games, and thinking of gameplay possibilities early can help you rule out settings that
simply will not work out in games. So a designer may not be thinking solely of the story
but also of the gameplay. But the story can be the jumping-off point, the central vision
from which all other aspects of the game are determined.
Of course the type of story to be told will have a dramatic effect on the type of
gameplay the project will need to have. If the designer wants to tell the story of a group
of friends battling their way through a fantastic world full of hostile creatures, a
first-person shooter with teammates might be appropriate. Any sort of story that
involves the player talking to a large range of characters and going on “quests” for
those characters might be addressed with more RPG-style mechanics. Telling the story
of the Battle of Waterloo could be perfectly addressed in a project with wargame-style
strategic play, with the gameplay adjusted in order to best bring out the aspects of
Waterloo with which the designer is primarily concerned. Does the designer want the
player to have a general’s-eye view of the game? In that case, gameplay that allows for
the tracking of tactics and logistics should be used. Or does the designer want to tell the
story more from the view of the soldiers who had to fight that battle? Then gameplay
that would allow the player to track and manipulate her troops unit by unit would be
appropriate. If conversations with non-player characters (NPCs) are an important part
of communicating the story, the designer will need to design game mechanics that allow
for such conversations, using typed-in sentences, branching dialog choices, or what-
ever will work best. The designer needs to find gameplay that will allow the player to
experience the most important elements of whatever story she is trying to tell.
Of course, the technology will have to match up with the story as well, primarily in
order to support the gameplay the designer decides is best suited to telling that story. If
conversations are an important part of communicating the story, the programming
team will need to be able to develop a conversation system. If world exploration and dis-
covery are a big part of telling the story, perhaps a 3D engine is best suited to the
gameplay — one that allows the players to look anywhere they want with the game
camera. The designer may find that specifically scripted events are important to com-
municating aspects of the tale; players must be able to observe unique events that
transpire at specific times in different parts of the world. In this case, the programmers
will need to give the level designers the ability to implement these scenes. The tech-
nology is the medium of communication to the players, and thereby the story is directly
limited by what the technology is capable of telling.
46 Chapter 3: Brainstorming a Game Idea
Maniac Mansionwas the
first of the story-centered
adventure games from
LucasArts to use the
SCUMM system.