How can we achieve better storytelling in videogames?

[L.B. Jeffries]

*edit*

You know what, the last thing this forum needs is another god forsaken list of games with good plots. We all know the 5 or 6 games everyone is going to repeat or agree with over and over again, there's no point in dragging this out.

 

[Same River New Water]

1) Buy games with good stories. It doesn't matter how they're told - if producers see that good stories are a selling point, they'll put money into them, which means employing people who are better at telling stories than you or I to do so.

2) Don't confuse "good story" with "lots of dialogue/narration". Planescape: Torment uses a lot of text to tell a great story; Portal uses a minimal, disjointed, one-way conversation to tell a good story; Final Fantasy uses a shedload of dialogue and tells a mediocre story. (I also don't think the story in Metroid Prime is anything special, but at least it doesn't force you to sit through much of it, and what is there to read is optional.)

3) Don't overdo it. If you forget the gameplay, nobody will stick with the story. See Rock Paper Shotgun's take on Pathologic (One [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/10/butchering-pathologic-part-1-the-body/], Two [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/11/butchering-pathologic-part-2-the-mind/]) for a description of an amazing story wrapped around a terrible game.

4) BUY GAMES WITH GOOD STORIES.

 

[Meshakhad_v1legacy]

What Valve did in development was have the writers talk with the designers ALL THE TIME. That's how they integrated storyline and gameplay.

 

[squid5580]

I have watched alot of movies that were an hour and a half long and had a great story. So why can't they fit 1 1/2 hour worth of story into a game? I am not saying they should make a game like Xenosaga with 50 min long cutscenes cuz that is to much. Split it up throughout the game and be sure the writers and devs are working together so one aspect isn't overshadowed by the other. And for the love of all that is holy step away from the cliches. Playing an amnesiac has lost its charm a long time ago. The M.C. remembering who they are for 3/4 of the game doesn't make for an interesting story. They can have a journey of self discovery and still remember thier past.

 

[GothmogII]

I have watched alot of movies that were an hour and a half long and had a great story. So why can't they fit 1 1/2 hour worth of story into a game? I am not saying they should make a game like Xenosaga with 50 min long cutscenes cuz that is to much. Split it up throughout the game and be sure the writers and devs are working together so one aspect isn't overshadowed by the other. And for the love of all that is holy step away from the cliches. Playing an amnesiac has lost its charm a long time ago. The M.C. remembering who they are for 3/4 of the game doesn't make for an interesting story. They can have a journey of self discovery and still remember thier past.

Huh? Sorry, mind providing an example please? ^^' At best, the only games I can think of that really had that as a plot point were Planescape Torment and some of the Breath of Fire series. A lot of the time they simply just don't go into the character's past, but that doesn't necessarily imply amnesia. Just that a standard videogame protaganist probably has a boring home life -_-.

As for writers and devs working together, yus yus yus. Very good idea.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

This wasn't really meant to be a discussion on Ratio of story to gameplay, more of how you could portray a story integrated with gameplay.

Personally I don't find the Bioshock/System Shock method that integrated, as you almost need to go out of your way to find all the recordings, and it also didn't make sense why every goddamn person in the game made so many frigging recordings.

I suppose the split box setup, utilized in MGS4, where a cutscene type thing occurs in one seperate screen while the gameplay occurs in another is a decent way to do things, but you couldn't use this technique more than once or twice.

I do like the "villain speaks" while you fight method, it's basically flawless and it's engaging and fun. Or the "radio buddy" who speaks to you while the gameplay is going on, though this can sometimes get annoying.

Oddly enough, while the story itself was kinda bleh, Oblivion did a decent job of integrating Story and Gameplay, especially with the whole *spoiler* sacrifice scene in the villains hideout, for example.

 

[squid5580]

Off the top of my head Alone in the Dark. There has also been quite few rpgs that have used that. Bioshock is an example but admittedly it was done well.

 

[GothmogII]

This wasn't really meant to be a discussion on Ratio of story to gameplay, more of how you could portray a story integrated with gameplay.

