作者：Winson

今天我想谈谈游戏领域最薄弱的环节：故事。

学校会教你如何提高语法，发音、词汇和如何使用形容词、副词、隐喻、比喻、头韵等写出更好的故事。但是你在高中所学到的这些技能却并不足以应用于视觉（电影）和交互媒体（游戏），有时候甚至还会带来适得其反的结果。所以除非你进入更令人头疼的大学，你永远也不会学到创造一则出色故事所需遵从的概念。可以说人们应该而非必须遵从这些概念。因为它们毕竟只是概念而非规则。

萌生想法

人们生成故事理念的方法有两种类型：

1.自发生成（脑中自发闪出想法）。

2.通过冥思苦想。

这两种方法的优势和劣势分别是什么？让我们先来谈谈第一种方法。

自发生成

*劣势：自发生成的想法通常会有些老调重弹和乏味。虽然并非所有情况均是如此，但如果你依赖灵感作为想法的来源，你实际上跟多数人的做法没有什么区别——想出那些已经被过度使用的明显理念。如果你是通过自发生成而得到的理念，就要加以选择地运用于自己的故事中。

它的另一个劣势就在于，你需要很长的自发思考时间才能想出足够数量的理念。即兴时刻可能很稀少，而依赖这一方法的人通常会拖延时间并最终退出。

*优势：有时候，你会因为这种自发生成的过程而令故事获得一个绝妙的想法。这个想法为故事增添了价值，并且你也知道如何取舍，毫不犹豫地抛弃那些陈腐或无聊的理念。有些时候，自发性还可以帮你克服“写作瓶颈”。

现在让我们来讨论第二种做法（冥思苦想）以及为何它应该成为你撰写故事的主要方法。

冥思苦想

这里有两种思考类型可以使用：其一是聚敛型思维，这是数学家所使用的思考类型。它通常意味着能够想出一个问题的答案。聚敛型思维当然在编写故事中也有其优势，但我打算专注于第二种冥思苦想型的思考。这就是所谓的发散性思维，它意味着“能够针对一个问题想出多个解决方案”。

要知道擅长创意的数学家、程序员或工程师数量如此之少，也是有原因的。他们的聚敛型思维高度发达，但却缺乏关于发散性思维的训练。人们对于创意来源于自发生成，人类生来具有创意或没有创意这个看法存在误区。事实并非如此：心理学家发现创意型人才极擅长发散思维。好消息在于发散性思维像其他技能一样，可以通过训练而得到提升。

*劣势：它的开发需要大量的脑力劳动，训练和时间。发散性思考者通常要创造大量内容和想法，他们对于要将哪个想法运用于自己的故事极为挑剔（其余内容就会被抛弃）。

假设你想创造一个场景。作为一名发散性思考者，你就会想出至少5个方法不同的播放场景。有时候你会想出10个、15个、20个甚至更多个不同方法，这些都得写下来，但你的故事中只会选择其中一个。想象一下为50个以上的场景重复这一过程，它马上就会令人生倦，并且需要大量的时间才能完成。

*优势：尽管编写故事的过程令人厌烦，但其最终结果却值得期待，因为你写出的可能是一个独一无二的有趣故事。你的故事不会是陈腐的旧篇章，因为你的做法与最糟糕的作家相反，并且精心选择了未被滥用的内容。你还能够更努力工作并且较少拖延时间，因为你并不会有太多“大脑一片空白”的时刻（要确保你最小化任何其他分心之事）。

所以总体来看，你的主要创意形成方法应该来自发散性思维，而非自发生成。但是，如果有个杰出的想法在你脑中闪现时，你就该抓住机会加以考虑。

展示而非讲述故事

你在学校中所学到的规则仍然适用于电影和游戏。无论你是想传达一个理念，一个主题或者只是说明，最好是使用视觉而非文字元素。你实际上应该最小化对话和文本数量。你该如何表现某位女性角色正在暗恋主角呢？你可以采用以下方法：

1.告诉观众“她暗恋你/他”。这种手段有多蹩脚？但还是有些游戏这么做了。

2.让该女性角色在与其他人的某次对话中表达自己对于主角的爱慕之情。

3.或者……你可以让她在看到主角出现时，适时地调整自己的发型或者检查自己的妆容。

只有当出现以下三种情况时，才能显示叙事或对话信息：

1.没有其他更方便的方法之时

2.对话用于自然的背景

3.为节省时间(加快游戏的节奏）

关于没有其他更方便的方法这方面的例子就是《Death Note》。其中的主角Light Yagami太聪明了，这要让观众理解其复杂的策略颇有难度，所以他们必须通过叙事（或者向Ryuk解释自己的计划这种对话）来传达信息。这里有一个你应该全力避开的可怕叙事方式。其中的例子来自《Persona 3》和《Persona 4》。

