Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.
You know how some games say that they have an interactive narrative, which adapts to
the choices you make? The ones with pop-up reminders that say people will remember things
or that your actions will have consequences?
Just how interactive are they?
The reality is often quite disappointing.
Take Telltale's terrific zombie epic The Walking Dead. Now, it really does remember your decisions.
LEE: He's just an old racist asshole, that's his deal.
MARK: Come on Larry, give it a rest, man. Things are different. Being a racist is outdated.
LARRY: Is that what you told him?
And characters really do react to the way you treat them.
KENNY: I'm not letting somebody else get eaten today, even if he is an asshole.
KENNY: Especially a good friend.
But your ability to bend the overarching plot of the game is actually very limited.
It doesn't matter if you save Shawn or save Duck, Shawn will always die. It doesn't matter
if you give this girl the gun or not, she'll still kill herself. And it doesn't matter
if you turn down the offer to visit the dairy, you'll go anyway.
LEE: Alright, looks like we're going to a dairy.
Behind the scenes, Telltale uses clever tricks to give the sense that your choices matter,
but without really changing the plot. Like using the same scene twice, but with different
characters in the roles.
And when the story does branch, it soon snaps back to a central path. Choosing whether to
save Carley or Doug at the end of episode one feels like a huge split in the story,
but it's patched over when the two characters are killed in the exact same spot in the middle
of episode three.
Now, Telltale would say that it had a very specific story it wanted to tell, and that
the choices matter more than the consequences because they bring out inner truths about
the player's morals. And, most importantly, they'd say that games are bloody expensive
to make.
The thought of designing and creating and testing content that many players might never
see would turn any publisher's stomach.
Which is why a game like 80 Days can offer way more content - some 11,000 choices and
500 unique journeys, according to inkle - because it's all text and static images. That's not
to trivialise the hard work of the developer, but it is surely easier to make 150 different
cities when your Paris can look like this, rather than this.
So, they're all reasonable defences. But still, the promises of an interactive story can feel
a tad false, especially if you play through one of these games more than once, or discuss
it with a friend and discover that your outcomes sound suspiciously similar.
You just need to have witnessed the crazy outrage over Mass Effect 3's endings to know
how upset people can get if their choices aren't properly respected.
So is the best that games can do with dynamic narratives? Different paths between a handful
of predetermined scenes, obvious binary choices, the same scenes with different characters,
and choices that simply don't matter at all?
BOOKER DEWITT: I've got something for you, you son of a bitch.
Well, for my money, some of the most personal and player-influenced narratives can be found
in games that don't promote themselves as interactive movies, or even claim to have
a story at all.
I'm talking about games like Civilization. It doesn't really have a plot, but play a
campaign and the empires you meet, the battles you win and lose, and the path you take to
domination will generate memorable stories that are way more unique than what you saw
in a game like, say, Heavy Rain.
My stories about Ghandi being a prick in Civilization 5, or the death of a favourite soldier in
XCOM, or my confused quest for medieval domination in Crusader Kings II are not exactly Oscar
bait, but they hold a special meaning to me, because they're unique.
These games can manufacture interesting stories because they have complicated systems, with
rules and computer-controlled characters and lots of moving parts, that are let loose and
allowed to bounce off one another.
Under the right circumstances, this will create stories with conflict and tension and success
that's snatched from the jaws of defeat. And our brains quite happily fill in the blanks
to turn all that into one epic narrative.
We're now starting to see way more games take advantage of systemic stories. In Far Cry
4 it's not uncommon to see an enemy fighter tangle with a tiger or an eagle carrying off
a pig - but they're not completely scripted sequences, they're just the byproduct of systems
that are allowed to interact with one another.
Now Ubisoft calls the game an "anecdote factory", and tiny five-second-long stories is about
all the game can really generate. But a new wave of games is using complex systems, and
procedural generation of content, to drive more complicated narratives.
Shadow of Mordor is the most obvious example because its authored plot is pretty boring
when compared to the ever shifting factions of Sauron's army.
Each Ork captain in the game is given a random design, name, voice, and selection of traits,
and is let loose to wander around Mordor. As you meet these ugly warlords, the game
builds on-the-fly stories where an Ork might tease you for running away during the last fight...
DHARG THE WICKED: Not so brave, are you? Ran away, didn't you? But no running this time!
... or a captain you thought you killed could come back with a scar on their face and a
score to settle.
BUTH EVIL EYE: You gave me this scar. Now I'll give you a slow, painful death.
Soon, you'll build relationships with these guys and find yourself burning Ogbur the Unkillable,
not because it's particularly efficient but because you know he's scared of fire and you
want to stick it to him for killing you earlier.
This is all part of the 'Nemesis System', and while it's a tad limited in this first
outing it's already quite promising as a new way of generating wholly unique stories that
people love to share online.
Another game is adult_swim's old-timey whodunit Westerado. Your job is to hunt down a randomly
generated killer by finishing missions and collecting clues. But the way your tale of
vengeance plays out is completely up to you.
In my game, I could never return to the main town because I, er, robbed the bank and after
that I couldn't step foot in Clintville without being shot at by everyone. It's the game's
fault, though, for letting me pull out my gun in the middle of any conversation, and
kill absolutely anyone in the game - even my uncle, and the sheriff who gave me quests.
Instead of putting up barriers and changing the rules to stop you breaking the game's
story, Westerado uses its systems and random content to let you keep shifting the story
until you find one that suits you.
And then there's This War of Mine - a harrowing game about civilians trapped in a war zone
that helps you create your own memorable and meaningful plot by leaning on two other game
types that are famous for their emergent narratives - survival games like Don't Starve and simulation
games like The Sims.
Now, you might be asking, can a dynamic story ever be as good as an authored one? Or maybe
that just doesn't even matter because books and films are so much better at the predetermined
stuff, anyway.
But there are other issues. Can a systemic narrative effectively do things like foreshadowing,
justification, redemption, character arcs, and good pacing? Is there a risk that some
players will just end up with a crappy, unsatisfying story? And how much dialogue do you have to
record to make it all work?
It's no walk in the park, then, but I think these are all problems worth solving. Because
games are the only major storytelling medium that has interactivity, which makes it especially
frustrating to see so many developers try to ape Hollywood and HBO or, at the very best,
those old choose your own adventure books.
I want to see more games that have systems that are designed to generate stories, so
they can create narratives that are more personal and surprising than anything a writer could
ever dream up.
And developers are working on it - Ken Levine's making a game with an interactive narrative
- which is ironic, coming from a dude who made an entire game about how players have
no agency. And the next game from the studio behind Brothers will apparently mess with
storytelling in a whole new way.
I'm all for it. Because while I love many video game stories that are completely linear.
And I love those that let me put my own stamp on things. I think the type of storytelling
that will really set video games apart, is the sort that no other medium could ever,
ever emulate.
What do you think? Please leave a comment with your thoughts on interactive and emergent
storytelling, below. Plus, please like the episode, subscribe to the channel, and consider
supporting me on Patreon. A huge thank you to all those who have done so.