Story in games re-evaluated

Greg Costikyan has already said more enlightening things about story and games than I could ever hope to.
http://www.costik.com/gamnstry.html

But I'll share my thoughts anyhow.  My thoughts on the matter have changed over the years.  When I was a teenager I immediately noticed a difference between games that didn't have stories and games that did - with an endless just-gets-harder game like Defender, you get bored at some arbitrary point and quit playing.  With a game that had even a rudimentary story, say a game like Karateka, the stop-playing point came at the conclusion of the story.  And that was just more satisfying than quitting a game because I was bored or frustrated.  The conclusion?  Games should have stories, to motivate the player to keep playing.  When playing games I rarely gave a crap about my 'score' - I just wanted to get to the next level or get to the end.  (No leaderboard servers with your friends' list highlighted in the 1980s...)

But that was the problem, right?  You get to the end of the story and you're done for a different reason.  The ideal, it seemed to me, would be a game that could generate infinite stories.  I imagined something like *Fable* was supposed to be, the *Fable* that never was, a rich interactive world where story would just happen because of the interactions of intelligent characters.  I didn't stop to think that we already have that, and it's called "life", and those storytelling moments, those moments that are worth retelling, they are oh so very rare.

I've spent a fair amount of time trying to prototype this imaginary game, and what I ended up with was like a fantasy version of *Space Rangers 2: Attack of the Dominators*, except with relationships.  And whenever I showed it to someone I couldn't help but notice that they were underwhelmed.  The final nail in the coffin was discovering *Space Rangers 2*, which was like seeing my own game with fresh eyes and realizing it just wasn't fun.

My prototype wasn't much of a storytelling engine either, for that matter. 

So I said to myself, "Forget story, let's just turn this prototype into a fun game."  And suddenly, boom.  There it is.  Something fun.  (For me, anyway.) 

So let's call that Exhibit A.

Something I asked myself recently was, "What games have stories that were so compelling I'd want to read the novelization or just watch all the story-moments (cutscenes etc) back to back without actually playing it?"

I can't think of any.  The best I can come up with is there are a handful of games-with-stories which would be impossible to tell as just stories - Bioshock, for one.  Portal.  Soul Reaver, although Soul Reaver had the arrogance to end halfway through with an Empire Strikes Back ending as if it was a sure thing I'd come back to it for the sequel.  I did, eventually, I think, but by that time I had long since stopped caring so I never did make it to the end of the story.

Let's call that Exhibit B.

Lately I've been playing D&D with guys who are firmly in the gamist wedge of the narrativist-gamist-simulationist pie.  I used to think roleplaying games were for...well, roleplaying.  And storytelling.  And although I had noticed that the times I used roleplaying as an outlet for my frustrated writer's syndrome were never as satisfying as those times when I was playing some off-the-shelf module or a generic dungeon crawl, I hadn't yet drawn the conclusion that storytelling games just aren't that enjoyable for me.  It wasn't until, now, playing with these guys that I realize truly that I'm having more fun moving around the miniatures, rolling dice, and making tactical choices than I ever had playacting a barbarian with a hokey irish accent or playing Universalis.  The real eye-opener was when we took a break from D&D to play various board games like Descent and Hero's Quest - I used to think that these sorts of games, these RPG's without the roleplaying, got it all wrong, "That's not what RPG's are supposed to be about," and here I am discovering that they can actually be more fun to play than D&D on a slow night.

So that's Exhibit C.

When playing almost any game these days I have "story filters" active.  "Just tell me where to go and who to kill and what object to retrieve."  Some games make it particularly easy by highlighting quest words in the dialog trees.  Others let you button-mash through the dialog trees and it's ok because they'll pop a quest on your quest list and an arrow for where to go on your HUD.  And you might say, "Sure, but that's because most games have bad stories."  But I'm also talking about some critically acclaimed games where the stories were allegedly excellent.

Exhibit D.

So, over the last 20 years or so I've gone from "games are a fantastic new storytelling medium" to "Stories just aren't fun.  If you must have story in your game, please keep it to a minimum, and ideally something like *Ico* where you don't even need any dialog to get it across."

What really motivates me to get to the conclusions of these games with stories?  Now I think it has very little to do with wanting to find out how the story ends, but rather it's coincidental - it's partly the completionist tendency to want to color in the box completely, clear the pacman maze - and partly because that's when you get to the end of the game's content.  The holy grail for me now wouldn't be the game that can create infinite story - but a game that could procedurally generate infinite interesting content. 