《Persona》游戏中几乎一切都是通过“叙述”来解释。看看这款游戏的以下截图，你就会明白我的意思：

人人都看得出这像是一个图书馆吧？所以其中的文本毫无意义并且浪费时间。

我看到另一个截图时不得不摇头皱眉。它完全没有必要使用“你好像觉得自己更理解他们了”这种废话。

这些还都是小问题，它们的存在多数是缘于电子游戏的局限性，但这系列游戏真正摧毁玩家体验的问题在这里：它们使用对话传达故事的主题。在此我就不详述以免剧透游戏内容，但你绝不可如此操作以免它移除游戏对用户的情感影响。故事的意思应该留给观众自己去理解，而不是直接为他们展开……（游戏邦注：但也不是说你应该让故事主题模糊不清）。

使用主题撰写有意义的故事

你知道自己刚看到一部出色电影时的感觉吧？我要说说你在电影结束时获得的情感价值……也就是你觉得自己的生命被改变时的那种感觉。如果我想让观众体会同样的感觉 ，改变他们的人生观或者影响他们的一生，那你的故事就必须富有意义。

你该如何创造一个有意义的故事？首先，让我们来谈谈主题。什么是主题？根据维基百科，主题是中心话题。这方面的例子有善/恶，诚实/不忠，信任/谎言，爱/恨等。除了主题，故事中还有主题陈述。关于主题陈述的例子还包括：好人战胜恶人，忠诚得到奖励，真相被发现，爱情永恒等。但是，主题陈述并不会这么简单，作家应该进一步推进主题陈述，并提到“原因”或“时间”。要为主题陈述添加一些“因为”，例如好人不会相互背叛，所以他们能够战胜邪恶。你应该能够用一两句话概括自己的主题陈述。

关于这些话题每个人都有不同的观点。并非人人都相信邪不胜正，或者永远无法找到真相。这里的目标是选择你所相信的东西，将其隐晦地嵌入自己的故事中。看看你的整个故事并注意一下价值如何发生变化。故事一开始是由邪恶主宰世界，并以好人大获全胜而收尾吗？还是以爱情开场，以悲剧落幕？这正是你的主题需要考虑的表达方式。

一个更为复杂的方法：故事始于坏人掌握统治权，终于好人获胜，但却失去了自己的亲人。其主题陈述可以是：好人获胜，但付出了昂贵的代价。

让我们分析《To the Moon》这款游戏中的故事例子。它是一款很棒的游戏，只需要4、5个小时就能玩完。

如果你还没有玩过这款游戏，先看看这里的杂记：时日无多的Johnny奄奄一息地躺在病床上。你要扮演来自Sigmund公司（一家将虚假记忆植入病人脑中，完成其临终夙愿的公司）的Niel Watts和Eva Rosalene医生。Johnny的遗愿是登上月球，但他却不知道自己为何想去那里。为了实现他的愿望，他们必须找到病人为何想登月球的根源，这样Johny的记忆之旅就开始了。

分析《To the Moon》

《To the Moon》有三个主题：

1.爱

2.渴望

3.现实

为了找到故事的意义（各人都有不同理解），我们必须分析这些主题，以及它们自始至终的变化。让我们先分析第一个主题。故事始于Johnny孤独一人，他的妻子River已经过世。最终他们在NASA重聚，并乘坐太空飞船驶向月球。主题陈述1：真爱永恒……

我之前就说过，主题陈述不会这么简单，你应该指出真爱永恒的“时间”或“原因”。但是，我不会这样做，因为这可能产生不同的观点。

第二个主题围绕着Johny想去月球的渴望。这个主题从“不完整的目标”转变为“实现愿望”。主题陈述2：实现梦想。

最后一个主题从现实转变为非现实，因为这一切都只是发生在Johnny大脑中而非现实世界的过程。与其他主题不一样的是，它只是从积极转变为消极，这正是为何故事结局带有悲伤的缘故。主题陈述3：现实转变为非现实。

