，我真的被吓到了：当我深深地沉浸于游戏之中，正在为自己完成了所有任务即将获得奖励而洋洋得意时，我却突然要死了。我毫不犹豫地使用传送枪为自己创造了一个出口，逃出生天。在那一刻，我真的觉得自己破坏了系统，我用自己的智慧战胜了敌人！

现在想来，我当时所做的其实就是设计师的意图。但当时，我纯粹是出于自己想活下去的动机，而不是因为我想“进展故事”。单纯地观看角色虎口逃生，和靠自己的智慧和策略险中得胜是天差地别的，只有后者才能让你感受到真正的紧张和轻松。关键的情节元素已经自然进展了，没有产生任何不和谐—-我想做的事和我应该做的事，是一样的。

游戏之前的所有情节都使这段剧情自然而然地发生：训练玩家使用传送门机制；暗示着注定死亡的机智对话；让你想逃的实验室格局；可能逃生的小提示。

我们把这个情节分解成两种叙述：玩家故事是，你用自己的智慧克服危机；显性故事是你的角色Chell用她的机智战胜困难。二者是一样的！

我们把这个情节与另一款游戏中的类似情节作比较。我以《古墓丽影》为例，当然，还有其他许多游戏也有类似的情节。在游戏的某个场景，你通过过场动画看到自己的角色正在逃生，突然间，有一块巨石快要砸到你了。你只有一个选择：在接下来的半秒内按下X键。如果你按了，你的角色就会跳到安全的地方。其他任何行为都会导致角色死亡。

从外部看，在《传送门》中的情境和在《古墓丽影》中的情境，玩家似乎都面临相同的危险：失败意味着主人公死亡。然而在《古墓丽影》中，玩家体验这个情节时是不带情绪的，也许至多就是看到死亡动画时会稍微难过一下，或者为自己没及时按下按键而失落；但玩家永远不能体会到靠自己的智慧自救的激动和兴奋之情。这是玩家在《传送门》中体验到的东西。

虽然《古墓丽影》的情节可能更像电影，画面更有冲击力，但玩家看过就忘记了。你都快被杀死了！这还不够深刻？不够，因为玩家故事与显性故事不一致。玩家故事是，你看着过场动画，突然游戏告诉你按下某键，然后因为没及时反应过来你被迫重复按键。显性故事是，你的角色Lara Croft靠着她矫健的身手和敏锐的直觉摆脱危险。二者之间真是天壤之别！太不和谐了！

显性故事是玩家故事的美学情境。显性故事构造玩家行为和动机，增加连贯性和强化主题。这两种叙述相辅相成。如果《传送门》的这个情节中没有显性故事，那么你只是从灰色的箱子跳到灰色的墙，以免落到会导致你重新开始的红色区域。解开这个谜题会让你感觉良好，因为你觉得自己相当擅长这种机制，但你不会觉得你“打败了系统”，或者你用自己的智慧骗过了死神。

另一方面，如果没有玩家故事，那就像你只是观看叙述这个情节的过场动画，你也不会有上述感觉。出色的视觉效果可能会让你兴奋，主人公幸存可能会让你觉得高兴，但你不会有任何切身的成就感或冒险感。

线性的、脚本化的过场动画

我们现在已经知道了如何叙述一段精彩的情节。那么我们如何把这些原则拓展到整个游戏故事呢？

确实很困难。能做得好的游戏并不多，特别是采用线性的、脚本化的过场动画的游戏。这类游戏把重点放在显性故事上，具有大量脚本事件、角色和对话，结局通常是确定的。这么做有很多缺陷：缺少选择；过分强调对话，即使玩家并不能控制它；进程线性死板。对于电影而言，这些都不是缺陷，但对于游戏，这些特征与这种媒体所强调的交互性非常矛盾。

《传送门》也存在这个问题，但它在叙述方面做得非常好。然而，我认为它只是个例，因为它能够巧妙地把劣势转化为优势。缺少选择、单方面对话和线性进程，在《传送门》的实验室中都是合理的。你被迫执行命令，因为你只是一只实验老鼠；你不能返回，因为除了一台没有实体的电脑，游戏场景中没有其他角色了；且在这些实验室中你只有一个前进方向。

这种方便的设计意味着游戏不会产生通常的不和谐。但你不可能把这些技巧普及到其他游戏中。似乎弥补这些缺陷的唯一办法就是，接受它们并把它们融合到故事本身中。大部分游戏是不可能这么做的。

也许对于游戏，加入线性的、脚本化的过场动画本来就不是理想的做法。某些具有这种过场动画的游戏做得不错，至少在某些方面，但我很怀疑这种做法是否能大大改进。这是从电影借用来的手法，并不能完美地融合到一种关于交互性、选择和亲身体验的媒体中。

我认为它不应该成为游戏故事的方向。还有其他选择吗？有的，其中有许多是实验性的，但我非常想在本文中介绍其中一种：自发叙述。

我们在线性的、脚本化的过场动画中看到的缺陷都与控制有关。编剧希望创造一系列具体的事件，以不变的方式展开叙述，但如果放弃那么严格的控制会怎么样呢？我们在那些游戏中看到的共同点是，它们首先创造一个显性故事，然后要求玩家围绕着它展开进程。事件全部脚本好了，然后在根据脚本构建玩法，试图让二者匹配起来。如果我们采取相反的做法会怎么样呢？如果我们先设计玩家故事，然后再创作符合它的显性故事呢？

我的意思不是叫你先制作有趣而抽象的游戏，然后写编写符合游戏的脚本故事。那当然是一个值得尝试的方法，但它不是我现在要讨论的。我的意思是，不是把所有元素都完全脚本化，而是让显性故事描述玩家故事。我们让情节、高潮和角色全都从殖家体验中浮现。简单地说，故事描述玩家做过什么，而不是玩家必须去做什么。

