The Importance of Story

A recent, very worthwhile Gamasutra article puts forward the belief that "game designers are in the business of experience creation rather than that of storytelling. The story that is generated through gameplay is the player's personal story that has been mediated by the game systems." They are right on the money. One however shouldn't take this to downplay the importance of story and its composition; 'mediated' is the word to pay attention to here.

There is a very clear connection between this idea and Constructivist learning theory, where we gain the valuable analogy between movies and 'instructors as teachers' and between games and 'instructors as facilitators.' In Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun" book which I have already recommended, he mentions that the fun of games is derived from the skills we learn playing them, that the learning of skills triggers the release of endorphins (which in turn triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure centre of the brain). Acting as facilitators for skill-development, we as game designers create context; systems of rules that players must abide by and a canvas for them to fill. A designer's ability to guide stories (by providing an environment for the player, and 'mechanics' to interact with that environment) is what divides great games from lesser games.

One particular quality of these contexts we create is flexibility - the degree to which its rules restrict what players can accomplish. This itself links back to the Whorfian hypothesis (which is widely disputed - but raises important issues to consider). The language that we speak, or the context that we play in, certainly predisposes us to certain thoughts, and leads us to view different details within that context, but it would be difficult to say that it precludes us from certain thoughts and actions. We may describe the flexibility of contexts in games along a continuum, from the very restrictive games (say, Super Mario Land), to the more open-ended (e.g., Grand Theft Auto), very open-ended (Automatically generated interactive narrative, and some multiplayer games - we can substitute the complexity of simulating people for just playing with others. We should also not forget the Sims, but many consider this a 'toy' rather than a game for its lack of goals), and entirely open-ended (mind-controlled game play, perhaps?).

The 'flexibility' of these games varies along more than one dimension - consider the dimension of narrative flow, and the dimension of player action availability (or game mechanics as a whole). Take for example Super Mario Land, a game very limited with respect to both narrative flow and player action availability. The player may only move forward throughout each level, and player actions are limited, the player may do things like run, duck, jump, etc. A game like GTA still retains slight linearity, an overarching linear theme (in San Andreas) of gaining more respect etc. through gameplay, and at a lower level offered the player flexibility in the missions they conduct, and how they conduct them.

Narrative flow and game mechanics certainly aren't mutually exclusive, players can acquire new abilities as a result of narrative flow (new weapons, new statistics, whatever). Whereas movies are limited to guiding character arcs using narrative flow, we game designers can guide character arcs through evolving game mechanics.

The problem with very open-ended games is that people aren't always good at creating their own stories. The difficult part of a game designer's job is striking the right balance between letting the player do as they please, and guiding them down a path.

Side thoughts

This site mentions a very interesting fact, that "Hemispheres of the brain that do not begin working together in a coordinated fashion until around age 8, can be stimulated to work more efficiently together through movement. When children are able to move as they learn or practice new tasks, it makes the learning more efficient."

A question I ask in response to this is, I know there is a positive correlation between frequent camera/object transitions and memory recall (advertisers certainly take advantage of it), but does the motion of a character in a game trigger some kind of mirror neuron reaction leading to improved skill-learning?