现在让我们将这些主题整合在一起，探索游戏的意义。主题1和2因Johnny想去月球的目标（他与妻子约定如果今生分离，就在月球团圆）而整合在一起。当然Johnny无法完整回忆起这件事，因为他在年轻时为了忘记创伤事件而服用了阻滞剂。所以尽管Johnny无法回忆自己为何想去月球，我们最终都会发现这要归因于他对River的感情。

最后一个主题陈述就变成：“真爱永恒在虚幻世界中梦想成真。”

所以《To the Moom》虽然仅有几乎不存在的机制，但却仍然不失为极为成功的游戏。其玩法本身很无趣，每个时空穿越的谜题也完全没有必要。其机制应该用于向观众传达主题。但是，玩家仍然为之所吸引，这大部分要归功于其“唯一”的故事情节，而在今天的游戏中我们几乎难以找到这种故事。想象一下在没有故事情节的情况下独自玩游戏的感觉……那一定是种糟糕的体验。我希望它的下个章节会出现更有趣的玩法。

《Persona 3》剧透

《Persona 3》是另一款极为成功的游戏，我相似这大部分要归功于其富有意义的主题。尽管其叙事故事的方法很糟糕，玩法机制也只是一般，但它还是具有值得人们学习的经验。我从这个系列游戏中学到的经验实实在在地影响了我的生活。当然，游戏机制也是《Person 3》和《Person 4》获得成功的一个重要因素。实际上，它们如此成功的一个重要原因就是其开发公司ATLUS使用了有助于传达主题的机制。

其社交联系机制促进了友谊主题的表达，而Persona的理念则促进了接纳与直相的主题。拥有过硬的机制是一回事，但它们必须与游戏相关，并且有助于展现机制。这一点无需再强调了。

我希望本文能够为游戏设计师或未来的游戏设计师提供一些有价值的见解。我认为这些概念比99%的人更能帮助你成为一名更好的作家，但是故事写作是一项非常艰难的工作，并且需要大量的掌握时间。你只有使用这些概念来训练故事写作才可能更上一层楼。这可能至少需要你花上几个月时间才能完成一个主要故事，有时候甚至需要一年以上。但事物均是如此，所以要保持耐心并努力工作，最终你也会撰写出像《To the Moon》一样精彩的故事。（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）

Storytelling in Games: How to Write an Amazing Story Part I

by Winston

What’s up everyone! It’s my first post here, and today I’d like to shed light on perhaps the weakest area in gaming: and that’s the story.

Schools out there will teach you how to improve your grammar, spelling, vocabulary and how to write better stories by using adjectives, adverbs, metaphors, similes, alliteration… you name it. However, these skills you learn in high school translate very poorly into visual (film) and interactive media (games), sometimes even causing more harm than good. So unless you go to a highly touted university, you will never learn about the concepts that one should follow when creating a great story. And let me just say that one SHOULD follow these concepts, but not MUST. These are concepts after all, not rules.

Idea Generation

idea

There are two types of ways in which people come up with their story:

1. Through spontaneity (that idea that pops into your head).

2. Through brute force thinking (aka “staring at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead”).

What are the disadvantages and advantages of each one and which one should you use? Let’s talk about the first one first.

Spontaneity

Disadvantages: Ideas which come through spontaneity tend to be clichéd, cheesy, and lame. Not all the time, but if you rely on inspiration as the source of your ideas, you are essentially doing what most people out there are doing – coming up with obvious ideas which have been overdone. Be very selective about which ideas you choose to include in your story if they come through spontaneity.

Another disadvantage is that it will take a very long time to come up with a sufficient amount of ideas through spontaneity. Spontaneous moments can be quite rare, and those who rely on this approach will tend to procrastinate and eventually quit.

Advantages: Sometimes, you will be rewarded with an excellent idea for your story which could’ve only come through spontaneity. This idea adds great value to your story and you know how to recognise clichéd or boring ideas which you aren’t afraid to throw away. Other times, spontaneity can help you overcome ‘writer’s block.’

Now let’s discuss number two (brute force thinking) and why this should be the main method you use when writing stories.

Brute Force Thinking

There are two types of thinking which can be used: one of them is called convergent thinking and this is the type of thinking which mathematicians use. It basically means being able to come up with an answer to a problem. Convergent thinking certainly has it’s advantages in story writing, however, I am going to focus on the second type of brute force thinking. This is known as divergent thinking and it simply means ‘being able to think of multiple solutions to one problem.’

