Tell us a story! Otherwise there will be *juice squeezing* and then we are *frumple*!

The Art of Writing Stories

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/18/4231940/opinion-video-games-taught-me-how-to-write
from Stardock Forums

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"You hate yourself, your job, your plot, your characters, your producer. You decide writing doesn't mean anything. Games don't mean anything. Nothing means anything. And then, a phrase or a character or idea tugs at you and you don't know why. You follow it, you write a hundred words and delete ninety of them. But it comes. It works. You find it. You write it. You're a writer."

-Grossman

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  X( What made Star Control 2 an unforgettable legend?

I bet that all of us old fans have thousands of answers but really...Who knows? Is it even wise to dive into questions like that? Maybe it's not?

 

:rolleyes: Always tied to its Context

What I mean to say is that I believe that a game, as a phenomenon, is always tied to its context, like culture, time and space. Today Star Control II (1992) is only a memory of an an amazing adventure in those mysterious depths of space. That memory plasters a smile on your face, maybe brings a tear to your eye, but offers nothing new eventually.

The new Star Control title shouldn't follow the old legends too faithfully... The other half of my body wants to strangle me for blurting out something outrageous like that, but sometimes faith can be blinding. The context is different now, the world has moved on. Maybe the new title should healthily distance itself from the old Star Controls. That Star Control's evasive spirit of galactical causality, signifigance and Pkunkian enlightenment should be preserved of course and some of that good ol' stuff can be utilized, but using it is wise only when it doesn't complicate decision making or hinder the flow of the story unnecessarily. Creativity needs its freedom... and 20 years is a long time.

 

o_O Where have the stories gone? 

There is room for great stories in the video game industry. Video game narratives and handwritings tend to be really shallow, unimaginative, stereotypical and naive rubbish full of clichés. Writers just don't have a clue how to implement a good story into an interactive environment, or there is a gap between the story tellers and the people implementing it.. or maybe the gap is somewhere else in the system. Nevertheless, a really intelligent, funny and thrilling story in a proper video game tends to get the attention and praise it deserves. However it seems that the visual effects and action aspects are dominating the game development, at least it often seems to be so from the perspective of a frustrated consumer. Maybe one of the reasons for this is that there are many technically oriented engineers and economists in the industry, and not enough dedicated authors/artists with raw & wild passion and talent.

 

:sheep: The World without Colors?

Few most common problems with the stories might be the black & white setting and the lack of original thoughts. There is no gray area in the stories, all the characters and decisions are either/or. The setting tells to the player, that this here thing is a good and noble thing and that other thing there is a dark and evil thing... and that's just plain boring. Black and White isn't instant doom of course like nothing really is and even the simple two dimensional setting can be great when it's done correctly. But here comes an example anyway of the common narrow-mindedness. Think about thieves in a fantasy environment. A thief is a sneaky character, a shadowy figure, who moves in the night like a ninja, uses his blades to cut down his enemies... No! Why? A master thief might as well be a huge and ugly brute with a maul, who seems to be dumb, but who is a very intelligent sociopath underneath it all. A brute who manipulates people around him secretly and also openly, but isn't necessarily good or evil. No one knows what kind of thing this thief is. Maybe the time will tell what and who and why, and then again, maybe you will never really know. Battleship doesn't have to be look big, bulky and intimidating, evil alien doesn't have to be dark, big and speak with a low, gruffy voice and most importanlty.. player's character doesn't have to be the noble hero who rises from the rats to dragons and saves it all! Get out of the damn box already.

 

:ninja:  Make it so.

Austin Grossman, a novelist and a famous video game writer (System Shock, Deus Ex etc.) talks about inventive narrative in his polygon.com article "Opinion: Video Games Taught Me How to Write". Among many other things, he tells to the aspiring video game writers, that their job is simply to convince people that the story isn't there to slow the gaming down, but instead it enhances the experience. I'm pretty sure that it will be anything but easy, but the times are changing hopefully. We've been playing around with fancy graphics for quite some time now, maybe it's a good time for the stories once again?

 


Link to Grossman's article:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/18/4231940/opinion-video-games-taught-me-how-to-write

19,729 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I agree with you that story is at the core of an excellent adventure/RPG game.

I would like to see player decisions have a definitive impact on the game. I'm not talking about getting one of three different flavors of ending scene, or the cheap and easy "Pick item 1 to receive power/ability/object "A", Pick item 2 to..." version of choice. I mean choices that have emotional as well as gameplay consequences. For example:

 

I'm on my way across hyperspace to pick up a science team that's found the "+3 Ion Bolt Launcher of Pwnage" in some abandoned ruins in a system where the star is going to go nova within hours of our predicted arrival. I'm feeling good about rescuing the science team from certain death, and thinking about a rousing game of Frungy when I get back home; when I get an emergency communication from Starbase Umpty-Squat: The Ur-Quan are coming(!) and unless I turn around now, everyone on the star base is going to die! This includes most of the very expensive and very well equipped fleet I left at the dock; but if I don't rescue the science team, I don't get the fancy new Boomstick, and my smoking hot, blue, space-babe girlfriend (Crewman McBlueBooty) is going to be vaporized!

