Introduction to Game
Narrative
Narrative is the method by which the
story materials are communicated to
the audience. Ultimately, narrative
comes down to one simple question:
What happens? That is the heart of
game narrative—what happens in the
game? What story do the players
create through their actions?
Game Writing
Good writing is invisible. Bad writing draws
attention to itself and instantly destroys the
players sense of immersion.
Every game uses words somewhere. The
player might see them as text on a screen or
as spoken dialogue. The writing can be
confined to cutscenes between levels, or it
can be an integral part of the gameplay.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
 Story - The story is what happens, the
flow of the game that can be separated
from the game mechanics and retold as a
narrative.
 Character - Characters are the actors (or
in the case of player characters, avatars)
who exist in the game world and perform
the in-game actions.
Setting
The setting defines the world that the
action of the game takes place in,
including character races, languages,
laws of physics and metaphysics (do you
have spells, blasters, or both?), and pretty
much everything else necessary to define
the game world.
Backstory
 Backstory is the history leading up to the events of
the game, the explanation of what has produced
the situation that will be played through. Related
to setting, it can be defined as “who did what to
whom, and what does the player have to do in
order to fix it?” None of these are things that the
player will interact with directly in the game, but
they frame the game’s narrative and action, giving
the player the information he needs to immerse
himself in the fiction and move forward with the
action.
Cut Scenes
Cut scenes refer to in-game movies—sections of
noninteractive footage that the player watches.
Some are prerendered for a high level of visual
polish, whereas others are produced with the ingame engine to provide visual continuity. Either
way, cut scenes refer to events or conversations
that the player sits back and watches with
(usually) no interaction. When many cut scenes
are collected together, the result is a noninteractive
sequence known as a cinematic. Game
introductory sequences are generally cinematics
Scripted Events
A scripted event is a part of the game where
control of some aspect is taken away from
the player. A single scripted event can be as
simple as quickly pulling the camera angle
around to show a looming surveillance
camera (also known as a camera case) or as
complicated as setting up a sequence of
events involving multiple NPCs to illustrate
a game point.
In-Game Artifacts
In-game artifacts are objects in the game
world that serve to advance the narrative.
They can roughly be defined as narrative
that the character, not the player, finds.
Frequently, in-game artifacts take the form
of documents of one sort or another—
diaries, letters, books, and the like. By
reading these, the player gains valuable
information about what’s going on and the
world the player’s moving through.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF
GAME NARRATIVE?
On the most basic level, narrative strings
together the events of the game, providing a
framework and what can alternately be
called a justification, a reason, or an excuse
for the gameplay encounters.
 Immersion
 Reward
 Identification
Immersion
Immersion refers to the state of mind where
a person is completely absorbed in what
they are doing. It has been related to the
psychological state of “flow”
[Csikszentmihalyi91] and also to the notion
of suspension of disbelief. The important
thing is, when players are immersed in a
game, the real world ceases to exist, and the
game world becomes their reality.
Reward
Narrative can also serve as a reward to the
player. The narrative events can be revealed
gradually, delivered as rewards for
achieving in-game goals. When this has
been done frequently enough inside the
same game, the player will expect to receive
another chunk of narrative after winning a
boss fight or overcoming a particularly
tough challenge.
Identification
The third major role that narrative serves is that of
identification. It lays everything out for the player,
telling him what’s what, who’s who, and what the
state of the world around him is. By doing so, it
gives the players context for their actions, and this
in turn provides justification for game actions.
The narrative provides identification in another
sense as well, namely the sense of kinship and
desire to become the central character. Players are
invited to identify directly with a game
protagonist.
WHAT MAKES GAME
WRITING UNIQUE?
Game writing has very real expectations,
limitations, and codes that are unique to the
medium. Screenplays, novels, and short stories all
present a single path through the material; all are
media that are received passively by the reader.
Videogames, on the other hand, are all about player
choice and action. This is extremely rare in other
media. In a videogame, the narrative experience
must be completely defined in advance. This
means a videogame script must be both flexible
enough to cover the player’s likely actions and
sufficiently constrained to be less than infinite in
scope.
