Some of the different techniques one can use to tell a story through gameplay are
as follows:
- Text: A lot can be communicated to players through text placed around the
game-world. These can be signs explaining directions to locations, pinned-up
notes left by previous inhabitants of a given area, graffiti on the wall, or books left
lying around for players to read. - Level Settings: Almost all games use this technique, regardless of whether they
attempt to tell a story or not. Consider the garden setting ofCentipede, the hell-like
setting ofDoom, or even the art deco real estate setting of the board game
Monopoly. What little story these games have is told entirely through setting, but
setting can also be key to telling more complex game stories. The players’
exploration of the game-world can lead to discoveries about the type of people that
inhabit a given area, or inhabited it in years past. Instead of reading in a cut-scene
that the land is run-down and decayed, players can simply see that truth by
navigating the game-world. When the dam breaks because the evil overlord has
broken his promise, the players can see this by the water flooding the ground
around them. Setting is a perfect example of showing a story instead of telling it. - Dialog: Dialog with NPCs during gameplay is another massively powerful tool that
designers can use to great storytelling effect. This dialog can be spoken during
gameplay through conversations players have with NPCs, where players get to
choose their character’s response to the NPC’s dialog, either through a multiple
choice of responses or by typing in their own response. Dialog can also happen
non-interactively during gameplay with NPCs, either friendly or unfriendly,
speaking to players during the game and thereby communicating more of the
game’s story. Dialog can also come from computer terminals, PA systems, or tape
decks, to name just a few plausible devices. - NPC Behaviors: Of course, the NPCs should not just talk to the player; they should
perform actions that back up the story line. For instance, say that players fight two
different races of aliens in the game, and according to the story line the two races
bitterly despise each other. If players ever battle both at once, they should be able
to trick them into fighting each other. In a peaceful village, if the player character
approaches the NPCs with her weapons drawn, perhaps the NPCs will flee from
the player. In a more hostile town, the NPCs might draw their own weapons and
threaten to attack the player character if she fails to stand down. NPCs can also be
engaged in scripted behaviors that communicate to players the nature of the
game-world. For instance, say the people of a town live in fear of the Gestapo-like
police force. As the player character enters, she may observe a townsperson
receiving a harsh and unjust beating from a member of the police.
TheMarathongames used text expertly to communicate their story line while
never taking players out of the game. The game featured computer terminals scattered
throughout the levels the players navigated. Players could walk up to one of these ter-
minals and hit the “action” key to activate them. Then the players’ view of the
game-world would be replaced by a close-up view of the terminal. Players could then
use the arrow keys to flip back and forth between different text screens, which revealed
more details about the plot and told the players what their objective was for the current
Chapter 11: Storytelling 213