 

Let's say I save the science team: I leave most of the fleet at the star base; and even though I won't be around to participate, It's a half-dozen Chmmr Avatars, and another six-pack of Utwig Juggers. Sure, Grand Admiral Fwiffo has tactical command on the star base; but since space stations don't come equipped with an emergency warp escape unit, I'm pretty sure at least some of my fleet will be there when I get back. So I roll into the system, grab the gun and the girl, and get a stern talking to from a yet-grateful Crewman McBlueBooty about "the greater good," and "how many lives have (I) endangered back home while riding out to perform an intergalactic booty ca..."rescue." During the return trip, I walk around the ship chatting with various crew members, and while the engineering crew installs the PwnStar Cannon, I research the early days of earth's cinema, looking for every "big gun" one-liner I can find in the 1980's archives. Upon arrival at what used to be my star base, I am greeted with the wreckage of most of my fleet, and the feeling of "something's missing." Oh, the star base isn't in orbit! Yeah; it's gone...until it re-appears. Turns out Fwiffo had the boys in engineering whip up an emergency warp after all; and hit the chicken switch as soon as the first enemy ship entered the system. Who would have guessed?

On the bright side, I have an awesome gun, loving girlfriend, and a bonus to weapons research for the remainder of the game.

 

Let's say I save the StarBase: I decide to write off the science team for the "greater good" of staying at the star base and defending my space-castle! Besides, there are other good-looking NPC's with relationship potential (the walkthrough on IGN told me so!), and Crewman McBlueBooty has been getting preachy about my "occasional" use of threats of domination and/or annihilation when "inviting" other species to "join" our "alliance". So I spend every credit I've saved upgrading the defensive capabilities of the star base, not to mention arming the fleet to the teeth. We're ready man! Ready to get it on! Suddenly, the fleet enters the solar system, and even though they're just out of sensor range, there are a LOT of them. Good thing I spent all those credits on upgrades so I could dominate...THE THRIDDASH?! What?! You've got to be kidding me! I could have wiped out this entire raiding party with a well-placed fart! I sacrificed my entire research and colonization budget for this?! Oh crap, I forgot; McBlueBooty! NOOOOO!!!!

On the bright side, the annoyingly pacifist species with the ridiculously overpowered ships who just would. not. join. because of my "tyrannical" tendencies, was moved by my decision to save the people on the planet below; they've sent an envoy, ship plans, and captains. Additionally, Lt. Humpalot, my smoking hot, redhead ship's navigator, stopped by the ol' Captain's Cabin today to offer her condolences for the loss of Crewman McBlueBooty; she had a traumatic loss in her...backstory...backstory..."come by the ship's bar if (I) need to talk(?!)." I guess what they say is true: In Space, No One Can Hear You Rebound.

 

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Yes oh yes. Please do put a good effort into the universe, lore and most of all, the actual plot. I’m really looking forward for a story which is meaningful, realistic and immersive. I’m hoping for well written characters and races, exciting plot twists, tough decisions along the way and above it all – an ending that leaves you with a tear in your eye and a longing for more.

 What little we know of the reboot, the story so far: It’s an alternate universe. 250.000 years ago interstellar excrement hit a galactic class fan meaning no more Precursors. Everything we knew from SC2 is non-existent. No familiar races, no Ur-Quan(!). Let’s fast forward to human year 2112 and our story begins. First Contact is made.

With this basic setting in mind, here’s my two cents focusing on the story side.

 

LIVING, VAST UNIVERSE

Nothing is more disappointing than a streamlined adventure where you simply click 'next' to whichever sidequest or homeworld or scripted event you're supposed to go like reading a virtual book with added flashy colors.

Ideally, I’d like to see a realistic, living, ready universe doing its own thing. The quadrant would be filled with races with an agenda of their own, trade circles pursuing their personal benefit, millennium old wars between sworn rivals and so forth.

You, as a starfleet commander would just stick your own spoon into the interstellar affairs representing your own point of view and interest. Travel where you wish, ally with who you see fit and exploit what planets you desire – all in the name of humanity, freedom, science, democracy, peace, love and [enter noble sounding quality here] of course.

