Brothers: Communicating Sentiment

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has a wealth of innovative characteristics that makes it stand out. The ability to experience an interaction with an NPC in two different ways, a fantasy world that doesn't overwhelm the player with lore, and the game's tendency to allow the player to immerse themselves through vistas and visuals without interrupting them with plot points; these all create an atmosphere rife with narrative possibilities.

The one element I was to focus on here is the use of language. The characters in Brothers speak a fictional language. The entire purpose of using a constructed language is to sell the fantasy setting. We can better suspend disbelief when the world seems foreign and exotic, and fictional languages go a long way in helping us do that. That's why most fantasy setting have races speaking no language we've ever heard.

Another advantage of using a fictional language is one of a more logistical nature. Localization. Hiring voice actors is expensive, and rewriting dialogue into other languages also costs money. If we never see text, then we never have to translate it. 

So made up language save us money and they immerse us in the world. The problem, of course, is that we don't understand what's going on in the game. Subtitles, like in Ico, go a long way in helping us parse that information. But subtitles need translated, and they take away from the immersion by putting a thematic wall between the characters and the player, shining a spotlight on the fact that you need assistance in comprehending what's happening. 

This is where Brothers shines. In a game with such sentimental content, understanding the context of those emotions is important. Brothers makes the assumption that body language is universal, and the tendencies of language go beyond the words and are rooted deep within the structure and pacing. Things like disappointment, excitement, trust, fear, and longing are all communicated through body language and the volume, pitch, and tone of the voices. We don't need to understand the words to understand the sentiment. 

If Brothers can relate these emotions without words, it leaves little excuse for designers who have trouble doing it with. Granted, Brothers has an amazing animation department that imparts the characters' emotions through their craft, but we should take a hint that the context of dialogue is just as, if not more, important than the words written. Communication happens beyond the spoken word, and games should leverage our visual medium to take advantage of what novels cannot.

Final Fantasy XIV: Landmarks

Environmental storytelling is one of the most effective tools in the Narrative Designers toolbox. In most game, the player is navigating an environment, so the inclusion of narrative elements alongside something they are already doing lowers the barrier of entry for soaking in those juicy story bits. You can see great examples of this in Valve games. (They love writing on walls over at Valve.) My recent post about Skyrim shows that Bethesda knows how to do it, too. Of course, text is about the cheapest (monetarily) asset you can put in a game, so environmental storytelling isn't always cost effective.

I want to talk today about an element present in open-world games. Landmarks. I don't know if there is an actual technical name for this kind of thing. I've asked my artist colleagues and they call it everything from pathing to leading the eye, but I'll stick with Landmarks as it most accurately described its function. And I've never seen Landmarks done better than in Final Fantasy XIV.

In any open-world game, you want to give the player a sense of scale. Where open-world games fail is when the world does not feel open, but rather feels like a series of corridors and pathways that the player must navigate. The trick is, that's all the majority of these games are. The notion of "If I can see it, I can go there" exists in games like Minecraft, but many "open-world" scenes in MMO's are just very wide corridors. Eventually, you get cut off and can go no further without a loading screen.

It's a limitation of the technology and if you want the player to feel as though the world is connected, you need to do something to make that loading screen seem like less of an "end level screen."

FFXIV has done this through the use of inter-scene landmarks. There are buildings, structures, and naturally occurring formations that can be seen on the horizon line from different scenes. When I say scene, I mean the an area that exists continuously without a load. Take a look at the picture above. That twisted rock formation in the background can literally be seen on the horizon from two scenes away.

Now take a look at this picture. See way back in the background? That is a rock formation from another scene. That means you need to go through a loading screen to arrive at the scene where that rock formation exists.

I cannot stress enough how important this element is in tying the world together. Despite the fact that the world is not one continuous open world, the world builders make you feel like it is all still a part of the same world. It's all connected. You are in Eorzea (the name of the world in FFXIV) and it is a massive space you can explore. Not only does this allow you to feel the expansiveness of the world, but it also helps you find your way. Seeing those landmarks on the horizon will help place you in the world and give you a sense of direction.

One last tidbit here that would normally belong in its own post, but it may as well tag on the end here: the structure in the picture directly above, the castle in the water; that is an endgame dungeon. Despite the fact that it is a dungeon only accessible when you reach level 50, it is placed in a scene that is home to quests pertaining to level 20-30. That means that as a lower level character you are able to see one of your endgame destinations everyday you run through this area while doing your low level tasks. This is foreshadowing and recurrence used in an amazing way.

