Making story through gameplay

[Meinos Kaen 12]

I think the real hallmark of a great game is when it managed to tell a story and pull the player in by using gameplay. Games like Spec Ops: The Line[ get that perfectly, while games like The Order: 1886 miss it completely.

 

What are your favourite gameplay elements to tell/make a story with? There's combat of course, which is a staple of an RPG, but then there's also choices. Like, you can only unlock certain abilities of your allies by saying or doing the right things around them, or doing certain missions. A bit like Persona or Dragon Age Origins. What are yours?

[+ Sughayyer 163]

It seems there's a big problem that only affects me: I think I'm the only one nowadays who enjoys old-school mechanics. The holy trinity is Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy (everything prior to 1999). Maybe I'm just getting old....

Of course I do not shun innovation, it's just that people don't seem to like the jrpg style anymore

[Meinos Kaen 12]

Oh, I love JRPGs. But my perfecta is the Shin Megami Tensei series. I love FF and DQ, but there's just something about your decisions and what you do in the game affecting the story, even if in a minor way... I think that's the potential of games as a medium.

[+ CVincent 234]

 

Like, you can only unlock certain abilities of your allies by saying or doing the right things around them, or doing certain missions.

 

We're doing something like that in my project.The player's character has a general set of skills to start and can learn new ones through interaction with other characters who have specific roles. Different kinds of weapons also have unique skills so strategy is also involved. Since the game is mostly story focused, getting new skills involves completing side-missions with companion characters.

 

It's an interesting game design concept to work, I've always found class systems to make me lose interest quickly or feel limiting in one way or another.

Edited July 3, 2015 by CVincent

[+ Chaosian 617]

Here we go, finally the conversation about "how can we make game stories actually good".

 

I might return to this conversation a few times with other points in mind, but what really springs to mind is that I love the idea of powerlessness in video games. Too often are games in which the hero's fail it's because the hero is incompetent or simply not even around while a cutscene is present - it's baffling and definitely an antiquated remnant of film. Games are for the most part are about power fantasies, so making the player lose - or have to play by it's rules is something It seems to be done pretty rarely. It's a shame, it can be extremely shocking and effective. Half Life 2, Heavy Rain, and Rule of Rose all come to mind for instances where the player is tied up and can do absolutely nothing about it.

 

I'm also a big fan of player hard resets, that is, starting the player at square one near the end of the game, it's a very effective method for getting the "Ordeal" across for a Hero's Journey. I recently streamed Cry of Fear and brought it up when it happened in that game. Essentially near the end of the game, all the players guns, health items, ammo, and half their inventory slots are completely taken away. In return, they are given a wooden stick as their only means of defense. It's a fantastic way to make the player feel low and vulnerable again, like they were at the start of the game.

Edited July 3, 2015 by Chaosian

[+ Sughayyer 163]

Or a way of "buying" the player into continuing to play the game (from B. F. Skinner's box) and faking the difficulty by ripping you off of the prizes the game gave you... 

 

But yes, allowing the story to progress towards the characters' own development is good. Reminds me of a very, very old game called Bloodnet. Your character had the lowest stats of all the game, and you really needed to recruit friends to accomplish something. And combat was much like real life: the loser died on the spot, the winner... probably died due to the wounds, but a bit later. (actually the game was made so that it could be beat with a single combat).

 

If your party lacked the skills, some of the puzzles were unsolvable. Not enough decking skills? Couldn't even connect to the cyberspace. Not enough observation skills? Your searches would reveal nothing. And so on.... Adding to that the fact that the main character is slowly becoming a vampire and each passing day your abilities were hidered.

[JaiCrimson 22]

 

 

 

Here we go, finally the conversation about "how can we make game stories actually good".