这么做的结果会怎么样呢？我们来看几个案例。

《Journey》

我要举的第一个例子是游戏《Journey》。在这款游戏中，显性故事似乎非常松散。当你开始时，你只知道自己扮演的是一个在沙漠拓跋的旅人。仅此而已。没有明确的目标、动机、情节、冲突或对话。然而，这些东西自然而然地涌现，只是通过游戏的设计。

一开始，你看到远处的山上有一道美丽耀眼的光柱。你有意识或无意识地把自己的目标定为到那座山去，因为它总是出现在你的视野中。沿着路，你遇到一些角色。这些角色是其他人类玩家，他们的经历与你一样。你不能用语言和他们交流，但你可以通过肢体语言和歌唱能力表达你的意思。

这时候，每个人的故事都不一样了。有些人会与好奇的新玩家结伴旅行，一起克服困难，成为朋友，一起到达目的地。而另一些玩家会与其他玩家产生冲突，选择自己旅行。还有些人会结交朋友，但在游戏的战斗中与朋友分离，他们会为失去朋友感到难过。也有些人会找高级玩家当作自己的“师傅”，指导自己如何完成旅程。

这些对玩家来说都是非常有意识的好故事，因为它们是玩家自己创造的亲身经历。它们不只是像玩家在《俄罗斯方块》中体验到的那种紧张感，还会唤起玩家更复杂的情绪，就像看一部好电影一样。想象一下：

你一个人在荒野上拓跋，突然被困在山崖下面。你遇到大麻烦了，这时不知从哪儿冒险出一个陌生人来帮助你。你们两个成了好朋友，一起探索世界。然而，在你们到达风暴桥时，你的朋友掉下去了！

你呼唤他，希望他能听到你的喊声。知道自己再也见不到他了，让你觉得非常绝望，但突然，你听到他在下面呻吟。你熟悉他的声音，你以前听过他唱歌。最后，你溜下山崖把他救上来，就像他曾经救过你一样。就这样，你们一起完成了旅程。

这就像电影故事一样！然而，你的感受比看电影更深刻，因为你亲身经历了。这个故事的情节不是作者决定的，而是你和你的朋友一起创造的。你们建立真实的友情，感受到真实的情绪，真实的绝望和快乐。这段经历如果是脚本的，那就不是亲身体验。你可以称之为真实叙述，因为所有重要的事情都发生在真实世界中，虽然你并没有亲临神秘的沙漠。

并不是设计师没有设计任何显性故事。相反地，设计师没有选择设计非常具体的情节线、角色、对白和事件，而是设计一个当这些元素产生时可以突出它们的情境。

当你发现另一名玩家时，有视觉线索突出他们的出现和存在。当你与其他玩家通过唱歌和肢体语言交流时，你会对这名玩家的属性（也就是角色养成）产生各种想象。当你们一起旅行时，你们的关系会受到严峻的考验。这些都是优秀的故事的元素，它们显然是由设计师设计出来的。只是，设计师并没强行灌输给你，而是让它们自然而然地发生。

《矮人堡垒》

我们再来看另一个例子。刚才我们探讨了让游戏从玩家体验中自然产生，有一款游戏把这个概念运用到新的高度：它就是《矮人堡垒》。

很难描述《矮人堡垒》是什么样的游戏，但简单地说，它详尽地模似了矮人王国。图象上看起来粗糙，但不要被表象愚弄了：这款游戏其实非常精细。它模拟了一切矮人王国的一切，从切断千年峡谷的河流到落在儿童睫毛上的雨滴。它是一款沙盒游戏，你的任务是建设自己的王国，直到游戏复杂到自然而然地产生大灾难，把一切都摧毁。

这款游戏有一个非常了不起的地方，那就是使用简化的图像，让玩家用自己的想象填补空白，赋予游戏中的细节以意义和动机。这就像当你阅读一本好书时，你的大脑会自然地浮想角色的长相和声音。通过这种想象和游戏的复杂度，你会知道游戏中应该发生什么样的故事。玩家在DFstories.com上发表了许多自己的感想，有些充满动作，有些令人动容，有些非常幼稚。你可以看出这款游戏激起了玩家什么样的想象和情绪。

虽然我认为《矮人堡垒》的叙述风格也走向了一个极端，因为大部分人都无法理解它，但仍然有许多值得我们学习的地方。我们可以借鉴的主要是自发情境—-无论是来自复杂的规则的交互作用、玩家的实践或甚至随机机遇，都可以像脚本化的情境那样影响玩家，甚至更深刻。

当这些情境让人觉得是有目的的，且为玩家故事增加了深度，优美的叙述就产生了。情境自然浮现意味着，它极可能是特别的，使玩家觉得自己的体验是独一无二的，因为他们知道一定没有其他人有过相同的体验。就好像，当你头几次玩《我的世界》，看到“你的世界”自然形成的过程，一股敬畏之情油然而升，因为你知道你是第一个看到它的人。冒险家们第一次踏上新大陆时大概就是产生这种心情吧。脚本化的情境是很难让玩家产生这种心情的！

《Brogue》

最后一个自发叙述的例子是一款探索游戏《Brogue》。

在《Brogue》中，你扮演一名探索程序生成的洞穴的冒险者，你的目标是找到洞穴深处的宝物，并把它完整地带出来。这款游戏的难度很大，死亡是永久的，且非常容易犯错。游戏的显性故事极少：你所知道的只有，你在寻找什么，以及你所处的环境是非常危险的。与《矮人堡垒》一样，简单的画面要求玩家开动想象力，自己解读游戏。

然而，这款游戏为玩家故事的自发产生创造了大量机会。道具、敌人和环境之间存在复杂的交互作用，你总是有大量选择要做。草地着火了；敌人可以转变为同盟；物品掉落可能触发机关。各个元素之间有如此丰富的交互活动，却没有脚本化的序列事件。这能产生什么样的自发故事？我看过我朋友玩这款游戏：

