Mini Book I: Uncovered by B_Zedan
Most stories in games are written as a 'string of pearls.' The main structure of the story is fairly linear, but each pearl allows the player to solve puzzles, explore, and generally interact before moving on to the next chunk of the story. There are sometimes branches, but they often come back to the same junction, or aren't overly complex if they stay diverged. After all, as pointed out in this fun video about storytelling in games, designers would have an awful lot of content to create for a story with many different paths!
Despite this common form of narrative, I think games have found some interesting ways to tell their stories that might not be the same in printed word or on film. For example, I've been playing Bioshock with my husband and really enjoy its storytelling mechanisms. The game itself is fairly linear, but the insight into the world of Rapture is revealed slowly through recorded audio diaries scattered throughout. The voice acting is really well done, and getting just small tidbits of how the city fell from the mouths everyday residents is fascinating. Without cut scenes, the emotional accounts of events that have already happened or are currently happening at the time of recording allow you to use your imagination. I quickly found myself getting excited every time I saw a tape recorder lying around, ready for the taking.
As game design progresses, I think we'll start to see new twists on storytelling. (I want to say "just like we saw in film" but since I don't really know the history, I can't know if this is the case - perhaps some film buffs can enlighten me.) One of the ideas I had was a take on the "see the ending first" technique movies and TV shows often use. You would begin playing the game and making choices until suddenly you realize you just played the end. The traditional "x years earlier..." would appear on screen, and you'd start playing from the beginning. The twist would be, however, that how you played at the end would very blatantly affect how the rest of the game progresses. As a player you'd be thinking, "Oh no! Why did I do that?!" but feel helpless to change it. I haven't decided what sort of scenario this would fit well with, but I feel like it could explore some of the darker aspects of human nature since you aren't just watching how a particular event ends up happening - you see how your own actions end up being taken.
Have you seen any unusual narratives in games? Have any interesting ideas? I'd love to heard about them, so please do leave a comment!
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