I saw a discussion recently I thought I'd throw my two cents in to, which was about narratives in games. Specifically talking about linear narratives versus nonlinear narratives. I am of the opinion that the 'nonlinear narrative' is a ugly and persistent myth that undermines what is really happening from a narrative standpoint in games. Nonlinear, as it is used in this context, refers to any game where a player choice might change something about what happens next in the narrative or sequence of events in a game. I believe the term came into popular usage around the same time it became unfavourable for a game's level design to be described as linear. One of the things many designers seem to be obsessed with lately is how many alternate paths their game has. Multiple paths encouraging player choice is an admirable aim but is only appropriate to certain types of games and is not a universally positive feature.
Back to how all this relates to narrative. Nonlinear narrative is thought to be the opposite of a linear narrative simply because player choice guides it. The term nonlinear has a lot of definitions, none of which relate directly to narrative. I actually saw one person try to compare it to the mathematical definition once, which boggled my mind rather hard. The basic idea is that something that is nonlinear is generally defined as not being laid out in a straight line. 'Lines' don't really have anything to do with narrative theory but the 'trajectory' a story takes has been visualised as a linear sytsem many times, particularly the dramatic arc. The dramatic arc is a common feature to many different types of media, not just those that tell a story. The core concept is that to create a tense or compelling experience the narrative must rise and fall at the appropriate moments.
This is what happens at a basic level in most successful forms of art. Music crescendoes, films, plays and books become more dramatic and even some static works of art have this feature embedded in their composition. The dramatic arc occurs differently for each medium though. In films it is very commmon for 3 major dramatic arcs to occur over the course of the narrative which make up the 3 act structure. 3 steps up in dramatic intensity in between the set up and the conclusion that form a compact and easily followable narrative, usually following a hero's struggle.
In games the dramatic arc follows a slightly different form, now prepare yourself because I may be about to blow your mind. Universally speaking games do not have anything resembling a 3 act structure. Rather than being tied to the narrative the dramatic arc in a videogame is most closely tied to gameplay events and ideally occurs every 40 minutes to 1 hour of play (depending on genre). A rise and fall, the classic example being levels that increase in difficulty and end in a boss fight before the next level starts. What I see quite often is people making the mistake that games are similar to film in that their design direction is driven by storytelling. Games are designed with gameplay in mind from the outset with a comparatively minimal focus on narrative. The problem is that when presented with a game like Fallout 3 for example, the player is more likely to be paying attention to all the more aesthetic or immediate elements (the characters, story, environment, direct interaction) and are more likely to compare it to other predominantly visual media. They don't really see the world they're walking around in as the complex series of systems it is (indeed any immersive game should be drawing as much attention away from the fact that the user is playing a game as possible).
Storytelling occurs in a very different way when it comes to games. Stories are sort of ambient in a game, being half-driven by the player's action and half-driven by the game's creators. A world made by developers on which the player must project their own interpretation of the 'story'. Some developers and reviewers sometimes complain about how the fact that a player can interact with a game makes it very hard to tell a story. Stories are not told in games, they are experienced, to put it melodramatically. All this talk of linear and nonlinear just makes me shiver. It just seems to be a way for people to distinguish between what they perceive as either:
-A game telling a story to the player without any player input (linear)
-A game telling a story in which the game asks the player to make a decision on a regular basis, usually ending in one of multiple endings ('nonlinear')
I'll say it again. The aim of a game's fictional content should not be to just tell you a story. It should be to present a compelling fictional world which the player should figuratively inhabit. The immersive qualities of this world may include traditional narrative elements such as characters, settings and their relationships but they cannot really be said to be narratives in the traditional sense.
Let me demonstrate with a few examples about why we should stop thinking about linear and nonlinear and instead how a new type of narrative must be defined in the case of games. Think of a game that doesn't have what we would traditionally call a narrative. Chances are you'll probably come up with something like Tetris or Bejeweled. Neither of these games have a 'story' but they both have internally consistent fictional 'worlds' that are reinforced by the game mechanics. The world of Tetris has no characters, no linear or nonlinear narrative but is fictional. Tetris still has a dramatic arc though. In fact it has one of the greatest uses of the dramatic arc in history. The rise and fall of the tempo of the game until the game's inevitable outcome. It directly mirrors the form of every myth ever told without having a meaningless label like nonlinear and (more importantly) without having a character driven narrative.
Of course Tetris is rather abstract. Perhaps a more recent and concrete example. Some critics have noticed an interesting point or two about the Grand Theft Auto series. Starting with GTA3 the series became incredibly popular thanks to its open world and the emergent possibilities it offered the player. GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas built upon these fundamentals becoming bigger and full of more things for the player to do. Rockstar then took a somewhat controversial shift in design philosophy for GTA4 which was incredibly successful and critically acclaimed but not so fondly remembered. The game had a much heavier focus on a partially choice-driven and tonally serious 'cinematic' narrative. Regardless of what you think about the quality of the narrative you get the feeling the developer has a little too much hand in what the player must do compared to previous installments in the series. For this reason the game is now a footnote rather than a classic being remembered mostly because of a certain cousin who enjoys going bowling.
This theory about a game's fictional component taking on the form of a player-interactive world rather than a traditional narrative (have I said traditional narrative enough yet!?) is relatively new and obscure. Unfortunately everybody has some grasp on basic film structure so that is what games are sadly and inevitably compared to. Only certain games can be seen to have a filmic narrative yet every game fits this game-world theory. Role-playing games, starting with Dungeons and Dragons, are all about this! A designed world on to which players write their own experience. This role-playing is present in all games. In some games its a core focus in others its a tiny incidental part of play but it is always there.
