- johnny.chang@futuregames.nu
- Stockholm, SWEDEN
This is a narrative design coursework I did during my studies at FutureGames.
In this assignment, I was tasked with designing the narrative for a simulated client with specific requests for a game idea, while also explaining my thoughts and decisions.
Half way through the assignment, there was a feedback session, were the client would request a change to the narrative. I my case, the client asked me to add some black comedy into a scenario or entire story.
Futurecorp, the team behind “The Outer Worlds” has asked me to design the narrative for their next fictional open world RPG game. They want the main character to be an outsider and should feel powerful in some ways but not invulnerable. Main gameplay should involve killing monsters in lots of ways. The game world narrative is important, and should be well integrated into the mechanical design. As much as possible, contrast the main character’s emotional conflict. The player is supposed to go on a personal journey, and the task doesn’t have to be of world shattering importance, and not too urgent, so the player is encouraged to kill monsters and do side quests as well.
I have chosen this brief, because I like slower paced games with a sense of progression and meaning, which suits my ordinary way of thinking. I believe emotional conflict is very common among people in real life. This will be a safe environment, where players get to identify themselves with an emotionally conflicted protagonist, roleplay and experiment with various behavior and see what happens to their character and the surrounding world, if they choose to go down a certain path.
I looked into Guild Wars 2, because it has some interesting systems to address the issue of grinding and accumulating tons of skills, since the client has asked for side questing and lots of ways to kill monsters.
Guild Wars 2 is an open world MMORPG game. It has a braided multi-linear story, but no side quests. Instead, it has dynamic events. When a world event is triggered, it will run its course, and then either trigger the next step in the event chain, or go dormant, until re-activated. Active player participation will affect how the event turns out.
Each weapon type, when equipped, lets the player use five weapon specific skills for the character profession. Some skills, e.g. shooting bullets or arrows, and when passing through fire or electric barriers, will charge the object with the interacting elemental properties. This is supposed to promote cooperative play experience.
This is a top-down fantasy RPG with a lot of hidden affordances, e.g. setting oil-covered floor on fire, or electrifying an enemy who is standing on wet floor. I looked into it, since the client wishes the player to be able to kill monsters in lots of ways.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a sci-fi MMORPG. The game mechanics have strong resemblance with World of Warcraft. However, it has some unique features when it comes to dialogue choices and morality system. The iconic struggle between the light and the dark side of the force in the Star Wars universe is a great inspiration when looking into how to develop emotional conflict within a character, which the client has asked for.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is a third person linear story action adventure game, with one story arc at a certain point. You play as a Jedi knight for most of the game, but close to the end of the story, the player gets to choose how to deal with an old fellow Jedi padawan from the academy. The choice made here will determine the continued path for the rest of the adventure, and thus determine the ending cinematic, which is light or dark side ending. This is an older game, so having a story arc at all was pretty unique at that time. If you weren’t interested in replaying the entire game, but just wanted to see the alternate ending, you’d better save the game before making the endgame-defining choice, and replay from there. I drew inspiration from this game because of its morality branching system resulting in two distinctly different story paths and endings.
A third person cinematic character braided multi-linear story adventure game, taking place in ancient Greece, during the competitive struggle between the city states of Athens and Sparta. At some point in the game, the player can choose to side with either Athens or Sparta. However, it is said that by siding with neither, and continue accepting quests from both sides to do damage to the other, the player will level up faster and find better equipment. For our project, this could be either encouraged or addressed by the development team. For example, by picking a faction over choosing neither, the player could be granted access to exclusive faction quests, merchants and gear, but only if the player is a member of that particular faction. However, the exploit is just a rumor among players. The game is worth to be further researched.
I looked into this game, since I intend to give the player the choice to switch faction, because players might prefer different play styles and follow certain kind of leaders and causes.