Narrative Design in Skyrim

It can be difficult to differentiate between writing dialogue and writing a game. While writing a game and designing a game go hand-in-hand, there is a certain expertise that comes with meaningfully integrating a story with the gameplay. This expertise is what is called narrative design. When the writer is integrated with the design team, it becomes their responsibility to unify the story of the game with the gameplay in a way that makes the player's immersion in the story flow seamlessly from conversation to puzzle to combat to exploration to what have you.

I've cited many examples of narrative design in this blog, but Reddit user OccupyTamrielhas put together these Imgur albums documenting amazing examples in Skyrim. These examples demonstrate the power of narrative design when used correctly. Telling a story in a game is not just about navigating branching dialogue; it's about using the tools available to you as a designer, such as item placement and environment design, to immerse the player in your story.

Album 1
Album 2

The Walking Dead: Motivated to Murder

It's a crime that I was never able to post about Telltale's The Walking Dead while I was playing it, but better now than never.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

While this game is deservedly touted as one of the most ambitious narrative experiences in games today, and there are plenty of things to talk about, I want to focus on the character of Lee.

Whenever a developer makes a game in which the player can make decisions which affect the personality of a character, the safest route is to give the player a blank slate character. This allows the player to imprint their own motivations and desires on the character so that nothing breaks within the narrative. We see this with a majority of Bioware games. If you want to play a jackass, that's fine, because the character is what you make it. However, in The Walking Dead, Lee is a very defined character from the outset, and yet Telltale left it in your hands to decide the type of person he becomes. How did they do this without completely botching narrative consistency?

Tthe most substantial choices you make are the ones dealing with killing someone or allowing them to live. Being a murderer or not is a trait very largely based on character. Allowing the player to make a decision one way or another is a quick way to break a pre-defined character's internal motivations. But Telltale gives the player a way to define Lee within the parameters setup at the outset.

Lee is already a murderer. We learn within the first five minutes that he has killed someone in a fit of passion, not because he is a psychopath. So right off the bat, Telltale has given the player the motivational excuse they need to commit themselves to killing. Making the choice to murder won't break Lee's character.

However, soon after, Lee finds Clementine, and that could change everything. At this point, the player now has an excuse to allow people to live, because caring for this little girl and making a good impression is so important to Lee. The player can now decide if this little girl changes this murderer into someone who kills into someone with mercy.

In this way, Telltale has given us the character we need to make the important decision of taking another's life without creating internal dissonance within that character. In the end, you're choosing between whether or not Clementine has changed Lee from a man who is capable of taking life and will do so again, and a man who is capable of taking life but won't for the betterment of this child.

Andrew Stanton on Great Stories

This TED talk shows Andrew Stanton, a writer on Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Wall-E, speaking on what makes a great story.

My favorite bit from this video is the idea of not giving your reader/player/audience the number 4, but rather giving them 2 + 2, and allowing them to arrive at 4 on their own.

I am also a fan of the definition of drama as anticipation mingled with uncertainty.

Bioshock Infinite: Unlocking the Narrative

I'm a little behind in posting about the fabulous writing techniques I'm seeing in games lately - so much so, I still need to point out a few things about Bioshock Infinite. With The Last of Us coming out next week, I know I'll get even further behind, as Naughty Dog has never failed in providing interesting and innovative new ways to tell stories.

Let's talk about locked doors, and how Irrational used them to tell a story. Normally, a locked door tells the story, by its nature, that someone or something does not want you entering an area or room. Same here. However, Bioshock Infinite took the opportunity of a basic game mechanic, like unlocking those doors, and turned it into a moment to improve the story.

Everyone hates cutscenes. They artificially break the flow of the game, and I don't need to go into that here. The story Bioshock tells is that locked doors need picked, and Elizabeth is an excellent lock pick. In that way, when you encounter a locked door, Elizabeth spends some time unlocking it. During that, you speak with her in what would normally be a cutscene. Since Half Life, very few games take away agency from the player now during storytelling moments, but Bioshock works that agency back into the story loop - making the lack of progression make sense in the story. You're not just looking around a room because people need to speak to one another. You're actively participating in moving through the world (unlocking this door), while getting to know more about the world through which you are moving.

Another great trick they employ here is that it is a "catch up" time for Elizabeth. Locked doors also act as a checkpoint, where if Elizabeth had somehow been caught on geometry back in the level, or you had somehow outrun her - the locked door gets her back by your side, since you can't move through it without her. This usually means an event or battle is coming up in which Elizabeth will need to be present.

It's just another way Bioshock Infinite cleverly incorporates a necessary mechanic into the story.

6 Ways You're Botching Your Dialogue

Here are 6 simple things to keep in mind while writing dialogue that will vastly improve the quality of your storytelling. While writing dialogue is so much more complicated than just these guidelines, this article helps us remember the basics.

Written by Rob D. Young, I'm putting this here as much for my own reference as for yours.