STORY TIPS! 30 days of quick and dirty tips for video game storytellers

For the month of January and a bit of February I have been posting a story tip almost every day. These are more time consuming to make than I expected, so the next batch of 30 will be coming some time in the near future. Any feedback on the format and content of this series would be much appreciated!

THE 13 CUTSCENE TROPES THAT ARE HOLDING US BACK, AND HOW TO FIX THEM

"When coming up with a set piece, plot twist, character moment, etc, ask your protagonist if they will remember that moment for the rest of their life. If their answer is yes, then that moment should be playable."

- some loser named Brian

Whenever I see a trope list or analysis of cutscenes, it usually centers around actual story related tropes and mishaps in writing. Now, criticizing the quality and content of game stories is a vital part of the medium's growth, and cutscenes are in fact getting better at what they do thanks to players craving improvement. But whenever the actual practice of utilizing cutscenes in an interactive medium is brought into question, the takeaway is almost always some variation of, we should use them less, or, they are fine in moderation. It gets redundant and, in my opinion, doesn't offer any real insight into how to make story-based games better.

PLAYER CHOICE AND BRANCHING NARRATIVE IN BEYOND: TWO SOULS

Originally posted on October 29, 2013

When I replayed Beyond: Two Souls, I was astounded to find so many little and big things I missed on my first playthrough. I found out about so many decisions I made that caused subtle and serious changes throughout the game. Changes that never seemed like variables, but rather scripted scenarios. After watching various "let's plays", group discussions, reading the negative reviews, and examining my initial playthrough, I noticed a pattern: Players had no clue that they were making choices, or that they missed whole scenes until they talked to another player, or replayed the game.

REDESIGNING THE LAST OF US - IF WE PLAYED AS ELLIE

Originally posted on July 30, 2013.

Ellie's story and character arc matches up perfectly with her hypothetical player’s, even without interactive dialogue or story malleability. She would provide her player with an interactive story that is completely pre-determined, yet wholly based around ludonarrative empathy, much like Journey is. The way she plays would also be refreshing and more cerebral than the way we play Joel.

IF WE PLAYED AS ELLIE - THE QUARANTINE ZONE

IF WE PLAYED AS ELLIE - ENCOUNTER DESIGN

GAME DESIGN COMPARISON - HEAVY RAIN AND THE WALKING DEAD

Originally posted on October 7, 2013.

Telltale's The Walking Dead and Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain are quite the unique specimens for the current generation. They are both Adventure games, but with one macro distinction; TWD is a traditional point-and-clicker, while HR is more of a normal third-person game and uses gestures instead of a cursor. HR removed genre staples like puzzles and inventory, and TWD followed suit. Both are made to appeal to experienced and casual players alike, with a broad audience. Both have a 100% focus on an emotional story-driven experience. Both are made to be played, not beaten.

DEVELOPING YOUR INTERACTIVE STORY IDEA

Originally posted on April 11, 2014.

This article aims to provide some guidelines and techniques storytellers can use to either find the best story for their needs, or give their existing one a dose of ludonarrative pizazz. The process proposed here is what I call the “Lunar Method”, Lunar being a combination of the words Ludo and Narrative. This method is meant to aid in the forming of interactive stories rather than typical games. The primary approach we'll be looking at is a series of questions that storytellers can ask themselves to help create story ideas, interesting scenarios, player characters, and all that humus.

A ROBUST COLLECTION OF GAME DESIGN AND STORYTELLING RESOURCES

Here are my subscriptions, bookmarks, and downloaded PDFs that have helped me learn about storytelling over the last few years:

Youtube

Games

These shows don't focus on story specifically, but there is a lot of content pertaining to it, and plenty of reviews and critiques of story-based games.

Errant Signal
Notable episodes: The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Spec Ops: The Line, Gone Home, GTAIV, Half Life

Matthewmatosis
Notable episodes: The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Journey and Dear Esther, New 'n Tasty

Extra Credits
Some their earlier stuff like Spec Ops and Journey. There are so many episodes I can't remember the story specific ones.

MrBTongue
Notable episodes: Planescape Torment, Choice and Consequence, The Shandification of Fallout

Al Russel

Sequelitis
Classic game design, but can be applied to any kind of game.

Smudboy
Notable episodes: Plot analysis over various games, Bioshock Infinite top 5

Film / Other

Every Frame A Painting
For cinematic storytelling, this is some of the best analysis anywhere.

Mr. Plinkett
Epic reviews of the Star Wars prequels.

Your Movie Sucks
The YMS videos are great, especially for The Walking Dead.

Websites

Games

The Astronauts blog
Raph Koster


Other

Go Into The Story
Film Crit Hulk

Books

Story by Robert McKee
Screenwriting Tips, You Hack by Xander Bennett
On Writing by Stephen King
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Articles / Essays (800+ PDFs)

STASH OF KNOWLEDGE

(link should work now, let me know if you have any problems!)

Here is where most of the magic is. Over the years I saved whatever excellent articles and essays I came across over various websites. At some point I stopped organizing the game ones because I got lazy, so there are some that aren't in the specific subject folders, sorry about that. All of the TV/Film files are organized though, and that's where most of the general storytelling education resides.

I'm not 100% sure if I used Dropbox correctly, so there may be some glitches. If you have any problems downloading the folder, let me know!

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