I’ve also looked at some top charts, in order to get an idea of what type of games players currently actually tend to like and play. I try to identify which elements make these games fun to play, and what kind of narrative structure they use, and then come up with a unique story, but incorporate some fun mechanics found in these games. I strive to avoid repeating the “kicks” from other games (mostly stories and level art), since these experiences won’t provide the same impact the second time they are experienced. The “hook” elements however (mostly rules, mechanics and design structure), can be incorporated, since these are the ones making the players keep coming back to play, despite being repeated over and over.
Dark and serious tone, with semi-realistic art style. These help to get players immersed in a world filled with monsters and a protagonist with emotional conflict, which the client has requested.
Large open sandbox world with a lot of things to do. There will be a braided multi-linear story, with dynamic events/side quests scattered across the world. The client has requested that the task shouldn’t be of world-shattering importance, so the player will have time to kill monsters and do side quests. I have chosen dynamic events to act as side questing, so the player doesn’t have to remember what they needed to do or where they were supposed to go, in case they get interrupted or side-tracked by yet another quest. Dynamic events trigger occasionally, and then set off a chain of events, which affect the world in some ways. This helps to make the world feel more believable and alive, but also to take off some load off the player’s mind. The player can react to these events and change its course by participating in it. The outcome of these events will not affect the main storyline, but will help to create a larger picture of what’s going on in the world. Some hostile events will have less likelihood to occur, once the player have pacified an area, e.g. increased guard patrol, thus no more monster raids… so NPCs in the area appear to be happy and relaxed.
I have chosen to have a braided multi-linear story over a linear story, since the player isn’t supposed to react so much to the world as it is, but rather the world should react to what the player decides to do, and when it is decided to be done. In this case, we have an active action protagonist. So, it is only natural for the player to be less reactive, thus retaining the freedom to choose in which way to approach a certain event.
Since the client has requested the journey in the game to be a personal one for the player, as well as emphasize on the main character’s internal struggle, I have chosen to make the game focus a lot on the protagonist in terms of background and drive, growth investment, and building up emotional attachment between the characters and the player. The aim is for the protagonist and the player to “become partners”. The protagonist will be of open type, so players have the option to create an avatar they can easily identify themselves with, and because they will be spending a lot of time with this character in the open sandbox world. The protagonist will have a morality system, and struggle between being a law abiding good or free-spirited bad person. How the player chooses to act in the game will be reflected in the surrounding dynamic environment.
The player will also be able to forge bonds with followers and companions. Morality and how the player choses to act in the world will either attract or repel certain type of characters.
There will be unlockable skills and abilities for the player to use in combat, since the client wants the player to be able to kill monsters in lots of different ways. To make work less tedious, and to avoid having the player reading through a huge list of skills and remembering what they exactly do, there will be fewer number of different skills, but many ways they can be used together or with the environment or circumstances, to create different results. The hidden affordances will make the player feel more directly involved in coming up with clever solutions, and become more active in trying to experiment and figure out ways to get the upper hand on enemies and game system, making them feel good about themselves if they manage to figure things out on their own.
The game takes place in the future, on the human colonized planet of Pax. I chose to have the game take place in the future, because it allows for the story to take place in a world stemming directly from the one we live in today, which gives the sense that it could matter for us to pay attention to, and at the same time have the monsters the client asked for. Having the protagonist arrive at a foreign planet also immediately make the player an outsider, saving some need for explanation.
Since the client have asked for fiction, it will be heavily integrated into the futuristic setting.
I’ve chosen the name “Pax” (Latin word for “peace”) for the planet, because it reflects humankind’s hopes, intentions and plans for the colony, but that it didn’t go quite as planned… The human presence on planet Pax is an irony of mankind’s vast ambitions, which the player has the chance to rectify.
The client has asked for fictional RPG.
As mentioned in one of the narrative pillars, the tone will be dark and serious, to support the presence of numerous monsters and the protagonist’s emotional struggle. The colony the player arrives at has an organized administrative center, but the rest of the colony is pretty chaotic, and the outskirts are overrun by monsters. The colony is a gritty place, but if the player chooses to do something about it and help, the environment will start to look nicer and cheerful.