 

I might return to this conversation a few times with other points in mind, but what really springs to mind is that I love the idea of powerlessness in video games. Too often are games in which the hero's fail it's because the hero is incompetent or simply not even around while a cutscene is present - it's baffling and definitely an antiquated remnant of film. Games are for the most part are about power fantasies, so making the player lose - or have to play by it's rules is something It seems to be done pretty rarely. It's a shame, it can be extremely shocking and effective. Half Life 2, Heavy Rain, and Rule of Rose all come to mind for instances where the player is tied up and can do absolutely nothing about it.

 

I'm also a big fan of player hard resets, that is, starting the player at square one near the end of the game, it's a very effective method for getting the "Ordeal" across for a Hero's Journey. I recently streamed Cry of Fear and brought it up when it happened in that game. Essentially near the end of the game, all the players guns, health items, ammo, and half their inventory slots are completely taken away. In return, they are given a wooden stick as their only means of defense. It's a fantastic way to make the player feel low and vulnerable again, like they were at the start of the game.

 

 

 

 

I would actually like to present a contrasting opinion to Chaosian's. I, personally, would love to see video games with more power given to the hero. The majority of games seem to follow the same progression pattern. That being; weak - stronger - stronger - stronger - strongest. Some games will keep you pretty weak throughout the game and some games will keep you pretty strong throughout the game, and like chaos mentioned some games let you progress and then pull the rug out from under your feet, taking your breath away and leaving you feeling that early game suspense once again (which I personally love). But for the most part games try to keep power development in line with character development.

 

Instead, I'd like to see more games set up like old school Resident Evil and Clocktower type games where the protagonist would usually be way in over their heads but instead of being forced to go wherever the stronger opponents and locked doors force them to go (talk about turning a game into a movie, jeez) the player is free to go through any door or any part of the map because the character they control is made crazy powerful! I imagine this would be set up kind of like a dead rising or metal gear solid, but with a more powerful protag. There would be events that trigger at certain times or after finding certain items and thousands upon thousands of variables.

 

This way, there are so many freedoms within the story and the players gameplay affects it to a wholesome degree. Also with this type of game, so many variables can be set up and the player will be none the wiser. Maybe they killed the wrong monster and activated the worst chain of events possible. Maybe they went into a room that they would have rather not went into, had they known it were there ahead of time? There are endless possibilities and the overarching story can be branched off into hundreds and hundreds of stories through the gameplay. In my opinion, this is the ultimate power a video game has over a book or a movie. Forcing a player down a single path really reduces the artist potential of a video game, because as of right now, video games are the epitome of artistic medium.

 

Does that fit the topic or did I go a little too far out? xD Also I didn't read every single comment, sorry if I basically regurgitated something that someone else said.

[+ CVincent 234]

This is why I generally suggest to people that they focus on creating the story first when developing a game if they're handling a large project. At often times I've found that gameplay will simply present itself as it becomes necessary, the flow between story and combat should be more reasonable and less likely to take the player away from the experience.

 

To raise a point from my game again, each of the eventual companions the player will meet end up having a deep backstory that can be explored through gameplay and character plot progression, the intention is to make every event have a purpose in the story and to avoid having too much filler content or grinding.

 

 

Chaosian said:

 

Here we go, finally the conversation about "how can we make game stories actually good".

 

I might return to this conversation a few times with other points in mind, but what really springs to mind is that I love the idea of powerlessness in video games. Too often are games in which the hero's fail it's because the hero is incompetent or simply not even around while a cutscene is present - it's baffling and definitely an antiquated remnant of film. Games are for the most part are about power fantasies, so making the player lose - or have to play by it's rules is something It seems to be done pretty rarely. It's a shame, it can be extremely shocking and effective. Half Life 2, Heavy Rain, and Rule of Rose all come to mind for instances where the player is tied up and can do absolutely nothing about it.

 

I'm also a big fan of player hard resets, that is, starting the player at square one near the end of the game, it's a very effective method for getting the "Ordeal" across for a Hero's Journey. I recently streamed Cry of Fear and brought it up when it happened in that game. Essentially near the end of the game, all the players guns, health items, ammo, and half their inventory slots are completely taken away. In return, they are given a wooden stick as their only means of defense. It's a fantastic way to make the player feel low and vulnerable again, like they were at the start of the game.

