Simple But Good Story

Definition of Narrative
- A Minimalist Definition of Narrative:
Two states and a transition or movement between the two states

Components of Narrative:
- Story:
Chronological order of the events themselves.
- Text (Representation):
Visual or Verbal Representation of the story.
- Narration:
The Act of Communication – e.g. telling or writing.

Discourse vs. Story:
Narratives can be split into:
- Discourse (the telling of the story) //Written or spoken communication or debate.
- Story (the story told)

Types of Stories in Games
- Linear Stories
- Branching Stories
- Open-ended Stories
- Emergent Stories
- Thematic Stories


Story-telling Methods

• Cutscenes and Cinematics:
• movies that set up or continue the narrative of the game that occur outside the game's engine
• In-Game Events:
• events triggered when the players does something within the game
• do not remove control from player
• Dialogue:
• often spoken by the Avatar or the NPCs
• Can be interactive or static, depending on whether the player is given the option to respond
• Text:
• contained in in-game descriptive messages, notes, books, etc. // e.g. left for dead wall graffiti

Story vs. Game Considerations
- Interactivity vs. Narrative
- Dramatic Tension vs. Gameplay Tension
- Embedded Narrative vs. Emergent Narrative


Narratology vs. Ludology
- Narratology is based on using the study of games as literature.
- Ludology is defined as “the discipline that studies games and play activity”



Elements Of Good Story
A minimally acceptable story must be credible, coherent and Dramatically meaningful

• Credible
• People can believe the story (even if it is a suspension of disbelief)
• Must offer characters that the audience can sympathize with, identify with or recognize as convincing
• Coherent
• Events must not be irrelevant or arbitrary, but must harmonize to a pleasing whole
• even if some events are not related by cause and effect, all events still have to belong to the story
• Dramatically Meaningful
• The story's events have to involve something, or someone, the audience cares about
• when a game tells a story, the dramatically meaningful events may be explicitly planned by the writer, or they may arise naturally out of the process of playing

Interactivity

• interactive
• reciprocally active
• acting upon influencing each other
• allowing a two-way flow of information between a device and a user, responding to the user's input
• designed interaction has an internal structure and a context that assigns meaning to the actions taken 
• a designed interactive context presents participant with choices 

Interactivity VS Narrative

• playing games is an active process, but watching a narrative is a passive one, the  payer notice the difference between them
• players play games in order to act - any game that includes narrative elements must find an appropriate balance between the player's desire to act and the designer's need to narrate
• Need to balance between linear storytelling and interactive gameplay
• too linear: player doesn't feel that their decision have any impact
• too non-linear: directionless, lack of purpose, no idea what to do next
• the amount of interactivity determines how much the player feels in control

Dramatic Tension VS GamePlay Tension

• Dramatic Tension
• the sense that something important is at stake coupled with a desire to know what happen next
• the essence of storytelling in ANY medium
• dramatic tension depends on the reader's identification with a character
• GamePlay Tension
• arises from the player's desire to overcome a challenge and uncertainty about whether he will succeed or fail
• in multiplayer games, the player's uncertainty about what the opponents will do next also creates gameplay tension
• gameplay tention does not require any characters, e.g. a game of darts

Embedded VS Emergent Narrative

• Embedded Narrative
• Players can experience a game narrative as a crafted story interactively told
• pre-generated narrative content that exists prior to a player's interaction with the game
• Designed to provide motivation for the events and actions of the game, players experience embedded narrative as a story context
• tend to resemble the kind of narrative experience that linear media provide
• e.g. 'pre-scripted' events, cinematics, cutscenes, etc 
• Emergent Narrative 
• arises from the set of rules governing interaction with the game system
• arise during play from the complex system of the game, often in unexpected ways
• most momement-to-momoment narrative play in a game is emergent, as player choice leads to unpredictable narrative experience

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game with story: Pokemon,  angry bird, jelly monster

ANGRY BIRD 

• able to sympathize with the main characters [family and losing unborn child]
• abstract meaning in interaction //Designed to provide motivation for the events and actions of the game, players experience embedded narrative as a story context
• room for imagination
• players start the game with a introduction of the angry bird egg being stolen as the players accomplish each world it unlocks another world level and thus reveal more of the story
• with little words use, individual players would most probably derive the progress of story differently [the in between]
• birds are use as sacrifice in order to get their eggs back and seek revenge on the pigs
• imagining the amount of hatred the birds is willing to sacrifice so much of their colony just to seek revenge - the pigs must have done something really wrong and unforgivable 

• the in game structured as though the angry birds are attacking where the pigs are staying
• Credible: 
• very believable for a pig [known for greedy for food and lazy] to be stealing for food
• for the birds it's their children being taken
• Coherent:
• after the kidnap, the players playing through is actually invading into the pigs 'village'
• the gameplay is about what the birds is doing in order to achieve the eggs back
• Dramatically Meaningful:
• this game's story is base on being in the shoe of the birds
• e.g. sympathizing of what we would do when one of our kins or children is kidnap
• Story is linear
• pass each world to get a step closer to getting the eggs back
• else, eggs remain stolen
• In the game, i felt i'm helping the birds a step closer to the pig king 
• as I'm controlling how the birds attack the pigs  
• this game basically gave a in between narration but the in between of the narration depends on the player interaction within the game // pre-generated narrative content that exists prior to a player's interaction with the game [Embedded Narrative]
• As the game progresses, one by one the enemy gets injured in the scene which is relative to what player does within the in between game levels