The starting area will feel familiar to what we perceive as a believable future, but as the player venture further out, the world will start to mix things up a bit and introduce some mystic elements and surprises.
The player can assist the ruling establishment or go against it. Being law abiding and helpful is usually considered as being good, while going against it and being selfish is considered being bad. This will play directly into the morality system. However, even the law must make tough choices sometimes.
The environment will often be hostile towards the player. However, player’s own actions and morality shifting will mainly be what decides how the environment will perceive the protagonist. The player is the one who in the end chooses who to be in conflict with.
One of the most important conflict to solve is the struggle within. The protagonist needs to come to terms with him/herself whether to be naughty or nice.
There will be a big boss fight at the end of the story. The possible outcomes will be affected by the collective choices made by the player along the way. This will show the conclusion of the personal journey, and what kind of personality and characteristics the player has finally chosen to embrace.
The entire story takes place in the world of planet Pax, although not the entire planet will be accessible.
The protagonist has spent some years on a prison space station, convicted for a questionable crime. The protagonist has become used to being told he/she is a bad person, and needs to be re-educated. This is a big part of the protagonist’s emotional struggle in the beginning. However, before going to prison, the protagonist served in the military (civil or martial role). This explains why the protagonist, despite the internal conflict, feels quite powerful.
The main villain of the story is a militaristic rebel leader, called Zor, who wants the colony to break out from Earth control and become an independent planet. Depending on how the player have chosen during the story checkpoints, the main villain could also instead be the Earth-appointed governor Selina. Or you’ll take on them both…
Protagonist, governor Selina, and rebel leader Zor.
Since the protagonist is new to this world, he/she will be somewhat careful and feel a bit insecure in the beginning and try to fit into the society. But as the protagonist grows and gain confidence, the world will start to bend to the protagonist instead.
The protagonist wants to discover the true inner self. Spending a majority of the life serving the authority, carrying out other people’s orders, and then getting punished and end up at rock bottom, has made the protagonist question the meaning of life. Now he/she has the chance to start over with a clean slate on planet Pax.
The protagonist first starts off by finding a way to get by. As new opportunities present themselves, the protagonist find him/herself dragged into the current conflict between Earth-loyal Pax government and rebel forces. Since the protagonist have his/her own problems, the protagonist first tries to not get involved. However, getting involved in some way shows to be a risky but well-worth it shortcut, rather than grinding low-paying errands. Being adventurous also helps the protagonist to grow faster and find his/her true place in the world.
I made these decisions, in order to bring out the protagonist’s inner struggle, and also because it’s relatable for many people, being competent and working hard for very little or no credit, and feeling they are meant for something else, feeling misplaced, because they followed the social norms and didn’t bother to try things out and invest more effort on their true talents.
A free-spirited and pragmatic veteran fighter, with a personal vendetta against the governor. Tall, strong and charismatic, in his early 50’s. Does not wish to be bound by ineffective and over-controlling bureaucratic Earth style government. He’s ruthless against his enemies, but takes good care of his men. Zor wants the rebellion to get organized, mobilize a guerilla army and overthrow the government. His ulterior motive is to take revenge on a handful of corrupt officials.
Zor’s rebellion is the main drive for the player to set out and venture beyond the colony. They are the force which poses the greatest threat against the colony and makes them feel unsafe.
Intelligent, patient and disciplined administrator in her late 40’s who does things by the book. Wants to pacify the rebellion once and for all, so Earth can carry on expanding the colony on Pax. Her main drive is to make her superiors back on Earth proud. She sees Pax as an opportunity to prove herself, and a steppingstone to advance in her career.
Governor Selina intends to hire talented people to gather intelligence about her enemies, then flush out the rebel cells one by one, and ultimately bring rebel leader Zor to final justice.
The protagonist meets the governor early in the game. She is easier for people to understand, because she has much resemblance with a modern-day politician, so the player can focus on learning about other aspects of the game.
There will be a “mission giver” character early in in the game, who acts as the player’s handler within the colony. The side character’s main purpose is to introduce the player to the game mechanics, lore and point the player in the right direction, so the player knows what to do. There will also be a “beginner companion” character, who will explain some things about the world to the player.
