What are the different ways that stories are told in games?

1. Stories and Games
Adrian Hon
Six to Start

2. ARGs
• Games that use multiple media - or media
in interesting ways - to tell a story
• Email, blogs, twitter, newspapers, IM, GPS,
etc
• The Beast, I Love Bees, Perplex City, World
Without Oil

3. Interactive Stories
• Traditionally a few different ways to do it:
• Story as reward
• Story as experience
• Branching narrative
• Pseudo-AI
• Make your own story
• Dungeon Master / Puppetmaster
In no particular order, not mutually exclusive, etc

4. Story as Reward
• Story generally told through cut-scenes
• e.g. Wing Commander, Command and
Conquer
• Gameplay largely unrelated to story
• Last thing you do - paint the car, write the
story
• Walkthroughs
• On rails

5. Story as Experience
• Story told through gameplay
• e.g. Half-Life, Deus Ex, Mass Effect?
• No cut-scenes - or rather, cut-scenes
integrated into game
• Story has to be written right at the start
• On rails

6. Branching Narrative
• Can make choices about the story
• Choose Your Own Adventure
• Gives illusion of choice...
• ...But involves creating ‘wasted’ content
• Sometimes not subtle and/or only at end
• Really annoying
• On rails

7. Pseudo-AI
• Can completely influence story, within
certain parameters
• Facade
• Natural language processing and AI...
• ...or HUGE amount of scripting
• Will be cool, when the Singularity comes

8. Make your own Story
• No set narrative (but maybe a setting)
• Civilization, The Sims, playground games
• Sort of cheating
• Stories can be better than anything pre-
written
• Requires great game design, not for
everyone

9. DM / PM
• Somewhat set narrative
• Dungeons and Dragons, ARGs
• Can react to player actions...
• ...but requires real-time responses
• Not replayable or scalable for personal
experience
• Sort of on rails

10. Designing Stories
• Interactive stories that aren’t games or
CYOA
• Still on rails
• Google Maps - see context, pacing of story.
Play around with medium. Different views,
overlays.
• Interaction and presentation must be
designed

11. What do you think?
• More ideas for story types?
• Which do you like?
• Which are most promising?
• www.wetellstories.co.uk
• www.mssv.net