 

CHOICE & CAUSALITY

As previously noted game-changing choices enforced upon the player are a great thing which would fit an adventure-y game like this for two major reasons. First of all, they give a feeling of control and importance to the player; you’re in charge of the events. Secondly, they add a lot of depth and replayability to the game as players can explore different options and their consequences.

Tricky situations like a choice between answering a rescue call or joining diplomatic meeting as a mediator. Ignore the call and the homeworld of some race gets bombed back to stone age. Ignore the meeting and you're looking at a civil war within the ranks of your most powerful ally.

 

Plenty of choices can be made up in similar manner.

-Race A & B have a deep feud for each other. Ally with one, get an enemy from the other.

-Take a powerful artifact from a recently scanned moon and risk the wrath of locals who happen to worship it?

-Do you wish to open communications with a known mind-controller race who appear initially friendly?

-Somewhat shady rumor tells of massive riches and high-end technology in a far-away location, do you risk a foolhardy quest to retrieve the possible goods while spending precious time and fuel?

-Race A speaks ill of X while race B speaks highly of X - who do you listen to when X proposes to protect your flank in a greater battle?

 

PLOT TWISTS

I long for that feeling of spontaneous 'oooh didn't see that one coming' when things get to a completely new stance because of interference of unexpected forces. Preferably in a way you couldn't anticipate.

Maybe the prime antagonist is actually doing a favor for the galaxy (see below)?

Maybe your best friend backstabs you at a critical moment (yeah trust a mercantile race)?

Maybe that research conclusion was horribly wrong (it really didn’t look like a bomb)?

Maybe that transmission was badly translated (*dance* didn’t mean having fun)?

Maybe that artifact has two different uses instead of one (the big button boosts shields and activates location beacon)?

Flip the blatantly obvious plot line. If there's like this cruel race of uh, Kohr-Quan just seething Evilness and bombing planets to massive chunks of dead rock, reveal halfway through the game that they're actually doing that to stop the spreading of a galactic level plague that threatens all life as we know it. Ok, so a few races got obliterated in the process but hey, at least a dozen more got saved because of it. So everything looks cool.. until you realize that the plague was actually artificially created to stop the expansion of Real Bad Guys who are now breeding like gene-modded rabbits and shit really hits the fan!

 

SHADES OF GRAY

In a realistic world there’d be no real good or evil but rather various shades of gray. In the end, most races probably work to make life comfortable for themselves in whatever way they see fit according to their culture and physiology.

If humans come and clean out complete planets for minerals to build starfleets and get stinking rich in the process, surely freedom, science and democracy will benefit - but the local rock-eating Rockaloids probably won't see it exactly the same way.

If we'll see a primary antagonist race(s), let their evil and horrific ways have a meaning. Something the player can relate to in a way. SC2 nailed it, among many other classics like Starcraft 1 or Baldur’s Gate. These plots felt realistic. Here's some random ideas beyond the beaten-to-death Evil for the sake of Evilness:

 

-'For the greater good' concept that'll call for massive sacrifices in order to preserve/achieve even more. For example there could be a kind of energy wave heading towards the quadrant that'll destroy everything it comes in contact with but is weakened by bio-energy. So in order to save sentient races at least partly, some decide to enslave and use the weaker half of the quadrant like a kind of bio-shield in order to save themselves.

Alternatively a race could desire to reach higher states of being but unfortunately they need to feed on psychic energy of others to fuel up this ascension. It’s for the(ir) greater good, hey.

-‘Keepers of balance’. A race with a desire to preserve natural cycles of the galaxy. They’d see the actions of sentient races causing undesirable disturbances to this, therefore calling the destruction of all life. Player might see the antagonist initially as a bunch of amusing and rather harmless weird aliens. Add humor value with their bizarre way of life of ritual suicide practice to achieve liberating non-existance, yet keep birth rates up to keep the ritual practice going on.

Horrible intentions and the scale of their purging would see daylight somewhere later in the game when it's revealed that the energy released at death is just fuel for their super-weapon that'll allow them to fulfill their "salvation project" or whatever.

-‘A war that ends all wars’. Classic. Let’s unify the galaxy yeah? Unity and unification under the righteous rule of one rightfully righteous race. Needs some fleshing out as to why somebody would go to the lengths of ultimate war. Diplomacy gone wrong? Paranoid to survive? Fulfilling the order of gods? Warmaster race got fed up to the never-ending quarreling of other races? Psychics that foresee the dreadful future and work to prevent it? The basic idea is workable but needs some well-written reasoning.

-Super tech-race playing on wacky experiments. In the end they'd be creating;

a ) permanent QuasiSpace portals causing the collapse of TrueSpace or

b ) enforcing dimensions to overlap bringing Orz and buddies for tea or

c ) genetically modifying a random race creating a Zerg-like warmachine alien thing that gets out of control.