他困在一座木桥上，两边的地精封死了出路，桥下是万丈深渊。他当时的命值所剩不多，打不过他们。他只有一瓶不知有什么效果的药水，他只能希望这是一瓶能让他飞上天的药水，这样他就能安全逃离现场了。在地精们逼近时，他喝下了药水。不幸的是，这是一瓶燃烧药水！

疯狂的火焰使他、地精和桥都燃烧起来。桥断了，大伙儿全都掉进峡谷里去了。幸运的是，他安全地掉进水中，水把他身上的火焰浸灭了。有些地精同样落进水中幸存一命，其他落在地上的死的死伤的伤。然而，有一只身上着火的地精正好落进充满炤气的沼泽里，引发了大爆炸，把幸存的地精们都炸死了。我的朋友捡回一命，继续他的探索之旅。

这个情节非常有动作感，像动作电影或游戏的过场动画一样令人热血沸腾。这只是这款游戏中众多同样精彩的情境中的一个。尽管如此，没有一个是脚本的；甚至不是出自设计师的意图。它是机制之间的交互作用下自然产生的。《Brogue》的难度意味着，你在游戏中的旅程走得越远，你就会遇到越多元素，意味着会有更多交互作用，更多类似上述情节的事件。

《Brogue》的游戏攻略确实包含真正的故事：关于玩家在危险的洞穴中的冒险的故事。不能因为这款游戏没有对白或过场动画，就说它没有真正的故事。老实说，我认为《Brogue》的叙述，尽管没有编剧负责这款游戏，比《古墓丽影》更好。

是的，《古墓丽影》有更复杂的情节和更精致的角色，但记住：故事和叙述故事不是同一回事。也许《古墓丽影》比《Brogue》更适合拍成电影，但我们现在说的游戏。《古墓丽影》就相当于我们在本文开头提到的那种书—-有精彩的故事，但语句非常乏味。而《Brogue》就像海明威的小说，虽然情节简单，词汇简单，句式也简单，但组织得非常娴熟，恰到好处地表达了它的主题。我认为二者相比，《Brogue》对动作和冒险的主题诠释比《古墓丽影》更深刻。

新境界

自发叙述仍然是我们探索较少的技巧，我认为它的潜力很大， 因为它能深深地融入玩家的亲身体验。它是许多种可能的叙述方法中的一种，我认为设计师应该首先拓展些领域，如果我们希望发现理想的游戏叙述方法的话。最后，在设计显性故事时，不要忘记以玩家故事为焦点。

在创造性表达领域中，电子游戏仍然是一种比较新的媒体。书籍存在已经几千年了；电影也有百年的历史了。电子游戏直到几十年前才兴起。我们仍然处于游戏的“默片时代”。我认为我们还没有完全理解什么是优秀的游戏叙述，所以我们必须对不同的叙述方式保持开放的态度。

我们应该停止在电影中寻找游戏叙述的灵感了，我们应该意识到非传统的叙述方式也可以成为强大的叙述工具。我们应该重新定义游戏叙述，不能只考虑情节和对白—-我们真正关心的是发生在玩家心中的故事。

（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）

Designing game narrative: How to create a great story

By Terence Lee

In this article, we talk about why storytelling needs to revolve around the interactive nature of the medium. Come and learn how to identify great game narrative, and to understand the importance of interactive – rather than cinematic – storytelling.

Imagine one day you are struck with a flash of inspiration: freshly seared onto your mind is a story, one that is undoubtedly the greatest tale ever conceived by Man. It has all the elements of a great narrative: a gripping plot, nuanced characters, and an evocative setting.

How would you write a book to convey this story?

First, let’s look at how the medium of literature works. Writers use words to express ideas, arranging them in ways that draw the reader into the world of the story. Writers use descriptive language to evoke the senses; they construct dialogue to reveal personalities; and they structure words into sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, to set the pacing and flow.

Now, let’s say you write your book while disregarding all of these guidelines. You use trite descriptions, a destitute vocabulary, and you reveal your characters in unsubtle ways. An excerpt of this book might read:

“It was a dark and stormy night. Bob was an evil man. He said to John, the good guy, ‘I hate you and I will kill you.’”

You continue to churn out the whole book in this horrible style, somehow still managing to communicate the bare facts of the amazing story you had in mind.

People who read the book would laugh. Even though it may actually contain the outline of an amazing story, it fails to properly put it into words – you could say that it didn’t take advantage of the medium of expression (literature). The story and the storytelling are not the same thing; you’ve only conveyed the facts of your story, but not the greatness of it.

Of course, you know better. Let’s say instead, you write the book beautifully, creating the best novel of all time. Great job! Now, you have a new task: you must convey your great story as a movie.

Now, let’s look at the medium of cinema. Whereas literature can be characterized by using words to present ideas over the course of time, cinema builds on that by adding a second dimension of expression: sensory input.

The audiovisual experience in a film is a whole new realm of possibilities for artistic expression. Whole pages of descriptive language in a book can be represented by a brief scene of imagery in a movie. A conversation between characters is now enhanced by their body language, their tone of voice, and the cinematography.

So, to make your movie, what do you do? Here’s one method: hand a random person your amazing, book version of the story, and film them reading it out loud. Perhaps you also sprinkle in some beautiful panoramic landscape shots. That counts as a movie, right? It’s got audio and visuals set to ideas presented over time.

Well, despite containing narration of the best novel of all time, the movie is a failure. Again, it did not take advantage of the medium of expression – the visuals and the audio are not used in a way that brings the story to life. Anyone who viewed it would laugh at how it tried to tell a story with complete disregard of the entire sensory dimension of cinema. If you’re just going to watch a movie of a guy reading a book out loud, you might as well just read the book yourself.

What about the beautiful, panoramic shots? They’re nice, but if you haven’t unified the narrative elements with the cinematic ones, then all they are is a distraction. The visuals and the audio are the primary vehicle for telling the story; they shouldn’t be treated as mere artifacts of the medium. The level of cinematic quality of the panoramic shots needs to be permeated throughout the whole storytelling; you can’t just segregate the story part and the video part. It’d be like trying to save that bad book we wrote earlier by sprinkling in Shakespeare quotes. You can’t just staple on pretty cinematics to a book and call it a film adaptation.