There are many different people that have written specifically about games as fictional worlds but if you're curious to know more I'd recommend reading Half-Real by Jesper Juul. He probably explains it a lot better than I do and I can't believe the ideas I've discussed aren't more prevalent in gaming media since they're downright revolutionary. Well, that's enough pseudo-intellectual ranting for now.
Back to how all this relates to narrative. Nonlinear narrative is thought to be the opposite of a linear narrative simply because player choice guides it. The term nonlinear has a lot of definitions, none of which relate directly to narrative. I actually saw one person try to compare it to the mathematical definition once, which boggled my mind rather hard. The basic idea is that something that is nonlinear is generally defined as not being laid out in a straight line. 'Lines' don't really have anything to do with narrative theory but the 'trajectory' a story takes has been visualised as a linear sytsem many times, particularly the dramatic arc. The dramatic arc is a common feature to many different types of media, not just those that tell a story. The core concept is that to create a tense or compelling experience the narrative must rise and fall at the appropriate moments.
This is what happens at a basic level in most successful forms of art. Music crescendoes, films, plays and books become more dramatic and even some static works of art have this feature embedded in their composition. The dramatic arc occurs differently for each medium though. In films it is very commmon for 3 major dramatic arcs to occur over the course of the narrative which make up the 3 act structure. 3 steps up in dramatic intensity in between the set up and the conclusion that form a compact and easily followable narrative, usually following a hero's struggle.
In games the dramatic arc follows a slightly different form, now prepare yourself because I may be about to blow your mind. Universally speaking games do not have anything resembling a 3 act structure. Rather than being tied to the narrative the dramatic arc in a videogame is most closely tied to gameplay events and ideally occurs every 40 minutes to 1 hour of play (depending on genre). A rise and fall, the classic example being levels that increase in difficulty and end in a boss fight before the next level starts. What I see quite often is people making the mistake that games are similar to film in that their design direction is driven by storytelling. Games are designed with gameplay in mind from the outset with a comparatively minimal focus on narrative. The problem is that when presented with a game like Fallout 3 for example, the player is more likely to be paying attention to all the more aesthetic or immediate elements (the characters, story, environment, direct interaction) and are more likely to compare it to other predominantly visual media. They don't really see the world they're walking around in as the complex series of systems it is (indeed any immersive game should be drawing as much attention away from the fact that the user is playing a game as possible).
Storytelling occurs in a very different way when it comes to games. Stories are sort of ambient in a game, being half-driven by the player's action and half-driven by the game's creators. A world made by developers on which the player must project their own interpretation of the 'story'. Some developers and reviewers sometimes complain about how the fact that a player can interact with a game makes it very hard to tell a story. Stories are not told in games, they are experienced, to put it melodramatically. All this talk of linear and nonlinear just makes me shiver. It just seems to be a way for people to distinguish between what they perceive as either:
-A game telling a story to the player without any player input (linear)
-A game telling a story in which the game asks the player to make a decision on a regular basis, usually ending in one of multiple endings ('nonlinear')
I'll say it again. The aim of a game's fictional content should not be to just tell you a story. It should be to present a compelling fictional world which the player should figuratively inhabit. The immersive qualities of this world may include traditional narrative elements such as characters, settings and their relationships but they cannot really be said to be narratives in the traditional sense.
Let me demonstrate with a few examples about why we should stop thinking about linear and nonlinear and instead how a new type of narrative must be defined in the case of games. Think of a game that doesn't have what we would traditionally call a narrative. Chances are you'll probably come up with something like Tetris or Bejeweled. Neither of these games have a 'story' but they both have internally consistent fictional 'worlds' that are reinforced by the game mechanics. The world of Tetris has no characters, no linear or nonlinear narrative but is fictional. Tetris still has a dramatic arc though. In fact it has one of the greatest uses of the dramatic arc in history. The rise and fall of the tempo of the game until the game's inevitable outcome. It directly mirrors the form of every myth ever told without having a meaningless label like nonlinear and (more importantly) without having a character driven narrative.
Of course Tetris is rather abstract. Perhaps a more recent and concrete example. Some critics have noticed an interesting point or two about the Grand Theft Auto series. Starting with GTA3 the series became incredibly popular thanks to its open world and the emergent possibilities it offered the player. GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas built upon these fundamentals becoming bigger and full of more things for the player to do. Rockstar then took a somewhat controversial shift in design philosophy for GTA4 which was incredibly successful and critically acclaimed but not so fondly remembered. The game had a much heavier focus on a partially choice-driven and tonally serious 'cinematic' narrative. Regardless of what you think about the quality of the narrative you get the feeling the developer has a little too much hand in what the player must do compared to previous installments in the series. For this reason the game is now a footnote rather than a classic being remembered mostly because of a certain cousin who enjoys going bowling.
This theory about a game's fictional component taking on the form of a player-interactive world rather than a traditional narrative (have I said traditional narrative enough yet!?) is relatively new and obscure. Unfortunately everybody has some grasp on basic film structure so that is what games are sadly and inevitably compared to. Only certain games can be seen to have a filmic narrative yet every game fits this game-world theory. Role-playing games, starting with Dungeons and Dragons, are all about this! A designed world on to which players write their own experience. This role-playing is present in all games. In some games its a core focus in others its a tiny incidental part of play but it is always there.
There are many different people that have written specifically about games as fictional worlds but if you're curious to know more I'd recommend reading Half-Real by Jesper Juul. He probably explains it a lot better than I do and I can't believe the ideas I've discussed aren't more prevalent in gaming media since they're downright revolutionary. Well, that's enough pseudo-intellectual ranting for now.
