Last week I blogged about how games use interactive storytelling to deepen the player’s investment in the narrative and making them feel like they are part of the story. Unfortunately, I spent so long explaining my reasoning that I neglected to actually present any examples of how games do this. Why don’t we fix that? This week I’ll talk about the different ways in which gaming narratives can engage their consumers and make the adventure they tell unique to each person.
Let’s start with the obvious. Choices! Who doesn’t like choices? Unless there are too many good choices, and you can’t decide, and you really want to try everything on the menu because it all looks good and… Ahem. Getting off topic.
Point is different people have different preferences and hence would be attracted to different kinds of experiences, both in their lives and in their games. Providing multiple options in which the story can progress or in how a character reacts can help tailor the adventure to the individual. Not only can this broaden the general appeal of the narrative as more kinds of people can find a connection, but this can cause an even deeper level of resonance if the player feels like they would have made the exact choice were they in the same situation.
A good choice system can also engage the user in a different manner. By making them think. When people consume media they can sometimes go on autopilot and only absorb the content on a surface level. I’ve seen players click through dialogue, barely paying attention to what the characters are saying just to get to the good stuff. Inserting meaningful choices helps break up this surface level scanning and makes people pay attention and try and analyze the situation critically. Furthermore, seeing the payoff of picking an appropriate choice rewards the viewer for investing their attention.
A well designed choice during a climax or otherwise critical point has the potential to provoke a deep emotional response as the player is left to debate the moral implications of their choice while deciding the fate of one or multiple characters. Feelings caused by such moments range from elating to absolute soul crushing. A good example of this is from Telltale’s The Walking Dead where in the season one climax where the father figure, Lee, gets infected and the daughter, Clementine, needs to decide between shooting him or letting him go and consigning his fate to become a zombie. What makes a choice likes this work is that it is built up over the course of the whole story as we play as Lee making it true moral dilemma as to which would be the “better option.” Because the player builds up a personal connection with Lee, it actually feels like the game is asking us to kill a real friend, making the choice both difficult and VERY personal.
I would also be remiss if I don’t mention the rare cases such as Mass Effect 2 where the choices accumulate over the course of the game to greatly impact the ending. Mass Effect 2’s gimmick is that over the course of the game you have the option to interact with and progress the personal plot-lines of multiple allies. At the end, you all go to a final confrontation that is more or less a suicide mission where multiple character dies. However, if you’ve correctly progress your relationship with your crew-mates, you can all collectively survive. This justifies all of your investment in the story and gives a nice cathartic moment as all your good deeds are amply rewarded.
Alright I’ve harped on about choices for long enough. Lets examine some other systems that aid in player immersion.
Another pretty common one is the Silent Protagonist; a lead that never voices his thoughts making them a blank slate. Now this one is actually somewhat hit or miss as this trope tends to alienate some people as they cannot relate to someone with no personality. Indeed many games featuring a silent protagonist suffer in the story department especially if they only have a tenuous connection to the plot and they have only surface level motivations.
Nevertheless, the technical idea behind a silent protagonist is sound, if the protagonist rarely voices their feelings it makes it much easier for the player to insert themselves into the characters place and progress as if it was an incarnation of the player experiencing the events of the story. The key to making the trope work is to give just enough characterization or motivation that the character feels alive and also provide a solid roster of choices (there I go about choices again) that the player can inject some of their personal qualities into the role. So less Far Cry and more Fallout or Skyrim.
Now most games use the silent protagonist as a common trope to appeal to a broader market. BUT THEN there are those special games that cleverly utilize the fact that you supposed to self-insert into the characters role to deliver a powerful message to player directly, to pull wool over your eyes until it’s time to show you that the whole thing has been about you the whole time and that everything you know is a lie.
There are a plethora of other tricks that tricks use to keep your investment strong. Everything from using graphical design to focus the player’s attention and provide a strong visual appeal to spaces you traverse, to using tactical Quick Time Events (QTEs) to have you act out the big cinematic moment helps the user stay immersed. I would likely spend all night listing them all, but I want to end on a very straightforward one. Gameplay.
Good gameplay makes the game enjoyable. It makes going through the game fun. And when you’re having fun you will enjoy the story more. Simple as that. And you can further accentuate this by mimicking the desired emotion the character should feel in the gameplay. Want to create a feeling of dread as you’re being chased by an unstoppable foe? Take away all weapons and allies from the player making them feel helpless and alone (Ex: Alien Isolation). Want to empower them during an epic fight scene, making them feel like an epic hero and leaving them with a moment they want to run off and tell their friends? Cut the music to swell at a specific point in the action to put emphasis on the player’s attack and make it seem like it came straight out of a movie (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and honestly more games need to do this because god damn does it hit hard when the music syncs). Gameplay helps make you feel like you’re performing the story moments, and at the end of the day that’s what we want from our fiction: to forget what’s real or not.
All right, I’ll leave it off here. There’s just so many avenues in which games can expand the storytelling experience. And so many of them that are still unexplored. This is what makes me the most excited about the potential of video games: so many yet unknown ways to supplement how we experience fiction. I just hope that we’ll continue to have to freedom to explore them all