These kinds of events just for shit n' giggles. You know, "I wonder what'll happen if.." escalated, erm, slightly.

-No evil Evilness to begin with but instead because of some stellar/ dimensional phenomena, a powerful race goes haywire or gets altered in some way and starts to wreak havoc mid-game and onwards. Mix in Orz from the original and stir with a prophecy-believing fanatic race who begin to worship the new galactic nut cases as a dawn of a new era. All of a sudden we have the Hierar- uh, Hegem- um.. HELLIONS OF DIMENSIONAL STARS piling up against the player. *Jumping peppers!* *Many bubbles* will *dance*.

-The main bad guy is.. YOU! As you travel around and loot minerals and fight unfriendly aliens you’re building a reputation as the cancer of the quadrant bit by bit. Eventually you have to make a climatic choice to burn down your own race in order to save the world from greedy, breeding pigs who exploit everything they touch or simply annihilate everything that dares to cross your path - in the name of peace and freedom, that is. Alternative solution could be to re-engineer the human genetics to make bad traits of humanity vanish and become the true ‘good guys’ (or at least bearable).

-No baddies as is, but instead the complex diplomacy issues begin to escalate between the starfaring races due to huge cultural variety and eventually boils into an all-out total war. Great for including player-dependent choices on who to ally with and so forth. Possibilities for situations that leave the player wondering "how did it come to this? Was this possible to prevent?"

Building more on this, the player could actually be responsible for several conflicts without him acknowledging the severity of his actions in the first place. Like acting as a goody-two-shoes and rescuing a stranded Myco- er, Mungusoid sibling which'll cause the racial leaders to make a war declaration. The nerve of interfering with their personal issues, the nerve to rescue a criminal exile!

-With dark and moody, serious tone, paranoia and madness among the more powerful race(s) causes them to eventually crush all other beings in order to preserve themselves. Could be cool if story plays out right and the paranoia builds up over time causing pressure as things develop. Add a few innocent misunderstandings and a touch of inter-dimensional haunting voices (Androsynth did mess with this stuff in SC2) and the galaxy eats itself alive.

-Ok, this is kind of wacky but.. PLANETS ARE ALIVE! Gaia-theory stuff goes off the roof. Planets are a race that are gonna get traveling.. through WORMHOLES INTO ANOTHER GALAXY.  Maybe they just get pissed at lesser beings for their constant resource-hoarding and decide to end the nuisance in one way or other. Maybe they just don’t care about your affairs and want to check out new scenes. Maybe they do it naturally like birds flying to warm countries, scale just differs. Convince them to stay? Force them to stay? Go with them? Build starbases and artificial planets to live in?

-Dimensional travel gone wrong. It’s all fun n’ games to explore other dimensions until you realize the dimension warps are altering the very being of travelers, the portals are messing up energies of your home reality, time gets twisted causing some hilarious and horrific outcomes back home etc. Unexpected events occur because realities get shifted in an unnatural way. Arilou did it right, you do not.

 

And so forth and so forth. Possibilities are practically endless. Just.. anything but "We are evil and crush you just ‘cuz we can MWHA AHA HAA! Now eat flaming plasma death wimp!"

Evil being Evil simply for the sake of Evil just won’t cut it. Sure it has a certain humor value but really, it gets old fast.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Oh, I nearly forgot. In addition to the actual story, I feel that the presentation of it is equally important. What I mean is how the plot unfolds and how the various story-related events and revelations are shown. I’m talking about the camera usage in cutscenes, how music is handled to add drama etc.

Baldur’s Gate was good with it’s mysterious beginning. You’re hunted, but have no clue as to why, acquiring clues bit by bit along the way.

Final Fantasy 7 was great with it’s dramatic scenes. I still shiver when I recall the battle against Weapons, how the cannons load up and camera flies around the seaport base and later in Midgar.

Homeworld 1 had a spectacular moment in the garden of Kadesh. That discussion and the ensuing battle along with the music that fires up.. Oooh, the memories.

 

It's all about the atmosphere. It's a completely different thing to get a blinking message in your captain's comm-podthingadoo that's telling you about losing contact with Chenpathi compared to seeing a little cutscene with camera looking at their homeworld and GARGANTICA THE WORLD-DEVOURER, five times the size of the planet - the mothership of all motherships slowly coming into sight through a full minute. It would reveal it's unnecessarily large size throughout the whole cutscene while hearing some paniced communications on the background, increasing the intensity as the ship closes in with both music and the desperation in the communications. Cutscene could end when Gargantica finally shifts power from engines to charging up it's ludicrously large main cannon. After this, you're back at your flagship and the blinking message pops up. The resulting feeling is completely different.

 

Edit: minor tweaking.