Of course, again, you know better – this is all obvious stuff. Instead, you film an amazing movie. Good work! With that achievement out of the way, you have one final task: to tell your amazing story using a video game.

We said that cinema was kind of like two-dimensional literature, the second axis being sensory input. Video games introduce a third-dimension: interactivity.

In books, depth comes from the words you read; in film, additional nuances emerge from hearing and seeing a scene. In games, you can discover further depth from doing the scene. With interactivity, you now get to experience the story firsthand. When you play as the protagonist, you have the opportunity to take on their motivations and emotions. You hear and see things via your own discovery, not from the guiding lens of a cameraman. We could say that video games communicate depth of narrative experientially, whereas cinema did it visually.

So, to adapt your story to a game, you do this: you take your amazing movie version of the story, cut it up into its individual scenes, and create a computer program that plays back the clips. You code some fun segments of gameplay that are tangentially related to some unimportant parts of the story, and then sprinkle them in between the movie scenes.

Well, despite having the best story, the best writing, and the best cinematic representation of it, the game again fails to take advantage of the medium of expression – it did not integrate the interactivity into the narrative. What about the fun gameplay sections you sprinkled in? Well, just like the Shakespeare sprinkled in your bad book, and the panoramic shots in your bad movie, those gameplay sections don’t do anything to advance the narrative. All you’ve done is segregate the game into its story parts and gameplay parts. No matter how fun the gameplay part is, no matter how good the story part is, if there is minimal overlap between the two, then you can hardly say that the story was successfully told through the medium of games. All you’ve done is staple gameplay onto a movie.

Now, people who play this game would laugh at how poorly the narrative is presented, right? Well, no, they wouldn’t.

You may be unsurprised to learn that almost all big-budget games present their narrative in that method — story, gameplay, story, gameplay, with minimal overlap.

Story versus storytelling

Wait-a-minute: this method isn’t actually bad storytelling, is it? I mean, people love these games, don’t they? They sell well, and people always talk about how good their stories are.

Well, yes, I would say that it is bad storytelling. Now, that isn’t to say that the games themselves are necessarily bad, or even that their stories are bad. Narrative isn’t automatically a crucial component in games, as it often is in film or literature. Interactivity is the defining feature of games – and indeed, games that excel in their gameplay are most often great games. However, a large number of games appear to have serious narrative ambitions, yet they try to tell their stories by jamming together the mismatching puzzle pieces of cinematic control and interactivity.

It doesn’t matter how good your story is. What matters first is how good your storytelling is, and that’s defined by what medium you’re telling that story in, whether it’s a book, movie, or game. The aforementioned games with big narrative ambitions have great stories but bad storytelling.

So what makes storytelling good, and how do we identify bad storytelling?

A note on game criticism

Before we answer those questions, let’s all get on the same page regarding some concerns: Isn’t this all subjective? If everyone likes it, then what’s the big deal?

Is the quality of game storytelling subjective? Only partially. A story-focused video game, like any form of creative expression, is an act of communication. The goal of a game designer is to communicate an experience and theme to the player. What’s subjective is the value of that desired experience and theme.

However, what’s not as subjective is the effectiveness of the communication of those ideas. Most game criticism about stories tends to discuss the subjective themes, while taking the clarity and presentation of the theme for granted. It’s like if critics were discussing the horrible movie that we made earlier, and rating it positively solely because of the content of the narrated story, overlooking the fact that the story is presented in a horrible way.

But people like these games; they have fun and they enjoy the stories. Well, I don’t mean to diminish their positive experiences. Rather, I hope to show that enormously greater experiences are possible. We have very low standards, mostly because there are such few good examples out there. This is reinforced by popular game journalism reviews, which really is just an extension of the game industry’s marketing arm, a symbiotic feel-good loop that ensures that only the most easily digestible game concepts are explored.

We think what we want are movies with a dash of interactivity, when there is actually an entirely unexplored universe of possibilities out there. Once you think about what the theoretically perfect game narrative could be, you realize that what we currently have falls drastically short. We already have works in literature and cinema that are close to ideal perfection, but we don’t even know what the ideal is in games.

The goal of this article is to show that games have barely even figured out how to present a theme, and that we should first focus on how to properly use the medium as a tool of expression before we start to worry so much about what is being expressed.

How to measure artistic quality

Before we talk about storytelling, let’s first talk about how to even identify good qualities in a game. One of the strongest indicators of artistic quality or good design is how effectively the individual elements work together to communicate the theme. In a good movie, everything should work to reinforce the thematic ideas, from the colors and the angle of the camera, to the music, acting, and makeup. If one of these elements instead contradicts the theme, then it sticks out and detracts from the power of the message, or at the very least, misses an opportunity to strengthen the message.

For example, in The Matrix, colours are used to emphasize the idea of opposing realities. All the scenes that take place in the simulated matrix world have a green tint built into the very props, wardrobe, and lighting, while all the scenes that take place in the cold and harsh real world have a blue tint. This visual cue helps the viewer subconsciously distinguish the contrasting worlds. It’s an elegant way to subtly reinforce that theme.

If the color palettes were instead chosen arbitrarily, the theme of contrasting realities would be that much weaker, that much less coherent. A good cinematographer finds and takes these opportunities in order to maximize the strength of their ideas. Likewise, in game storytelling, we also find opportunities to reinforce the message of the story with game elements like interaction and decision making. To ignore the theme while designing these elements is to have a weaker storytelling experience. This is a restatement of our earlier revelation, that we must take advantage of the traits of the medium in order to effectively tell a story in that medium.

A creative work made with this attitude feels elegant and consistent, because it manages to communicate many related ideas with few components. A less coordinated game instead feels unfocused, clumsy, and conflicting. If we want to identify weak storytelling, these are the attributes to look for, which we can detect by playing through a game and paying attention to see if our mind fills with dissonance.