If you ever wondered why so few mathematicians, programmers or engineers are good at creativity, then there’s the reason. Their convergent thinking skills are highly developed, but they lack the practise for divergent thinking. There’s a myth that creativity comes from spontaneity and that you are either born as creative or not creative. This is far from the truth: psychologists have discovered that creative people are very good at divergent thinking. This is great news because divergent thinking can be improved through practice – like any other skill.

Disadvantages: It requires a LOT of brain work, practice and time to develop. Divergent thinkers often have to create an enormous amount of content and ideas, and they have to be very selective of which ones to include in their story (the rest of the content gets thrown away).

Let’s say you want to create a scene. As a divergent thinker, you’ll come up with at LEAST 5 different ways the scene can play out. Sometimes you come up with 10, 15, 20 different possible ways or even more and these have to be all written down, but only one of them gets selected to be included in the story. Imagine doing this for over 50 scenes, this process will get tiring fast and take a long time to complete.

Advantages: Despite this tiresome process of writing stories, the payoff is definitely worth it in the end, because, what you end up with is a unique and interesting story that can’t be found anywhere else. Your story won’t be clichéd because you’re doing the opposite of most writers out there and carefully selecting content which hasn’t been overused. You will also be able to work harder and procrastinate less, because you won’t have as many ‘blank mind’ moments (just make sure you minimize any other distractions).

So overall, your main idea generation method should come through divergent thinking, and not through spontaneity. However, when a brilliant idea manifests itself in your mind, then you should seize the opportunity and take it into consideration.

Storytelling 101: Show not tell

This same rule you learn in school still applies to movies and games. Whether you are trying to convey an idea, a theme or just exposition, it is wise to use visuals rather than words. You actually want to minimize the amount of dialogue and text as much as possible. How are some ways you can show that a female character secretly likes the main character? You can:

1. Tell the audience “She secretly likes you/him.” How lame is that? Some games do this though.

2. Make that female character expose her feelings towards the main character in a conversation with someone else.

3. Or perhaps… just perhaps… you can make that female character adjust her hair, or check her make up when she sees the main character coming.

The only time that narration or dialogue is required to out information is when:

1. There’s no other convenient way or

2. The dialogue is used in a natural setting

3. To save time (and speed up the pace of the story)

An example of having no convenient way to do show is the anime Death Note. The protagonist, Light Yagami is too clever for the audience to understand his complicated strategies, so they must be informed through narration (or dialogue of him explaining his plans to Ryuk). Now, here’s an example of horrible storytelling in which you should avoid at all costs. It’s from the game Persona 3 and 4.

Pretty much everything is explained through ‘telling’ in the Persona games. Take a look at these screenshots from the game, and you’ll know what I mean:

Does this look like a library to anyone? The text is completely pointless and a waste of time.

Persona 4 library

I have to shake my head when I see this next one. There is absolutely no need for this “you feel like you understand them more” crap.

persona 4 rise 2

Now all these are just minor issues, and most of it was done due to the limitations of video games, but what the Persona games did which ruined the experience for their players is this: they used dialogue to spout out the main themes of the story. I won’t go into detail here because that will spoil the game, but you should never do this as it will remove a lot of the emotional impact on your audience. The story’s meaning should be left for the audience to interpret, not lay it out for them… (note: this does not mean you should make your themes ambiguous!).

Using Themes to Write a Meaningful Story

You know that feeling after you just finished watching an incredible movie? I’m talking about the emotional value you get at the end of the movie… that feeling where you feel like your life has been changed. If you want to the audience to experience that same feeling, impact their life or change their perspective on life, then your story must be meaningful.

How do you create a meaningful story? Firstly, let’s talk about themes. What are themes? According to wikipedia, a theme is a central topic to a story. Examples are good/evil, honesty/dishonesty, truth/lies, love/hate. Along with the theme, there is the thematic statement. Examples of thematic statements are: Good triumphs over evil, honesty leads to rewards, truth can never be found, love is eternal. However, the thematic statement is never this simple, and writers should take the thematic statement even further and mention ‘why’ or ‘when’. Always add something like ‘because’ to the thematic statement e.g. Good triumphs over evil because good guys don’t betray each other. You should be able to mention your thematic statement in just one sentence and no longer.

Everyone has different opinions on these topics. Not everyone believes good triumphs over evil or that truth can never be found. The goal here is to choose what you believe in and embed this message (subtly) throughout your story. Take a look at your story as a whole and notice how the values are changing. Does it begin with evil ruling the world and end with the good guys winning? Does it begin with love and end in tragedy? This is how your themes should be conveyed.