There will be two similar characters on the rebel side. These character’s main purpose is to give the player inside information and understanding of their organization, and to create player empathy for their cause.
With the help of handler characters, the player will have some aspects of the game explained to them by someone with more experience, rather than having to figure things out, read text, or talk to themselves.
Zor and Selina are arc enemies, because they want different things for the same territory, and their ideologies do not mix well. One of the handlers, or both… will at some point try to betray the leader. This could add some twist to the story.
Protagonist arrives at planet Pax. There is still order and structure inside the core colony, but they constantly have to deal with monsters in the outskirts and bandit gangs. The protagonist has had a traumatic experience by spending time in space prison. The once proud protagonist now seeks to start from scratch and regain self-respect.
The colony is attacked by rebels.
The protagonist tries not to get involved. However, the rebels attempt yet another assault, this time on the governor herself. The protagonist reacts instinctively and heroically saves some officials and kills some rebels. The governor learns about this and summons the protagonist and offers the job to track down rebel cells.
The protagonist gets access to standard issue equipment. But as the player tries to track down the rebels, they show to be more resourceful than initially expected.
The new enemies are no longer only mere bandits and odd-looking outcasts. They are a diverse group of people, mutants and cybernetically enhanced organisms with supernatural abilities. Normal weapons are barely effective against them, since they have been developing ways to counter the weapons used against them.
Alternately, the protagonist turns against the government, and now must struggle against the law instead. Government facilities become off limit to the protagonist, but will instead gain exclusive access to rebel arsenal.
The protagonist learns new ways to deal with the situation. He/she gain new abilities and find new weapons and gear which are more effective against the enemies.
The protagonist now understands who he/she is supposed to be and what needs to be done. There is no turning back.
The initial plan provided by Zor or Selina is not enough. The enemy has a secret weapon up in their sleeves. And they now intend to use it, in a desperate move to turn the tide. What follows is the end battle against Zor or Selina. Before dying, the boss reveals a truth about the other leader, which could change how the player perceives the world.
The protagonist then has two choices. Either finish off the remnants of the enemy forces, or march against the leader he/she just fought for.
If the protagonist choses to finish off the enemy remnants, the leader who the protagonist serves becomes the victor.
If the protagonist choses to march against Selina, and wins, the protagonist gets cleared off for his/her previous crimes, gets a formal apology, and returns home, at last finding peace with him/herself.
If the protagonist chose to march against Zor, and wins, the protagonist proclaims himself Emperor of Pax.
The new normal is shown with a cutscene. It triggers immediately after finishing off the enemy remnant or the remaining leader. By showing different endings, the player will hopefully feel that the actions and choices made in the game mattered.
The game starts in space, with part of planet Pax on the lower part of the screen. A transport shuttle enters the camera view from behind on the left side of the screen and moves at normal traveling speed towards the planet surface.
The camera cuts to surface view and sees the transport ship landing at the spaceport. When grounded, the cargo ramp opens, and the protagonist steps out. He/she stops for a short while and looks around.
A female character walks forward to greet the protagonist. She has been instructed to lead the protagonist to the colonial registration office. She will provide the player with some information about the game during three occasions. First during the greeting, which will explain where you are. Second, on the way to the registration office, which will explain the local environment and lore. And third, before parting at the office, which will explain what the player is supposed to do next.
At the registration office, the player gets to answer or fill out some questions, which will give the player some idea of the protagonist’s backstory. Some of the answers will decide how the player’s personal story will branch further down the path.
Distance – Variation between medium-long shots, medium shots and medium close-ups. Medium-long shots help the player to get some onboarding orientation of the relationship between the character and the new location, as well as the character’s role and social status. Medium shots give an overview of which characters are interacting with each other, while retaining the possibility to get an idea of the character’s social statuses and roles, and is also an easy way to make a side-by-side comparison if they are in the same shot. Medium close-ups focus more on the individual characters and some of their emotions. There will be an establishing shot in the very beginning, when the transport ship flies towards the planet in space, and then when it’s about to land in the colony’s spaceport, followed by a long shot as the protagonist exits the ship, then a medium close-up when the protagonist stops for a short while and looks in different directions.
