Narrative Has Its Place

As a Game Designer, the use of narrative in games always intrigues me, and after reading some of Steve Gaynor's articles on immersion and invisibility, and it has got me thinking...

Alright, I suppose I am a bit of a maverick - I don't really have a problem with a forced narrative that creates a memorable experience, because that creates a very important bridge between the three very important groups that plays games: the hardcore gamer, the hip gamer, and the casual gamer.

Now, let me quantify those terms:

The Hardcore Gamer: is what you expect what you hear the term "Gamer" - these are the men, women, and children who are early adopters of technology, who want the cutting edge, and who demand a lot out of their entertainment dollar. They read all of the reviews, and tell all of their friends which games are fun, and which are not. The vast majority of Game Designers definitely fall into this category.

The Hip Gamer: is a nebulous description, but this is a group of gamers that is influenced heavily by the Hardcore Gamers in terms of game purchases. They read the reviews, but tend to be more circumspect about what they purchase, relying on friends, blogs, reviews, and the like to drive their game purchases.

The Casual Gamer: is the largest market of gaming. Casual Gamers play everything from simple card games that come preloaded on PCs (Solitaire anyone?), to party Games. This is the market most difficult to target a game toward, and not just because it is the largest, most diverse market. Casual Gamers don't purchase many games per year, and really don't keep up with the industry unless it makes mainstream news outlets, yet represent the largest potential market in gaming.

Now, looking at some of Steve's concerns on immersion, these are all outstanding and very valid points that are reasoned out extremely well. But, and I'm sure we could have a spirited discussion on it, I don't believe that completely abdicating authorial control is a positive thing, and that memorable moments in games can be highly scripted, narrow and focused.

A narrow, tightly focused experience - a great example being Call of Duty 4 or Half Life 2 (along with its episodic content) - may be passe for Game Design Theorists, but it is at the heart of bridging the gap between the Hardcore, the Hip and the Casual gamers. These focused games, the very antithesis of open-worlds and letting the player create their own moments rather than sharing in the moments authored by design, give one very important tool to those that don't always play games: direction.

Hip Gamers and Casual Gamers, those that maybe purchase one or two games per month, look for a guided experience and crave direction. My Wife, the antithesis of a gamer, loved Half Life and Half Life 2 because of their level structure and episodic feel of the story and, more importantly, always knew that there was a path - somewhere - leading her to the next encounter. The game was a line, from A to B, and she knew that if she worked hard enough, that she could reach the end.

Conversely, when she watched my play GTA IV (the only one in the series I actually enjoyed, but explaining that would take up a whole post in and of itself), she kept asking me: "Where are you going?" Followed up with "Why?"

That is something very important that I think a lot of theorists (myself included, for what it is worth), being a part of the industry and therefore on the cutting edge, need to understand: We need to make games for them as much, if not more, than we make games for us. What has made game narrative so...bad, by and large...is as much a function of the game development process as it is who has been entrusted to write the games.

The games with the best narrative, open or focused, have had writers work on them during preproduction, production and right up until content lock. The best companies treat the Narrative and Story as another system that must be planned, created, trimmed, polished and refined along with everything else in the game, and also appreciate that the more a Game Designer has to spend working on everything but the story, the weaker and less engaging the story becomes.

The Definitive Gameplay Theory

I touched on this one one of my previous posts, and decided it was worth expanding into a whole thread dedicated to the subject: what makes a good game? This seems to be the gold nuggets that every developer and publisher strives to achieve, and few actually reach. Numerous, more experienced developers have written loads on this subject, and since the notion of gameplay and game design is clearly very close to my heart, I'm taking on the mantle of taking these lofty notions of theme, gameplay, and story and boiling it down to its most distilled essence.

Pure, unadulterated game design theory for the masses.

So, with that said, the first, and arguably most important, aspect of game development is gameplay. Good or even great gameplay will allow developers to slip in other areas (art, sound, story, etc.), because gamers won't really care about anything else. If the game is fun to play, then the game will sell.

Which leads me to my first theory of game design, The Definitive Gameplay Theory, which states: If the play experience provided by the game is clear, specific and refined, the gameplay is definitive and therefore desired.

The definitive theory is observable in numerous games of all stripes. Since games as entertainment have existed since antiquity, it has been the games that fullfilled the three criteria of the Definitive Gameplay Theory (Chess, Go, Backgammon) that we still play and enjoy today.

But with the speed of development, use and discard of games these days, the Definitive Gameplay Theory illustrates how the best games on a year to year basis achieve immortality. So, to illustrate: let's look at three great games to come out in the last five years and see if the Theory can be put to the test:

Tetris: the epitome of the theory. It doesn't get more clear, concise and refined as using random geometric shapes to balance between building and eliminating an ever growing base of fallen pieces. The game is simple, elegant, and definitive.

Grand Theft Auto Series: while the GTA series has always been linked to its gangster storylines, the gameplay has always been built around a huge open world as the primary focus. Since the days of the P200 GTA that shipped on 3.5" Floppys as shareware, the GTA series has always pushed the envelope when it came to content, whether it be controversial dialog or technological with it's massive cityscapes.

Final Fantasy Series: Classic Final Fantasy has always centered around turn-based combat. The RPG elements are there to lend depth and control to the player, but in the end, it's turn-based gameplay writ large. By following a stream of menus, the players perform the functions needed to play the game. Based on the original Ultima series (which, in turn, was based on Dungeons and Dragons), Final Fantasy core gameplay is easy to use and get into, thus, making it accessible to play.

So, how does this translate into making a good game? It means the best developers pick one (at most, two) core gameplay features and ensure that they permeate the entire game experience, polishing them to a high sheen and ensures that they are essential to the entire game. These features are typically genre defining conventions, and often are technologically driven to differentiate the new game from previous, current or future competitors. Limiting innovations to one or two features ensures that these gameplay crucial features recieve the time and attention needed to polish them to a high sheen.

Too often, as been my experience, developers and publishers alike push for more and more features, expecting that the shotgun effect - throw in as many features as possible and hope something sticks (something I call the 'Network TV Casting Effect'). The games that sell the best aren't a shotgun but a laser beam.