Three kinds of dissonance

Cognitive dissonance – it’s an internal, mental conflict, and is usually quite subtle. It happens when you hold two conflicting beliefs or ideas in your mind at the same time. What kind of dissonance do we feel when we play these kinds of games? Here are three kinds that I’ve identified.

Conflicting experiences

The first – and most apparent – kind is ludonarrative dissonance. What does that mean? Ludonarrative dissonance is when you watch a game cutscene where the hero laments his distancing relationship with his family, and then in the next moment, you’re driving a car over a hundred people. Ludonarrative dissonance is when a great warrior ally monologues about how cunning and fearsome he is, only in the next moment, he’s running in circles, blocking your path annoyingly, and then gets shot dead instantly. It’s when what the story says and what the player does or experiences don’t match up.

This kind of dissonance happens quite often when you segregate the narrative and the gameplay, because the narrative is in the hands of the writer in one moment, and the player the next. It makes it hard to take seriously what the story is saying, because it conflicts with what we are actually experiencing.

“Who am I?”

The next kind of dissonance is a dissonance of identity. To explain this, let’s first back up a bit to the analogy of literature, cinema, and games as dimensions. Another way to look at this triplet is in their increasingly intimate point of view. Think about books: a lot of literature could be described as third-person storytelling: the events are verbally recounted to you by a third party – the author – and you interpret the words on your own.

Movies, on the other hand, are second-person storytelling: you watch the events unfold before your eyes, seeing things directly as they are. Lastly, video games are first-person storytelling: you are the actor living out the story. Instead of simply being told what’s going on, or watching it happen, you’re experiencing it firsthand!

However, in poor game storytelling, we often have a big dissonance regarding your identity. In one moment, you are the protagonist, exploring the world and fighting enemies. In the next moment, you jump out of your body and watch your character interact with others without your control, walking and talking on their own.

You’ve switched from first-person to second-person. Who are you? Are you the actor or the viewer? Games should be consistent with their point of view. It severely diminishes the importance of your actions if it constantly feels like the game distrusts you with making the important ones.

It diminishes the importance of your actions if it feels like the game distrusts you with making the important ones

One of the basic principles in writing is to show, don’t tell. If you want to convey that a character is nimble, don’t explicitly say “Bob is nimble,” show it: “Bob dodged the falling boulder.” In games, the principle should be to do, don’t show. Don’t just show a cinematic of your character dodging a falling boulder, do it: have the player dodge the boulder himself. Now it is the player themselves who feels nimble, instead of just his avatar. This conversion of character development into personal development is the key to immersive storytelling in games.

The problem with cutscenes

The last kind of dissonance is the weird modal shift that happens every time the game awkwardly tries to switch between “narrative mode” and “game mode”. One minute you’re playing a game, the next you’re watching a movie. It breaks the immersion, reminding you constantly that you’re consuming a piece of media. Not only that, it strips away any tension and emotion that was built up during the gameplay.

Imagine you’re playing an intense game where you’re fighting for your life. You’re in a really difficult segment: the whole time you’re on your toes and watching your every step, making sure you don’t make any mistakes. The stress and tension you are filled with is real: it’s genuine, tangible pressure, not just because your character is in a thematically tense situation with bullets flying and zombies shambling, but because you yourself are being challenged, trying to master the gameplay and pull victory out of a tricky situation. This part right here is good storytelling: the emotions the player is feeling matches up with the thematic situation at hand.

Converting character development into personal development is the key to truly immersive storytelling

While you are playing through this part of the game, all of a sudden, the camera zooms out, and now it’s a cutscene. Instantly, all your internal tension is gone. You put your controller down and sit back and watch. Even though the characters on-screen might now be engaged in an even more thematically tense situation, jumping from helicopters or something, you as a player don’t really care about that. Deep down inside, you know it’s just “movie mode”: anything that happens now is just supposed to happen; it’s all just “part of the story”.

Any mistakes you made before, during the gameplay mode, actually mattered: they caused you real world stress. But now, since you have no more control, any mistakes that you see your character doing during movie mode are all “part of the plan”. You no longer have skin in the game. You find yourself relaxing when it switches to this mode. You’re relaxing during the climax! What’s supposed to be the most intense part of a game is now the moment for your to ease your muscles and take a breath of relief. The game wasted a hard-earned emotional buildup in the name of being more “cinematic”!

Every time the game switches from gameplay mode to movie mode, your attachment to the player character switches from 100% emotionally invested, to 100% detached. That’s pure, jarring, dissonance right there.

Here’s another, very different example of this kind of modal shift, this one happening outside of games: silent movies. These films have pretty good cinematography and very good acting. You could say that they fill out the visual experience quite well. However, every once in a while, an intertitle comes up.

Intertitles are those fullscreen captions that describe what is happening or contain dialogue. During these captions, the film regresses back a dimension – it ignores the sensory experience, the thing that makes film unique from literature, and puts straight up literature on the screen. If we were to graph the progression of a silent film on our 2D chart, it would look something like this:

Over the length of the film, it generally maintains high levels of visual experience; however, whenever an intertitle comes up, the amount of sensory experience drops down to near zero. The exact same thing happens with game cutscenes!

When a cutscene happens, you ignore the whole dimension of interactivity, the thing that makes games unique from film, and put straight up film on the screen. Games with cutscenes are the silent films of games. At least silent films are excused by their technical limitations – no comparable excuse exists for games. The worst part is that the most important plot points tend to happen during cutscenes, while keeping you at a safe distance from actually participating.

Games with cutscenes are the silent films of games.

Let’s look at a counter example to cutscenes. The Half-Life series has an alternative approach: instead of showing a movie, they unfold the content of the scene naturally during the gameplay, and you never lose control of your character. Characters start talking around you, impressive visuals happen in front of you, but you’re always in control. You may be confined to a gated area during these parts, but you’re still free to walk around and examine things, and watch the action unfold while remaining in-character.