Comments

[greggman]

I'm having a hard time imagining a game that could generate infinite content AND be interesting.

I guess it's possible but it seems like at that point you'd have invented true artifical intelligence because in order to be infinitely interesting you'd basically need some virtual author that can continue to come up with unique interesting ideas.

Otherwise, for some small subset you're just going to run out of interesting stuff. It will just be random combinations out of preset choices.

[PK]

Ad Exhibit B: And what about a adventure games? For example Indiana Jones series, well made movies and games too. (I just wish that new Indiana Jones movie has been made with story from Indiana Jones 4:And the fate of Atlantis and Lucas shouldn't be bothered..)
Old adventures are nothing more than story and I am sure great books/movies could be made from them.

[Nat]

Clint Hocking's Far Cry 2 is looking promising. Based on some GDC presentations I gathered that a target, location, objective, and probably a few more things are selected out of the buckets based on how you've been playing to generate your next mission. Plus, the character you play never talks. With a 50 square kilometer map and even if it had a handful of targets, the possibilities sound as infinite as one would realistically replay the game. I think it also does the Grand Theft Auto gang factions thing which I can't understand why Rockstar hasn't revisited. So much potential there.

[Jeffool]

Saw a wonderful article recently that this brings to mind. If every facet of Oblivion had just small degrees of variance by design, it'd be near perfect. And if those degrees of variance, thousands of them in an entire game world, were shaped by the player? Then it would be perfect.

[Pat O'Hara]

Let's turn this question around and ask why do we like stories? We like them because they have unexpected elements, but also because they have expected plots. A story that just jumps around randomly but surprises at every turn is not much fun. A story that works in an obvious way from start to finish is also not much fun. How does that apply to gaming?
The reason defender is ultimately boring is because there is only so much to learn. Once you have discovered every thing (or nearly every thing), then you move on. The reason we play games rather than read books is because we are the type of people who decide that the main character should have turn left rather than right.
So the ultimate game is one that exists in a world that is rich. So rich it cannot be understood by one person. It is also consistent within itself. Then we can bump around in that world for a really long time discovering new things and making our own decision. Finally things must be challenging enough to be entertaining, but not so challenging to be work. That is a hard line to draw.

Pat O

[Peter]

Wow, a very interesting, and well thought out essay, but I think it's somewhat flawed. I'll have to apologize in advance for my somewhat rambling response - I just don't have time to edit this and make it as concise and well thought out as your essay, but I'd like to make a few brief points:

1) The fact that you enjoy Descent, a combat simulator, doesn't mean that story is unimportant. You may also enjoy Chess, but that doesn't mean you can't also enjoy going to see a movie.

2) The fact that you don't want to watch all of the cut scenes together like a movie doesn't mean that story is unimportant. Games are meant to be immersive, otherwise, we'd call them movies. And you do still enjoy movies, right?

3) The fact that play-acting in a bad scottish accent isn't always enjoyable doesn't mean you don't like story, it just means you don't like acting. I think that many people don't enjoy acting. Many people don't enjoy reading either, which can explain the "button mashing" you talk about where people avoid reading what to do.

4) Since games (like movies) succeed for different reasons, it's hard to make comparisons. In the movie world, Pixar's films succeed for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they have excellent storylines. Indiana Jones 4, on the other hand, succeeded not because of the storyline, but because it was the next installment of a beloved franchise. Pixar succeeds because they make great creative decisions, Indiana Jones 4 succeeded because they made a good business decision.

5) To make a very enjoyable game, you have to succeed in one (or more of the following characteristics):

a) have a good puzzle/mechanics engine. Civilization, Descent, etc. have enjoyable puzzles which are challenging, and difficult to solve. In a combat game like Halo, or Call of Duty, it's still a puzzle, just a more fluid one.

b) have a good multiplayer game. This gives the game a longevity and value outside of a story game. A game like Bioshock is finished when the story is finished. A game like Halo is not. Which is why Halo has an extended value to it.

c) have a great storyline. Story doesn't mean watching cut scenes, or acting out moments with other characters. Story means something is happening in the game that makes you want to keep going, and get to the end so you can find out what. I can't tell you the number of games that I've finished, not because they were good, but despite the gameplay mechanics because I wanted to know how it ended.

d) Munchkinism. We all like to collect things. World of Warcraft is a bit story lite, but it's big on collecting this and that, and having this or that great item. We do the same when we improve our characters, giving them abilities and stats. Magic the Gathering, and other card games relied upon this.

