How games benefit from stories

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From the course by California Institute of the Arts

Story and Narrative Development for Video Games

653 ratings

California Institute of the Arts

Story and Narrative Development for Video Games

653 ratings

Course 2 of 5 in the Specialization Game Design: Art and Concepts

In this course, you will examine how storytelling acts as a vital mechanism for driving video gameplay forward. Looking at several historical and contemporary games, you will be asked to evaluate and interpret different story styles with the goal of identifying themes and procedures for your own game ideas. We'll examine traditional narrative story processes, such as three-act structure, and how they fit into game story flows and the strategic elements of gameplay. Ultimately, you will learn how to define character, setting, and structure to create a compelling game concept.

From the lesson

Week 1: An Introduction to Story

For the first week of the class, we will be analyzing the components of three-act structure using a classic fairytale as an example. We'll examine the characters in the story by figuring out their goals and the main conflict that creates a rising arc of action to keep the audience interested.

What makes a story compelling?3:33

How games benefit from stories4:59

How to see a game as a story first5:48

Meet the Instructors

Dariush Derakhshani
Faculty, Character Animation
School of Film/Video

There's a lot of ways games can benefit from traditional story lines.

When you see your game design first as a story,

you're gonna begin attaching emotion to it.

The game pieces become characters that you connect and empathize with.

This bond that exists between a reader and his or

her book, is a bond that you can easily create in a game.

So now, your player not only bonds with the game on the super cool, fun and

exciting game play level, where you run and shoot and jump and duck and all that,

but also at at emotional level where the player actually cares about

the game piece because it feels like a person, maybe even a friend.

Another reason why it's important to see your game as a story first, in my opinion,

is that it gives you more of a motivation to actually finish your project.

Let me tell you this story.

A group of some of the best CG students I had quite a few years ago,

came to me one day and told me about this awesome animation they were gonna produce.

They told me, dude, it's gonna be about this

really awesome looking robot that wakes up in this huge factory.

And he suddenly becomes self-aware and he unplugs himself and starts

running through this place and takes all these weapons out that are built into him.

And he's gonna start jumping and kicking and

shooting and going through all these obstacles.

And they're like the action is gonna be mad.

Awesome, I said.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

But then I asked them a question that stumped them, what's the robot's name?

Why did the robot become self-aware?

Who made the robot?

Why is he fighting out of this factory?

What's his goal basically, and basically who's this character that we're watching?

Who's this robot?

Well, the students just kinda roll their eyes and basically said whatever,

that doesn't matter.

But I warned them that without some sort of back story,

without a deeper understanding of the characters and the whys of this animation,

it's just gonna end up being another thing to watch and forget about on YouTube.

It's gonna lack emotional connection.

And mostly, the group of students would probably get tired of the hard

work that's needed for this and end up walking away and

never finishing it, which unfortunately they never did finish.

My point then, and my point now, is that the more personally invested you are in

the creation of your story your game, the more life you can breathe into it,

the more motivation you're gonna have to see it through.

Seeing your game as a story helps you get to that bond.

As a matter of fact, the more of yourself and

your own life experience you can write into the characters and

into the story line of your game, the stronger this bond is gonna be.

The game also becomes an extension of your perspective.

It gives you a voice to speak through.

You should never discount that level of attachment to a creative process.

Lastly, why I feel it's important to see your game as a story first,

is that a story is gonna help build you a framework for your game start to finish.

By understanding the mechanics of how a story comes together and how it's told,

you can help yourself design a game idea much more fruitfully.

A story will help tie the various design elements and choices all together.

Whenever you're faced with a design question, you simply turn to the story

you've designed first and ask yourself, does this serve my story?

Just take a look at Angry Birds.

Here we've got a light,

whimsical game where you flick birds at pigs to try to knock them over.

Every inch of that game ties together tightly.

The game's storyline gives you a sense of a world that exists where these birds and

pigs live together, that they deserve your emotional attention.

The story's simple.

Pigs steal eggs from the birds, birds get angry and they fight back and

try to get their eggs.

And every level that you play fits into that simple storyline.

It's not about knocking these pigs over, so

much as it is about getting the bird's eggs back and righting a wrong.

See?

Now you're emotionally vested in helping the birds get their eggs.

As silly as that sounds, it's true.

You can't deny that that is more powerful than just flicking random

shapes across the screen to knock into other random shapes on the other side.

The story of the pigs and

birds becomes a higher purpose that you can connect with as a player.

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