Game Writing: Narrative Skills
for Videogames
Games are not the writers’ story; they are
the players’ stories. Writers are producing
something for the players to inhabit and call
their own, which is sometimes difficult to
implement. The temptation is always there
to take the narrative by the horns and ride it
in the direction the writer thinks it should
go. The expectation in game writing is that
the player will firstly be the center of the
experience and secondly have a good time.
Game Writing: Narrative Skills
for Videogames (Continued)
With all these points in mind—the
similarities and differences from other
media, the unique requirements of a
narrative that is both flexible and
constrained, and the central role of the
player—the pragmatics of game writing are
that it often involves writing many
consecutive variations on the same theme.
WHAT ARE THE BASICS OF
GAME WRITING?
 Ensuring that the writing relates to the gameplay
 Properly using the narrative tools the game provides
 Keeping Gameplay in the Writing
When writing for games, it’s absolutely essential that
the gameplay and the writing remain closely tied to
one another. What is important, then, is continually
asking: “how does this support the game?” Does it
reward the player, advance the action, provide depth
without slowing the pace or otherwise move the
player forward?
Using the Tools the
Game Provides
Different game types support different
techniques for advancing the narrative.
Dialogue with NPCs, in-game artifact texts,
character advancement, and cut scenes, just
to name a few. The narrative interacts with
the central thrust of the game, taking its
shape from and reinforcing the game.
WHAT ARE THE TASKS
INVOLVED?
There is no single thing that can be
described as game writing. A videogame,
after all, is a wildly complex combination of
code, art, sound, and myriad other elements,
all of which combine to make a game. As
such, writing is used in plenty of ways to
help produce the game, in tasks ranging
from the big-picture creative to detailed and
technical.
Story
The most glamorous part of game writing is
creating the story. Coming up with what
happens is what many people view as the
core of the writers’ art and task, and in
many cases, story gets inextricably
intertwined with core design.
Dialogue
Dialogue is what’s said in the game.
Superficially similar to a film script,
dialogue lists the lines that are played ingame. These are generally created in
conjunction with the game designer, who
outlines what dialogue is needed, and the
sound engineer, who establishes the
technical constraints.
Supporting Texts
The game writer’s task can extend outside
of the game itself. World bibles, character
descriptions, teaser fiction, and other similar
texts are all potentially important. They’re
useful as reference to the team .
Cut Scenes and
Scripted Events
The scripts for cut scenes and scripted
events need to be created by writers in
conjunction with the rest of the team.
Contrary to popular belief, there are limits
to what can be created with CGI, and those
limits are frequently found in the schedule
and the budget.
CREATING STORY
The act of story creation is the most
important creative task game writers face,
as the story simultaneously makes up the
bulk of the narrative and arranges all the
game elements. The story describes what
happens, when it happens, what order it
happens in, and what results. The story,
then, must be created with more than its
artistic component in mind. It also needs to
serve as a framework for gameplay to be
hung upon, and a road map to reward and
catharsis. No game writer can afford to lose
sight of this.
Story Arc
The story arc is essentially the curve described by
the intensity of the action. In story terms, the
action rises, growing more and more intense, until
the climax, at which point it starts to drop off and
the reader gets rewarded with the denouement. In
gaming, the challenges, fights, and puzzles get
more and more intense until the climax, which is
often rendered as a boss fight. After this, the
player is rewarded with denouement and, possibly,
power ups. Crafting the story arc maps the
narrative to the design and the level of challenge
to the player contained within.
Pacing
Pacing is the art of spreading out the action
to appropriate moments, saving it for when
the player is ready, and pulling back when
the player is likely to have had enough.
In story terms, this means introducing
enemies or obstacles when the player is
ready for them and not before, and
providing revelations and rewards sufficient
to keep the player encouraged.
Climax
The climax is the big showdown. In general terms,
everything in the game story needs to lead to this
moment, when the player must use everything he
has learned through the course of the game in
order to triumph. Often, a game story climax
offers few opportunities for actual writing. The
player is too busy playing. The trick can be letting
the player make the final leap to what must
happen, sliding effortlessly into the desired
outcome and borne forward on the story’s
momentum.