Angle – Low angle when the protagonist exits the ship, to indicate that this is someone important the player needs to pay very close attention to, but then the camera shifts to straight-on-angle when talking to the welcoming character, because neither are in a position of power, so they’re pretty much equals, and will therefore have a fairly relaxed situation. It also reduces the player’s expectation to immediately possess a powerful and intimidating avatar, and make them feel more relatable and comfortable with the protagonist, but still give a hint of the potential, from previous camera shot angle.
Movement – Most games have the characters pretty much fixed at certain positions during cutscenes. There’s probably a good reason to it, but I would like to try having the characters walk and move while talking to each other at one point in the story, and have the camera track the characters. In this case, it could be while walking from the spaceport to the registration office, and the welcoming character explains some things about the location and the colony’s current situation. The player could already here start to make some dialogue choices with timer, in order to keep the player engaged and feel in control of the character’s actions. The motion is supposed to give the impression of the player transitioning from one scene to another. The dialogue choice needs to happen early after beginning the motion, since the player will most likely react to it by leaning back and expect to just watch the sequence… or press the ESC button to skip it entirely. I believe this feature should only occur once or twice during a story playthrough, because it could feel impressive experiencing it occasionally, but if used repeatedly, it could turn annoying instead. Other cutscenes should only be used to enhance the play experience, where the player him- or herself cannot achieve the same level of satisfaction by being in control.
Side characters in the foreground, protagonist in the mid ground, and extras in the background.
The protagonist recently got out from space prison, thus was provided with simple and casual futuristic clothing. The side character who greets the protagonist has formal futuristic work clothing, but yet simple, to indicate that the protagonist is of no special importance, but the side character has to be there to greet you, because it’s her job to do so.
The protagonist seems somewhat tired, yet kind of curious, excited and humble, same as arriving at a modern-day airport in a foreign country. The welcoming character is professional and friendly towards the player. She has no idea where the protagonist has been. After arriving at the registration office, she gives the player some final instructions on how to proceed in the game, then bid the player farewell and leaves.
Some techniques will be used to draw the player’s eyes to what is considered more important to pay attention to. For example, using the rules of thirds, positioning focus points as close as possible to these lines or their intersections; give important areas or objects more lighting, contrast, details, or saturation; and arranging some guiding lines to point at the focus points.
Since the protagonist has just come out of prison, we want to convey a feeling of hope and optimism, so the introductory scenes will mostly take place in well-lit environment.
This introduction is mostly focused on pillar 2, because it tells the player that their main character will play a prominent part in the game.
The player is on the road to a personal quest, when some panicking civilian runs by in opposite direction. One of them looks at you while running by, and screams, “Run, you fool!” The background music is somewhat intensified, and you can see smoke rising to the sky somewhere down the road. You could choose to do as the compassionate civilian says, or you could go and check out that is going on further ahead. When you arrive, you can see colonial guards defending the settlement against monsters. It seems as if the guards are losing the battle. As you’re standing idle in the settlement, a guard could say: A) “Scram, kid! Let the professionals handle this!” (if your character is weak), or B) “Don’t just stand there big guy, make yourself useful for once!” (if your character is strong). The action filled background music is now quite intense.
If the player chooses to not intervene, the guards might lose, and civilians will not dare to return to the settlement. The monsters who know no fear will continue to raid along the path. However, the closest military outpost will mobilize some guards and send them out to counter these monsters and try to retake the settlements. Damaged settlements will have to be restored and re-populated after they are re-possessed.
