Game Stories

 

Yubaba from Spirited Away movie.

I decided to pick this image for today's reading blog because she is one of the antagonists that I like. I also love Ghibli movies in general as each character has a special part in the movie and each of them has a reason to have an interaction with the hero. I think that the game also needs to have this kind of set up instead of just adding unnecessary characters and story in the game. Everything should have a purpose.

In this week's reading, we have to read about the importance of a good story in a game. We also have to watch a video about it which explains more about the stories with systems in the game. From what I understood after watching the video, some game does not have a story in them which made me think that it was strange as most of the games that I have played before does. Even though it is only the character's back story to help us know and understand how their purpose and what they can do. 

However, in this video, I learned that some game that does not have a story is more memorable and unique than the one that has a plot. This can happen because there are some games that have an interactive character on them and the game might have some kind of strict rules implemented already. Sometimes the game could also tell a story from simple things such as when a man got attacked by a tiger in the game (this is an example I got from the video). This is also just an example of a by-product of systems that allows interacting with one another in the game.

The first article that I read is called "What Every Game Developer Needs To Know About Story" by John Sutherland. What I have learned about the story in this article is that games are not movies. From what I comprehend in this sentence is that in a game, you could be able to decide what will happen next and you can control the story or create a plan of what you preferred to do. While movies, on the other hand, it has a fixed story already and you can no longer change anything as it is already prepared and filmed months or even a year before it comes out.

These are the common misperceptions about Story:

• Story is dialogue
• The story does not matter

The article also referred to Robert Mckeen's book called "Story" where it explained that the most important structure in a story is conflict. This means that it needs to be implemented from the beginning of the game development process. Which I think is also necessary because, without a conflict/obstacle, the game would be boring and not fun to play. 

Here is a basic structure of a story that we can use in any media such as for a game, movie, or a novel:

1. There is a protagonist/hero.
2. The hero's world is damaged/disturbed by an inciting incident. e.g. natural disaster
3. A gap starts to open up between the hero and his/her orderly life
4. The hero tries to overcome the gap but fails.
5. In order for the hero to conquer the obstacle, he/she need to take a risk.
6. A reversal happens where a second gap occurred.
7. More risks need to be done to get through it.
8. Not long after, the third gap/reversal arises.
9. This is where the hero takes the greatest risk and overcome the hardest gap in order for the hero's life to go back to normal.

Why Characters matters to a game?

The player creates a character by deciding what to do during the game. Every game has different scenarios and tasks to complete and I think that these things will help the player produce a more relatable character in the game because what they do is from their own choices and personal thinking.