I'm sure there's more, but these are what come to mind. The problem with trying to create a game that can make infinite stories is that you left out the value qualifier.

You see, creating a good story is very difficult - hence the number of terrible movies out there. And a game that could create infinite GOOD stories, well, I think you'd find it would be very lucrative.

Now, a game that could create infinite GOOD stories, AND do all the things above? That would knock World of Warcraft into the stone age.

[Paul Evans]

Hopefully you'll have more fun with Fable 2 :-)

[Sour]

I would like to suggest X-Com, Diablo and RogueLike games (DoomRL is a favorite of mine) as games that have some randomly generated content for the levels that you play in. By doing so, the game stays fresh a lot longer as the player does not know what to expect on each new level.

Also, with the regards to searching for "a game that could procedurally generate infinite interesting content", we already have a system in place for that. Its called developers; new games are created by other people, a procedure that generates near infinite content.
(Yes, I know this isn't what you are looking for but it is a solution to your desires)

[Mark Nau]

Yep. I am totally underwhelmed by GTA IV. "Great story," I keep hearing. But all I can think is how much better it could have been if it had gone the "Godfather" route.

I don't care about YOUR story. I want to play MY story.

[Nathan McKenzie]

I've wondered, in the past, too, if adding stories might not dampen some of the other pleasures that games can dole out.

Case in point: when I was 10 and playing Super Mario Brothers, there were levels I had to play hundreds of times to master. Because the reward for mastering those levels was GETTING TO AN EVEN HARDER LEVEL (+new art, music, and critters of course), it never occurred to me to be irritated at being stuck. The whole point of the game was to be even more challenged later.

If it had had a very intricate story, on the other hand, I might very well have gotten irritated and surly about the narrative arc being slowed down by all that tedious game play. And, in fact, that is generally how I feel when playing either adventure games like Monkey Island with great writing, or melodramatic Japanese role playing games like Final Fantasy 6.

I think the rewards of story (which need consistent pacing) align really terribly with any game that uses challenge and replay as a motivator.

[Amichai]

In Super Mario, there is a story, King Koopa kidnapped the princess and you have to rescue her. It's a very simple story, and even though there are no cut scenes, it's the story for the game. But that I guess is really neither here nor there.

I am only a casual gamer, but I prefer games with a story and a definite ending. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Any game that can concieveably go on forever would just frustrate me and I'd drop at some point never to play again. But that's just me. I'm a Prince of Persia, Shadow of the Collosus, and sports game kind of a guy. Simple, only a few or quick cut scenes. Replay value comes in not due to unpredictability, but challenging enough that I can play it one or two more times before I feel like I've mastered it. Just like the old Supermario Bros. Which is what makes that such a lasting game in the first place.

ANd though I wouldn't just want to watch the cut scenes, I think the Prince of Persia trilogy do make for compelling storytelling which I would read or watch in another format (novel, more likely graphic novel, or even if it looks good, movie when it comes out). But outside of Prince of Persia, I can't think of a single video game that I would be interested in any other format.

[John H.]

This is basically where I ended up in my feelings about story games about ten hours into Final Fantasy VII. That game changed my attitude towards CRPGs. I had always enjoyed roguelikes before, but FF7, and all the games that followed that wanted to be just like it, chased me towards them.

You might be interested to do a Google search for the terms "OD&D" and "grognard". Some of the things it'd turn up might be interesting.

[Sergio]

Really enjoyed this post Jamie and the comments too are insightful. It really goes to show how difficult it is to mesh gameplay and story to create an overall entertaining experience. I think the last game for me that captured my imagination and made we want to continue on due to story was Heavenly Sword. I thought Ninja Theory did a great job of creating new characters and story lines that kept me wanting to push on. Same goes for the God of War games. You can tell a lot of effort went into making sure those stories were deep and complimented the game.

As far as my own practices go, one of the things I push for these days is that story and game design get developed together really early on. I think often times one gets ahead of another and both ultimately suffer. When you have both in sync is when things really get interesting and immersive. It's certainly a balancing act that I think many of the better games that I enjoy playing achieve.