This works pretty well: the immersion is not broken, and you don’t change point-of-view – you never stop being an actor in the story experiencing things firsthand. It’s not perfect though: the formula does eventually get a little bit predictable, and the illusion wears away once you start realizing, “okay, I’m now in a story room,” but for the most part it works well, far better than a cutscene.

Explicit stories and player stories

We’ve talked a lot about what games are doing wrong. How do we improve our storytelling? To figure that out, let’s first take a look at the concept of narrative itself more deeply.

What even is narrative? Do all games have it? Do all games need it? Let’s lay down some definitions. First of all, there are two kinds of narratives in games: the first is the traditional kind, the kind we think of when we talk about plot, characters, and dialogue; and the second kind is the narrative of the player’s personal experience.

The first kind is what I call the explicit story. It’s what games are about. This game is about fighting off zombies. This game is about exploring the world and saving the princess. This game is about saving the world from aliens. It’s the aesthetic context of the game, explicitly stated by visuals, sounds, and words. Not all games have this kind of narrative, but it’s in most. RPGs, adventure games, and action games usually put a lot of emphasis on the explicit story. Other games eschew it completely, like many puzzle games and most traditional card games. Even a game like chess has a tiny amount of it: the game is loosely styled as a medieval war game.

The second kind of narrative is what I call the player story. It’s the player’s personal experience. As they play through the game, a lot of things happen in the player’s mind: they experience a variety of emotions, they develop perceptions and interpretations of characters and events, and they form relationships between their own actions and the on-screen results. These things all work together to create a different kind of narrative experience, one with its own pacing, characters, plot, and dialogue, separate from the explicit story.

A good player story should always be the end goal, while the role of an explicit story should be to support the development of a good player story.

Are these player stories actually real stories? Yes – in fact, players will often just outright tell these stories to others. Ask someone about their intense Tetris match.

“I was trying to beat my friend’s high score. I had a great start, but near the end I just couldn’t get a line piece. It was up to the final few rows, and finally I got one! I used it to put myself in the clear, and went on to beat my friend’s high score.”

That’s a real story. Maybe it doesn’t sound that exciting when you put it in words, but in the player’s mind, it’s a fully developed experience with a real conflict, climax, and conclusion. It’s felt deeply by the player, because it’s something that happened directly to them.

All games have this kind of narrative. Even a game like football has its own stories – people tell them all the time, recounting exciting matches and plays. Many games have both kinds, both an explicit story and the player’s story.

However, a good player story should always be the end goal, while the role of an explicit story should be to support the development of a good player story. A game with an amazing explicit story and a horrible player story is like the book we made earlier that had a great plot but a horrible delivery of it; it’s the movie we made with the bad narrator and boring visuals. You can’t just design both stories separately: as we saw earlier, fun gameplay that is segregated from the explicit story makes for dissonance, meaning you’ll end up with a disjointed and bad player story.

Unifying the two narratives

So how do we tell a good player story and a good explicit story together? By knowing this: the best game storytelling is when the explicit story is indistinguishable from the player story.

Ideally, when you play a game, you should never have to ask yourself, “What am I supposed to be doing?” In a good game, what you are supposed to do should intersect with what you want to do. If the emotions and motivations you feel while playing a game feel natural within the context of the game, then something amazing has happened.

In a good game, what you are supposed to do should intersect with what you want to do.

Here’s an example from the first Portal game. In this game, you play as a test subject with a portal gun, trying to advance through different test chambers. Near the end, you are riding a slowly moving platform to what you are told is a reward for your good test performance. Suddenly, it’s revealed that the platform is actually taking you to a fiery death.

When I was playing this scene, I genuinely panicked: I was deeply immersed in the game at this point, feeling good about myself for beating the puzzles, ready to be rewarded for it, and now I was being betrayed. Without thinking, my eyes lead me to an ideal surface for firing my portal gun, and I created an exit for myself, escaping certain death. For just a moment, I genuinely thought I broke the system. I had outsmarted the enemy with my wits!

Now of course, it turns out that I was actually supposed to do that. But when I did it, it was purely out of my own motivation for self preservation, not because I wanted to “advance the story”. There’s a night and day difference between just watching a character narrowly escape, versus doing it firsthand via your own wits and finesse, experiencing genuine anxiety and relief. A key plot element has progressed naturally, without dissonance. What I wanted to do and what I was supposed to do was the same.

Everything in the earlier parts of the game worked towards making this scene happen naturally for the player: the training in the portal mechanics; the witty dialogue that foreshadowed doom; the test chamber format that made you want to escape; the little hints that escape could be possible.

Let’s break this scene down to the two narrative types: The player story is that you used your wits to escape a stressful situation. The explicit story is that your character, Chell, used her wits to escape a stressful situation. They’re identical!

There’s a night and day difference between just watching a character narrowly escape, versus doing it firsthand via your own wits and finesse, experiencing genuine anxiety and relief.

Let’s compare this scene to a similar one in a different game. I’ll use the new Tomb Raider as an example, although there are countless situations in other games that play out the same way. In one scene, you are watching a cutscene of your character running from danger, and suddenly it’s revealed that a large boulder is about to crush you. You have exactly one option: press the × button within the next half second. If you do, your character jumps out of the way safely. Any other action causes your character to die.

On the outside, both scenes in Portal and Tomb Raider seem to have the same amount of danger: in both cases, failure means a gruesome death for the heroine. Yet in Tomb Raider, the situation is experienced largely emotionlessly by the player. Perhaps you cringe a bit when you see the grisly death animation, or maybe you experience frustration as you miss the button the first few times. But there’s never the excitement of using your wits to save yourself from danger, as there was in Portal.

Even though the Tomb Raider scene may be more cinematic and visually impressive, it’s forgettable. You almost got killed! Shouldn’t that be memorable? It’s not, because the player story clashes with the explicit story. The player story is that you’re watching a cutscene, and suddenly the game tells you to press a button in an obvious and annoying way, and you are forced to press it under the punishment of boring repetition. The explicit story is that your character, Lara Croft, narrowly escape grave danger using her keen senses and agility. That’s a huge disconnect between the two! How dissonant is that?