Personally I don't find the Bioshock/System Shock method that integrated, as you almost need to go out of your way to find all the recordings, and it also didn't make sense why every goddamn person in the game made so many frigging recordings.

That's the thing, it makes a -little- more sense in System Shock, as the Von Braun is essentially owned by a commercial corporation. Having everyone wear a personal data device makes sense as almost everyone on board is really just an employee, a nifty little datapad with which to record audio messages, passwords etc. Where it comes apart slighty, is that the electronic text based readers are seperate from the audio discs (actually, why they're still use discs in the future I never found out), but other than that, it would be like their version of a mobile phone/orginiser. BioShock on the other hand...I can't really say -why- the average Rapture citizen would be carrying around a big honking tape recorder, at least in sections i.e. Suchong's research recordings, their use does make sense.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

This wasn't really meant to be a discussion on Ratio of story to gameplay, more of how you could portray a story integrated with gameplay.

Personally I don't find the Bioshock/System Shock method that integrated, as you almost need to go out of your way to find all the recordings, and it also didn't make sense why every goddamn person in the game made so many frigging recordings.

That's the thing, it makes a -little- more sense in System Shock, as the Von Braun is essentially owned by a commercial corporation. Having everyone wear a personal data device makes sense as almost everyone on board is really just an employee, a nifty little datapad with which to record audio messages, passwords etc. Where it comes apart slighty, is that the electronic text based readers are seperate from the audio discs (actually, why they're still use discs in the future I never found out), but other than that, it would be like their version of a mobile phone/orginiser. BioShock on the other hand...I can't really say -why- the average Rapture citizen would be carrying around a big honking tape recorder, at least in sections i.e. Suchong's research recordings, their use does make sense.

A lot of them were e-mails and voice messages too. They had a lot more creative freedom than make-up "Diaries" for everybody.

 

[Iron Mal]

Well, the first part would be to come up with something thats fresh and original. It doesn't matter how well something has been presented or how interective or genius a story telling device is, if the story it's telling has been done before and better then you're still going to think the game is as enticing as being invited for a hour long torture session.

Once we get that part down then we can move onto the delivery of the story.

 

[Sylocat]

Well, it's a temporary measure, but one thing that could work is to combine the exposition scenes with the QTE's, and make them a core part of the gameplay. This assures that people pay attention to what's going on, as well as giving them something to do during the cutscene.

 

[Arbre]

they could make more cutscenes interactive like "press x not to do die" that was in RE:4 and the like
it would especially cool if they did this during pivitol moments in the plot
the player would be shocked but still have to react

Press X not to die is probably one of the worst game mechanics to have been put into games.

Quick-time events are risky at best. They require action from the player at a point where the player's mind is programmed to be given a rest - cinema.

The real horror [http://stonebytes.blogspot.com/2008/05/quick-time-events-simon-hates-u-remix.html] of a bad QTE is to rely on a binary mechanic to either continue the story or slap the player with a large game over. These moments should be layered, offering options, various ways to pass a given sequence, and it should only be over time and after several unsatisfying inappropriate choices that the player should loose.
There's nothing exciting nor epic dying because you didn't press button O. That's actually very idiotic, and we seriously need to move beyond that.

 

[StonedMonkay]

Interactive cutscenes are always good, i don't mean QUICKLY PRESS A thing, because i always drop my controller when a cutscene starts & panic when it says that making it end up on the floor or hitting me in the eye.

Ones where you can walk around the room while someones talking, still be fighting enemies or being able to interrupt them.

 

[neems]

Cut all of these artificial methods, tricks and gimmicks; tell a story like you experience it in reality.

Life is not big on lengthy exposition, we need to explain less, stop catering to the lowest common denominator of intelligence among players (sales be damned, we're talking about quality, not profit) and leave some mystery and confusion in a game, realising a lack of total understanding is a very real thing, and one that -enhances- the experience.