A more complicated approach: The story begins with the bad guys ruling, and ends with the good guys winning, but losing their loved ones. The thematic statement would be: Good guys triumph over evil, but at perilous costs.

Let’s analyse an example from a game well known for it’s story: To the Moon. If you haven’t tried this game yet, I urge you to do so, because it is an amazing game and only takes about 4-5 hours to play it.

Here’s an outline of the story for those who haven’t played it: Johnny is on his death bed and only has a couple of days left to live. You play as Dr. Niel Watts and Eva Rosalene from the Sigmund corporation, a company in charge of transplanting fake memories into the patient’s mind and fulfilling their last wishes before they pass away. Johnny’s last wish is to go to the moon, but he doesn’t know why wants to go there. In order to achieve his wish, they need to discover the root source for why he wants to go there, and so the journey through Johnny’s memories begins.

Spoilers Ahead!

There are 3 main themes from To the Moon:

1. Love

2. Aspiration

3. Reality

To discover the story’s meaning (which is interpreted different by everyone), we must analyse these themes and how they’ve changed from beginning to end. Let’s analyse the first theme. The story begins with Johnny being alone, his wife, River has passed away. In the end, they are finally re-united in NASA and on the spacecraft headed towards the moon. Thematic statement #1: True love prevails…

As I said before, the thematic statement should be more complicated than this, you should state ‘when’ or ‘why’ true love prevails. However, I won’t be doing this, because there will be many differing opinions.

The second theme revolves around Johnny’s aspiration to go to the moon. This theme changes from ‘incomplete goal’ to ‘fulfillment’ as Johnny finally heads towards the moon in the ending scene. Thematic statement #2: Dreams get fulfilled…

Then finally, the last theme changes from reality to non-reality as everything happens in Johnny’s mind, not the real world. Unlike the other themes, this one changes from positive to negative, which is why there is a  tinge of sadness in the end. Thematic statement #3: Reality becomes non-reality…

Now, to get the stories’ meaning, we combine these themes together. Themes 1 and 2 are tied together by the fact that Johnny’s goal to go to the moon is driven by his promise to River that they’d meet up on the moon if they ever became separated. Of course Johnny doesn’t fully recall this, because he was given Beta blockers when he was young to help him forget a traumatic event that occurred. So despite Johnny being unable to recall why he wants to go to the moon, we eventually discover that it was due to his feelings for River.

The final thematic statement becomes: “Dreams of true love prevail, but in the surreal world.”

So To the Moon has been quite a successful game despite it’s almost non-existent mechanics. The gameplay itself is very boring and the puzzles after each timeleap is completely unecessary. The mechanis should be used to aid in conveying the themes to the audience. However, players were kept engaged, mainly through it’s one-of-a-kind storyline, which is near impossible to find in a game nowadays. Imagine playing the game alone without the storyline… that would be quite a boring experience.  I do hope there will be more interesting gameplay in the next episode, but I’ll leave this discussion about the importance of relevant gameplay for another post.

End of Spoilers

Persona 3 is another game that was highly successful, and I believed it was mainly due to it’s meaningful themes. Despite it’s horrible storytelling methods, somewhat predictable storyline and above average gameplay mechanics (which we will analyse in another post), the game had valuable life lessons to teach to everybody. I actually loved the Persona games bear-y much, and the lessons I learnt from it has definitely impacted my life. Of course, the mechanics also played a huge role in the success of the Persona 3 and 4 games. Actually, one of the reasons why they were so successful was because ATLUS (the company of the Persona games) used the mechanics in order to help portray the themes.

The social links mechanics aided the theme of friendship whilst the concept of a Persona aided in the themes of acceptance and truth. Having solid mechanics is just one thing, but they must be relevant to a game and aid in demonstrating it’s themes. I can’t stress this enough.

So if you’ve made it this far, I’ve gotta say a huge ‘thank you,’ as you’ve reached the end of this very long post. I hope this brings valuable insight to you game designers or future game designers out there. I’ll end by saying that these concepts can definitely teach you to be a better writer than 99% of people out there, however, story writing is a very tough job and requires lots of time to master. You can’t get good unless you actually go and practice writing stories using these concepts. It should take you AT LEAST a couple of months to finish one major story, sometimes over a year. That’s just how things are, so be patient and work hard and eventually you’ll be writing a story as brilliant as ‘To the Moon.’（source：gamingpoint）