This is what I mean when I say that the explicit story is the aesthetic context to the player story. It’s a way of framing your actions and motivations, a way to increase consistency and to reinforce themes. The two narrative types work together. If there was no explicit story in that Portal scene, you would just be jumping from gray boxes into gray walls, so that you don’t fall into the red zone that would reset your position. You might feel good about figuring out the puzzle, or enjoy that you’re getting pretty good at the mechanics, but you wouldn’t feel like you “beat the system”, or that you used your wits to cheat death.

On the other hand, if there were no player story, like if you had just watched a really cinematic video of the situation, you wouldn’t have felt those things either. You may get excited by the visuals, or feel happy that the protagonist survived, but you wouldn’t feel any personal achievement or any risk to yourself.

Linear, scripted, cinematic stories

So we just saw a good example of how tell a good story of a short action sequence. How can we extend these principles to the entire story of the game?

Well, it’s hard. Not many games have pulled it off very well, especially games with a linear, scripted, cinematic format. By this format, I mean games with a big emphasis on the explicit story, with scripted events, lots of characters and dialogue, and usually a definite ending. There are a lot of weaknesses with this format: a lack of choice; an over-emphasis of dialogue, even though the player has little control over it; a rigid, linear progression. These aren’t weaknesses in a film, but in a game, these traits clash quite heavily with the medium’s emphasis on interactivity.

Portal is one of these games, but it manages to do a great job at storytelling. However, I think it is an exception, in that it is unique in its ability to take advantage of those weaknesses. The lack of choices, the one-sided dialogue, and the linear progression, all made sense in Portal’s test chamber format. You’re forced to do what is told, since you’re just a guinea pig; you can’t talk back, since there are no other characters except for a disembodied computer; and you only have one direction to go in those test chambers.

This convenient format means that none of the usual dissonances arise. But you can’t really generalize these techniques to other games. It’s as if the only way to overcome these weaknesses is by embracing them and building them into the story itself. That’s not an option for most game stories.

Maybe the linear, scripted, cinematic story just isn’t a great format for games. Some games with this format do a pretty decent job, at least in some aspects, but I doubt we’re going to see great advances in this style for a long time. It’s a style that is imperfectly adapted from movies, and it just doesn’t fit very elegantly in a medium about interactivity, choices, and personal experience.

I don’t think it should be the go-to format for game stories. What other formats are there? There are a few options, many of them experimental, but there’s one in particular I want to explore in this article: emergent narrative.

Putting the player back in control

We saw that the weaknesses with the linear, scripted, cinematic format all revolved around control. The writer in us wants to create a string of concrete events that unfold unvaryingly, but what if we loosened up on that desire? What if we gave up that strict control? A common thing we saw in those games is that they first created the explicit story, and then designed the player story around that. They have their script all written out, and then built the gameplay with the script in mind, trying to get it to match up. What if we did the opposite? What if we designed the player story first, and then built the explicit story to match that?

Now, I don’t mean to simply make a fun abstract game first, and then write a scripted story that makes sense with it. That’s certainly a great method to try out, but it’s not exactly what I’m talking about at the moment. What I mean is, instead of having any scripted elements at all, we let the explicit story describe the player story. We let the plot, climax, and characters all emerge from what the player experiences. In short, the story describes what the player did, instead of what the player needs to do.

What would that look like, exactly? Here are a few examples.

Journey

The first example is the game Journey. In the game, the explicit story appears to be very loose. When you start out, all you know is that you’re some sort of person or creature in the desert. That’s it. There are no explicit goals, motivations, plot, conflict or dialogue. However, these things naturally emerge, simply through the design of the game.

Early on, you see a beautiful, gleaming beam of light on a mountain far in the distance. Either consciously or subconsciously, your goal becomes to get to that mountain, as it always seems to be in your view. Along the way, you encounter some characters. These are other human players, going through the same experience as you. You can’t talk to them with words, but you can communicate with body language and a singing ability.

At this point, the story is different for everyone. Some people partner up with a curious new player, solving problems together, building up their friendship, reaching the end together. Others have conflicts with the other players, and choose to go it alone. Others make a great friend, but become separated from each other through their own struggles in the game, and they mourn the loss of their friend. Others find a mentor, an experienced player who can guide and teach them along their way.

These are all great stories that are deeply meaningful to the players, since they are personal experiences that they created for themselves. And they’re not just personal like an intense Tetris game, but also emotionally complex, like a good movie. I mean, imagine this:

You’re alone in the wilderness, and then you get stuck at the bottom of a cliff. You have great trouble getting out, but then a stranger comes out of nowhere and helps you. The two of you become great friends and you explore the world together. However, as you cross a windy bridge, your friend falls off!

You yell for him, hoping he hears you. You are filled with despair, knowing you may never see him again, but suddenly you hear him wailing faintly in the distance. You know that voice, that singsong pattern that you’ve heard him chirp before. Eventually, you go down and rescue him, as he had rescued you earlier. You journey to the end together safely.

That’s like something out of a movie! However, the experience is even stronger than a movie, because it actually happens to you. It happens not because a writer decided it should, but because of the actions you and your new friend did. You formed real relationships, felt real emotions, real despair and joy. A scripted version of the experience would only be a vicarious one; never a genuine, firsthand one like it is now. You could call it a literal narrative, since everything that’s important actually happens in real life, short of physically going into a mystical desert.

A scripted version of the experience would only be a vicarious one; never a genuine, firsthand one like it is now

It’s not that the designers didn’t design any explicit story. Rather, instead of trying to come up with very specific plot lines, characters, dialogue, and events, they chose to design a context that would highlight those elements when they emerged.