Force players to think and to make their own decisions instead of holding their hand every step with very basic, clearly spoken instructions and lengthy cutscenes.

Allow -me- the choice to listen to the dying villain's monologue, or to finish him off with a gunshot and walk home.

This. Personally I hate exposition, but so many games rely upon it. Even otherwise great games have this habit of entirely separating gameplay from plot. This is particularly jarring in the modern context of 'realistic gaming'.

Half life 2 didn't have a great story - what it did have though was great story telling. The world you were playing through was the story - from the moment you stepped off the train, you were immersed in the dystopian 'reality' of City 17. The details were supplied through the classic 'in engine' cut scenes, but City 17 and its environs gave you all you really needed to know.

It's not quite the same, but Call Of Duty 4 had an interesting take on the Half Life style interactive cut scene. The game as a whole perhaps wasn't a story telling master class, but the intro and the post-nuke scene were pretty impressive.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Well, the first part would be to come up with something thats fresh and original. It doesn't matter how well something has been presented or how interective or genius a story telling device is, if the story it's telling has been done before and better then you're still going to think the game is as enticing as being invited for a hour long torture session.

Once we get that part down then we can move onto the delivery of the story.

You do know that a lot of Shakespeare's stories weren't original, right? Or that the first Starwars was basically a paint-by-numbers hero's journey story? The vast majority of stories in any medium are just combining elements that we've already seen from other stories. Good storytelling is what gives them their own character, rather than simply being generic spittle.

 

[Blayze]

Better characters. The plot is the device by which the characters interact with the player and each other. Dak'kon was a great character whose entire life was based on the concept of *knowing*, Valygar a one-dimensional magic-hater who was so wooden he could have been voiced by Keanu Reeves.

 

[T360]

i like the dialouge tree stuff that u see in KOTOR and Mass Effect...

the only thing that could inprove upon this is to have more choices in the scense like the descion at the end of mass effect where u decide if u save the leaders ship or not

 

[Megamet]

Frankly, there really isn't a failsafe way for story and gameplay to exist within a game comfortably. Whichever method you try, it's bound to not agree with certain people.

 

[Divinegon]

I find it interesting on how some people use Half Life 2 as a good example of story telling without the abundant use of cutscenes. As I recall, in most exposition moments of the game you'd stay still while people talked to you. How's that different from a cutscene aside from being able to look around?

I stick to the good old cutscenes. They were there for me not mostly because of story moment but because they meant story moment with prettier graphics, and when used with not so much abundancy (Say God of War like), then they feel refreshing thus people pay attention to them.

I also enjoy unimportant interactive moments in cutscenes (Metal Gear Solid 3, Assassin's Creed) that allowed you to have different view angles to notice small curiosities but still not prejudicial if you didn't use them.

As said before, for good storytelling you need professional writers that try to deviate from usual plot devices that we see so much nowadays (Fighting evil only to find in the end that evil was influenced by a deity who you also fight; trying to recover your memory only to find out you were one of the bad guys, etc) or if they do use them, then flesh them out well so they turn pleasant to go through (Persona 3, in my opinion).

Then, create a likeable or at least connecting main character. You might have to like him (maybe that was done on purpose) but at least be able to feel the game and the story through that character since essentially you're seeing a story through the experiences of the character you're playing with. If that character feels to cardboard like, then everything around it tends to seem become less appealing.

 

[Lazzi]

thats a great idea except for the fact the there are deaf gamers so you cant have audio only story line info. Sadly that means we need to keep cut scenes. but then again i enjoy the good cut scenes. WE really should concentrate one make the nesscary cut scenes more cinamtic.

I fully aware that many gamers hate cut scenes but there her to stay just like cancer. we just need to take some cues on there timing and placement. Lets look at KHII when ever you did X damage to a boss they would say or do some thing same goes for when you used Ability Y. Those cut scenes lasted all of what 5 seconds. Have them integrated into pivotal battle movement makes it certain that you are paying attention when the information is being delivered.