[bjorke]

I'm not sure why people feel that chess has not story. Every chess game is a different telling of a single small story -- the capture of the King. Every game of go is a story. The narrative unfolds based on a few simple goals and then the complications ensue. Strategy, deception, surprise, struggles against the inevitable... THIS IS FUNDAMENTAL STORYTELLING.

An immediate human element is brought by the presence of players. Playing chess against my dad is a very different story compared to chess against my niece (note that these games are not, typically, spectator sports, unless the spectators too have additional "backstory" -- that is, existing relations to the players).

The same could be said on the gridiron -- the drama is not in whether the Vikings or the Cowboys (who are dressed rather alike) will win or not -- it's known that one of them will win, the framework is very specific -- but WHICH will win, and HOW. The TV banter of the commentators highlight the human elements of the teams and the players and the simplistic sorts of tribal association fans may feel about the teams representing their region/school/city/league.

(BTW, I wonder what would happen if football had video-game-like conventions, say where the rules changed over the progress of the game by the addition (or subtraction) of "level 2" players, etc? More drama? less?)

The most primitive form of story known to most anthropology types is "the journey" -- a character moving through experiences toward a new changed state or location. In games, the experience of narrative is still ever-present, it's just that the story develops as a result of the direct agency of the players.

Our brains seemed wired to inevitably experience events spaced over time as stories. A game designer can work with that fact, ignore it, or work against it -- at their peril. Such game designers should probably be sent off to watch a lot more TV.

[Smith]

While I admire the clarity of your viewpoints, they seem slightly pretentious and out of touch.

Games from the Final Fantasy and Soul Reaver series are used as examples. I don't know much about Soul Reaver, but I do know that the main selling point in the final fantasy series is the hackneyed stories.

(I call them hackneyed, but that's just my own resentment showing through, the same resentment most people here have.) The fact is, they tell the same story over and over to cover up a dull game that nobody would play without the story. And it sells, and millions love it. Who are we to tell the millions that they're wrong, and that our tastes are superior?

It's pompous. Even Space Rangers, which you personally found boring, ended up getting critical acclaim.

You pose to your readers the question of whether or not we'd read or watch video game stories in other formats, in book or movie formats, and then you answer for us. "no."

There's something of a flawed syllogism in the comparison. The Matrix might have been an entertaining movie, but action wouldn't translate into text. I certainly wouldn't read the book. Each medium is different.

I will say this though:

Translating a story from one medium to another ultimately boosts popularity of the story itself. All people in entertainment marketing know this. That's why there are so many shitty games and movies based off books, shitty books based off movies, etcetera.

They're mostly low quality because it's an exercise in sheer marketing with strict deadlines/coinciding release dates, rather than artistic care.

The story from a game based off a movie might be completely in tact, but the game or cinematography or narrative part itself isn't polished, because that's the part the developers/directors/writers had to focus on and they weren't given enough time. People overlook the story in these instances, even though the story was, in its original incarnation, text or what have you, quite good.

But occasionally you'll get something that works. Using movies as an example, lets look at The Godfather. Great example of a movie based off a book. Or, if you're into the whole fantasy thing, Lord of the Rings. I'm sure you can think of your own examples.

And I've come to realize it's not because the story holds up especially well in the movies--the story was already THERE. It was already written, and the godfather could have just as easily become pulp crime trash as so many other movies based off of books. What made it work so well was the fact that the movie was allowed to be a movie, with polished cinematography; it was allowed to tell the story in a way that only a film could.

Same thing applies to games. If you were going to turn a game into a movie, you'd have to let it be a movie, a different experience from the game itself. If you were going to turn a movie into a game, same thing applies. What makes stories in games intriguing is that the games tell stories as games. Of course you wouldn't want to watch the game cinematics out in sequence as a movie. The story progresses along with the game element.

Regarding the costik.com link, Greg makes the argument that games aren't a storytelling medium, but that story can strengthen or hinder games, but that it's not what makes games and is not as important as it's made out to be. I agree with that.

He also makes the statement that games cannot be linear, and that seems to be a staple for much of what he says in the latter half.

That seems quite a bit more shaky, as all games, going back to card games, board games, and sports games all have linearity enforced by uniform rules and regulations. In fact non linearity in games seems to be relatively unique to very select video games.