When you find another player, there are visual cues that underscore their presence and introduction. When you communicate with them through singing and body language, all sorts of imagery forms in your mind about the other player’s personality (that’s character development!). When you both are getting along fine, a big hazard tests your relationship. These are all elements of a great story, and they are explicitly designed by the designers. They’re just not shoved down your throat – they happen naturally.

Dwarf Fortress

Let’s look at another example. We talked about letting the story emerge out of the player experience; this game takes that concept to a whole new level: Dwarf Fortress.

It’s hard to describe Dwarf Fortress, but in short, it’s a detailed simulation of a kingdom of dwarves. It looks graphically primitive, but don’t let that fool you: the game is ridiculously detailed. This is a game that simulates everything from rivers cutting through canyons over thousands of years, to an individual droplet of rain on the eyelash of a child. It’s a sandbox game, and you try to build up your kingdom until a catastrophe naturally emerges through the complexity of the simulation, wiping everything away.

One great aspect of the game is that its visual simplicity allows your mind to fill in the blanks and assign meaning and motivation to the details in the game. It’s like how when you read a good book, your mind naturally creates what the characters look and sound like. Through this and through the game’s complexity, you can imagine what kinds of stories must emerge. DFstories.com catalogues many of these: some filled with action, some unexpectedly heartfelt and touching, others just plain silly. Check them out to see just what kind of imagination and emotions get stirred up by people playing this game.

While I would consider Dwarf Fortress to be on the extreme side of its style of storytelling, as it is quite inaccessible to most people, there’s still a lot from it that we can learn. The main thing we can take away is that an emergent situation – whether it came from the interaction of complex rules, the player’s experimentation, or even just through random chance – can be just as impactful to a player as a scripted situation, sometimes even more so.

The beauty comes when the situations feel purposeful and add depth to the player story. The fact that a situation is emergent means it’s likely unique, making the experience feel special for the player, since they know that no one else has encountered it before. It’s like when you play Minecraft the first few times and find a beautiful natural formation. You feel a sense of awe, knowing that you’re the first person to have ever seen it. It must be what old explorers felt when trailblazing. That’s a hard feeling to create with scripted situations!

Brogue

A final example of emergent narrative is a roguelike game called Brogue.

In Brogue, you are an adventurer exploring a procedurally generated cave, trying to reach the artifact at the bottom and bring it back up in one piece. It’s very difficult: death is permanent, and there are an infinite number of mistakes to make. The explicit story is minimal: all you know is what you’re looking for, and that the world around you is highly dangerous. Like Dwarf Fortress, the minimal visuals let the player form their own interpretations of the action.

However, the game is filled to the brim with opportunities for the emergence of great player stories. There are complex interactions between items, enemies, and the environment, and you always have a myriad of options for dealing with the current situation. Grass catches on fire; enemies can turn into allies; dropped items can trigger switches. There are so many interactions between individual elements, yet there are no scripted sequences. What kinds of emergent stories can arise from this? I watched my friend play the game once:

There he was, stuck on a wooden bridge over a deep chasm, goblins closing in on both sides, blocking the bridge exits. He is at low health and can’t fight them all. All he has is an unidentified potion, which he can only hope is a potion of levitation, so he can fly off the bridge to safety. With the goblins just steps away, he drinks the potion. Unfortunately, it was a potion of incineration!

A huge burst of flames erupts, setting him, the goblins, and the bridge on fire. The bridge burns away and everyone falls into the chasm below. Fortunately, he lands safely in a pool of water, which also puts out the flames. Some of the goblins survive, while others hit the ground nearby and die. However, one of the flaming goblins lands in a bog filled with explosive gas, and triggers a massive explosion that wipes out the remaining goblins. My friend escapes, and continues his journey deeper into the cave.

That scene is packed with action. It’s just as exciting as any action movie or game cinematic, and it’s just one of many equally amazing scenes that I’ve seen happen in the game. Despite that, none of it is scripted; it’s not even directly intended by the designer. It simply emerges from the interactions of the mechanics. The difficulty progression in Brogue means that as you get further in the game, the more elements you’ll encounter, meaning more interactions and more intense sequences like these will happen.

We should stop looking to cinema as inspiration for our narrative, and start realizing that nontraditional structures can be a stronger storytelling technique than the ones in the biggest scripted and cinematic games

A playthrough of Brogue truly does contain a genuine story: the story of the player’s adventure through the dangerous caves. Just because there aren’t names or dialogue or cinematics doesn’t make it any less of a story. I honestly think the storytelling in Brogue, despite the game being entirely untouched by plot writers, is superior to the storytelling in a game like the new Tomb Raider.

Yes, Tomb Raider has a more complex plot and more detailed characters, but remember: the story and the telling of it are not the same thing. Perhaps Tomb Raider would make for a better movie than Brogue, but we’re talking about games. Tomb Raider is that book we wrote at the beginning of this talk that has a good story but uses words and sentences poorly. Brogue is like Hemingway, with a simple plot, simple vocabulary, and simple sentence structures, but is written masterfully, in a way that deeply communicates its themes. I think the themes of action and adventure resonate much more deeply in Brogue than in Tomb Raider.

A new frontier

Emergent narrative is still a fairly unexplored technique, one that I think is particularly promising, since it delves so deeply into forming personal experiences. It’s one of many possible storytelling methods, and I think designers will have to first branch out in these areas if we want to discover the ideal form of game narrative. Until then, let’s remember to focus on the player story when building the explicit one.

Video games are a young medium of creative expression. Books have been around for millennia; cinema for a century. Video games became popular only just a few decades ago. We’re still just passing over the silent film era of games. I don’t think we’ve fully understood yet what it means to have great narrative in games, so we need to be open minded about different storytelling formats.

We should stop looking to cinema as inspiration for our narrative, and start realizing that nontraditional structures can be a stronger storytelling technique than the ones in the biggest scripted and cinematic games. Let’s redefine game narrative to mean more than just plot and dialogue – what we really care about is the story that happens in the player’s mind.(source:develop-online)