The player could also choose to help out and assist the government in defending the settlement. There’re some fuel tanks in the settlement which the player could destroy, and kill the monsters more efficiently. But by doing so, a part of the nearby buildings will become damaged, and will take more time to rebuild. There’s also a water tank, which the player could destroy and spill out the water on the floor. If the player has access to electric weapons, he could take out the monsters with less structural damage. This adds more ways to fight battles, and encourages the player to pay attention to their surroundings. Finishing off an enemy will trigger a death animation, VFX and SFX appropriate to that particular elemental damage causing it.
In this dynamic event, after helping the settlement out, the player will gain reputation in favor towards the colonial government, as well as good karma for being compassionate. The next step in the event chain will be for a colonial strike team to head out and investigate the source of the monster attack. The player could tag along…
This playthrough covers some parts of dynamic world event and flexible combat system, as well as how character morality can be altered (pillars 1, 2 & 3). Some of the mentioned dialogues have elements of the client’s feedback request for black comedy. They do not change the gameplay, but they add some twists and welcoming spice to the otherwise dark and serious tone.
I felt it was important to first write the document in a way so the client and development team members could get as clear and logically coherent vision of the narrative idea as possible. I aimed to write down enough content to satisfy the client’s requests, for narrative components to work in synergy, and for the game world as a whole to make sense from start to finish, but not so much as to leave no more space for new input and ideas, such as adding characters, specific story nodes, dynamic events or even swapping out an entire faction and its characters but preserve its structure. Because, if the game story feels coherent and makes sense for the client and development team, they will be less likely to try to break the design in its very foundation, and will hopefully instead be more likely to add constructive suggestions to it instead. However, if they do try to change it at its base, which could lead to a lot of work hours going lost, it will be easier to discuss the matter, and come to an agreeable conclusion. Sometimes a great idea from someone else might have been born from the one you created… and make the game you are creating even better.
A consideration I still have, is to give the monsters in the world a more prominent role and a deeper meaning to why they exist on this planet, and somehow connect them to both factions. Otherwise, they could just act as a “casual enemy” buffer.
The client liked the initial idea very much. However, they wanted me to add some black comedy into a scenario or entire story.
I figured the client had a good point, because the original plot was pretty serious with a dark tone. Adding some comical twists could provide some welcoming flavor to the game. To address this, I looked a bit into The Witcher series and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The Witcher had some insulting but funny comments being thrown at one another between conflicting characters. In Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, when a hostile man demands to get his eye back, the protagonist puts the eye inside a goat’s behind. And as the goat runs away, the protagonist tells the man to go and fetch the eye, if he wants it back.
The above-mentioned examples are creative things people in the real world might be able to come up with and would like to say and do to some people they’re not particularly fond of, but most likely not be able to follow through in order to avoid further conflict. Black comedy in the game would add something people like to do to act out their emotions… and get away with it! It would fit best as dialogue options, especially when it affects character morality, because the player would then need to weigh holding back emotions against acting them out.
At first, the information from the lectures were overwhelming and somewhat hard to sort out, but after making notes and revisiting the topics, everything started to make more sense. I believe coming up with good stories can be difficult, but if the writer has experienced a lot in real life, and has plenty to draw personal memory and inspiration from, coming up with ideas will become easier, while being able to relate made-up things to real life situations will help to keep them believable and relevant for the audience.
I think narrative design might be the most difficult to learn by just doing, because the audience playing the game will immediately feel something is off with the narrative, but without being able to explain why, and it’s also difficult for an untrained eye itself to pinpoint exactly how to improve it, because there’s so many factors to consider. That is why I believe the theoretical knowledge of narrative design, which is practically a summary of centuries of trial and error doing storytelling, is invaluable! However, it is also important to practice regularly, in order to get good at it. Getting feedback and challenges from clients and audience is also a great way to self-reflect and eventually become flexible and adaptable when designing narrative.
It took me a lot longer than I expected, but I believe speed comes with increased confidence and less need to think about the things you do. So more practical experience should do the trick! But going out and experiencing the world is equally as important. I believe being active and collect personal world experiences will help with getting inspirational sources, while keep practice writing stories will increase narrative design skills and working speed.
© 2020, Johnny Chang. All Rights Reserved.