 

I feel that a lot of people often get confused with the thought that gameplay equates to having a good story. If there's no substance to the characters that you spend so much time with in a game then chances are the player is going to lose interest insanely fast. In my opinion, Battlefield 3 & 4 had this problem.. You never really had a chance to explore the characters as individuals, things happened at intervals of the games just to give some story or to force emotions on the player.

 

It's an interesting concept to make the player powerless at times, but it should also be handled with extreme care. If the player ends up feeling helpless and lost then that is a huge issue. This isn't to say that the player needs to have their hand held at all times, but completely stripping the player of all choice at points in a story can be tedious like you mentioned.

 

I really like the idea of hard resets are certain points of a game. While it sometimes frustrates the player if done poorly, it can add a lot of challenge that may otherwise not have been present. I'll have to look into this more to think of how to apply this idea to my project.

 

This is a pretty cool topic, lots to think about here.

[Kayzee 4,033]

You know it's kinda funny, but a good examples of this I think most people forget is parts of Final Fantasy 7, which basically did the whole Bioshock thing years before Bioshock ever existed. It seems most people forget about that. There is this one moment where you basically almost kill someone, you approach the and when you press the button to talk to the you instead take out your sword. Then you basically have to press the button again and are locked in place and can do nothing but futilely struggle a bit. Then when you press again you start to raise the sword over your head... No speech, no sound but some spooky music, but you know exactly what is going on. Also heard the final moments of Metal Gear Solid 3 was pretty powerful, because well... you had to do it yourself.

 

If Egoraptor's opinion is to be trusted, the same kind of thing happens in Megaman X, but it also works in reverse in that game too. I mean that (if you trust that vid) the whole story of Megaman X is centered around the main gameplay mechanic of growing stronger. This struck me as interesting, because it's the kind of thing that's not always done in RPGs. I mean there are plenty of RPGs where that is the case in subtle and not so subtle ways, but how many RPGs actually sit down and really try to tie grinding and leveling up into the plot? How many RPGs actually pace themselves in such a way that it even really makes sense that you are that much stronger at the end of the game then you were at the start? It feels like most RPGs seem to take place over a few days at the most, and the character's growth in the game doesn't often match the story. Usually you either start off as either a expert who is still level 1 regardless, or a total newbie who grows to become a demigod for no reason. Interesting to think about.

 

Besides all that, what I like is when a game has no real story as such, but the gameplay tells a story anyway. The best example is probably Dwarf Fortress, a game explicitly designed to, rather then create a fantasy world, create a fantasy world simulator. It's interface is clunky but it offers so much detail in it's mechanics that you can really get a sense of a story unfolding... the characters have lives and likes and dislikes and remember things that happen to them. It's hardly any wonder that epic LPs like Boatmurdered exist to take in game evens and dramatize them so well.

[Brosephus180 1]

Enviromental storytelling can be used to great effect. Subtly constructing stories from clues in the enviroment that can be interpreted different ways can make players feel smart when they put the stories together themselves. 

 

This is the type of storytelling companies like Bethesda and From software excel in.

 

This is my favorite type of storytelling in games in general because it's there whether the player cares or not. You can walk right by some of the most interesting stories in the game unless you're vigilant. It's the type of storytelling that makes the player work to figure out what's going on.

 

Here's a quote from Tim Cain on Fallout 3, which gives an example of what I mean:"I also loved the set decoration FO3. There was so much destruction, yet obviously everything had been meticulously hand-placed. So much story was told entirely through art...I found a feral ghoul in an underground shelter filled with lab supplies and lots of drugs... except for Rad-X. I imagined that a scientist found himself irradiated and desperately tried to synthesize some Rad-X to cure himself before he succumbed, but he was too slow. I did notice that whatever was left of his mind sure did seem to enjoy toilet plungers."

Edited July 23, 2015 by Brosephus180