Narrative and Games

Narrative and Games

Player who suit MUDs, Richard A. Bartle

Today, we looked at the paper Richard Bartle produced detailing how different styles of player suit different styles of games and whilst reading we were asked questions.

The first we were asked was how do different styles of player relate to the game world?

Well this is an easy one. Like Mr Bartle points out in his paper, there are four “main” styles of game … personas, I think is the best word, that a player will adopt should they become immersed in the game. Bartle referred to this as

“labelling the four player types abstracted, we get: achievers, explorers, socialisers and killers. An easy way to remember these is to consider suits in a conventional pack of cards: achievers are Diamonds (they're always seeking treasure); explorers are Spades (they dig around for information); socialisers are Hearts (they empathise with other players); killers are Clubs (they hit people with them).”

Which by all means is a good way of remembering it but the more familiar way nowadays is known as the Gamer Zones. In the Gamer Zones players have four different categories of gamer, like the above, that they can class themselves on based on their own game style -  though they are known as follows;

·         Pro – Gamers who like competitions and high octane matches with players of high skill levels

·         Recreation – “Relaxed” gamers who enjoy the thrill of gaming

·         Family – Players who aim to have fun with the whole family or younger players (though it should be noted that this persona is rapidly dying out fast due to players not wanting to class themselves as this – more about this later)

·         Underground – the Gamers who are only after the top prises and achievements not really caring about the placing in game results

While players are free to label themselves as any style they want it is a good way to really be able to class someone’s skills as a player. For instance Recreation Gamers are players who play games specifically for the fun of it, meaning that they are relaxed even if they are losing. But like Bartle says, it’s hard for a player to be just one “type” of gamer all of the time meaning that recreation gamers will get angry at some games just like the rest of us – we’re all human after all.

How do different styles of player relate to themselves and others? 

The Problem with labelling yourself is that until you actually play the game that is how other gamers see you, and as with all things in life, some gaming personas don’t play well with others. I mean that a player whose gaming style is classed as “Family” (generally parents and children, or people who want to stay away from harsh language and egos – which as a side note is very hard to do with online gaming) will be looked down upon by the “Pro” class and in some instances by all of the other classes, for being “cool” or good enough. While this persona is legitimate enough, it generally signals to other players that this particular player will not be a big threat.

So enough about the physical labels they give themselves, what about the labels that other gamers bestow upon them? Well despite the label a player will themselves, what really matters is the label that other players see them as. Players will often give each other these classes after seeing first-hand what the skills the player displays or doesn’t display in game, with newer players often being … frowned upon, to put it delicately, simply because they didn’t know enough about the game to be effective enough to be classed on a higher level.

But more often than not, this is not this is not trying to single out players or intimidate them, in fact players need to class others so that they can each enjoy the game as they want to play. Pro players want to play with someone who will help them out or provide a good challenge or simply do the job, not to have to teach new players how to play a game, so instead the player in question will look to join up with / participate in games with players of their own skill level or above. This happens outside of the online gaming world as well, we’ve all been there when you are playing a game – say Rummy – and there will always be a player who doesn’t know the rules, and sitting there having to explain in the middle of a game is a hindrance to the skilled player(s).

This is why Gaming types and classes exist simply to help the player choose the best suited matches for them so that everyone will enjoy the game.

How does this link to your own game play experiences of online worlds?

In the past, I always aimed to be a kind of Recreation gamer – I simply like the game for what it is and I’m good at playing it. But as I got older and better at the games I found that I enjoyed winning so much that I would aim to win every match I participated in. Oddly, Xbox live picked up on this and started putting me in matches with  more and more Underground and Pro players forcing me to improve my own style of game play (polishing it up if you will) and before long I found myself wanting more of these challenges, causing me to switch my physical label to “Pro”.

I do subconsciously still try to respect all players of all skill types whilst playing, but like I said before we are all human and more often than not when in game situations go wrong it tends to be the player with the least skill’s fault – despite the fact I know that I messed up.

It’s strange but within the past year of my gaming life I have kept tabs on players who have impressed me in game (good team mate, rivals, just good had good time playing with) and added them as friends but of them not one of them is classed as a family gamer which I suppose proves that game personas don’t all play nice together – mainly because they just aren’t into the same kind of games, I’ll suspect. But does that mean that certain types of player are drawn to certain types of games?

Well… yes and no. Like Barton says, even though players have their class, that doesn’t mean that they must stick to that. I mean, I am a die-hard gamer who loves to shoot zombies or what have you but that doesn’t mean I don’t love games like Wii sports (boxing is hilarious) and Hell, I even have the game “Kung Fu Panda” sitting on my shelf right now that I simply didn’t get rid of because I still like playing it. I’m great at shooting games: it’s the sort of core of my gaming skills, but race games? Fighting games? My time on Dead or Alive (fighting game) online was four hours of me getting my arse kicked by other Pro gamers who could see that I simply was outclassed in every way. Now, I don’t quit easy but it got to the point where I was even laughing at how inadequate my “skills” were. And I couldn’t get my head around it because it should be noted that I am pretty darn good at “DragonBall: Raging Blast” online where I can hold my own against most people even though it is a fighting game also.

Now this doesn’t mean that in time I won’t get better at the game or that I will forfeit my shooting skills in favour of a quest to be the best fighter around, all it means is that I am classed as a threat in shooting games whereas in (most) Fighting games I am not.

So I suppose the long and short of it is that gamers will always label themselves and others depending on the in game skill they show, and this in turn differs between games and experiences.

Using Stories and Narrative

So today, we get to look at something close to my own heart - a subject that I am very, very interested in. Creating stories in games.

Being specific, one of the things I personally noticed whilst creating stories is it has a distinctive love / hate relationship. By this I mean that when you believe in the story that you want to write - and I mean completely heart and soul (also known as the Disney Believe) - then the story can flow out of you like a freaking river. It’s the kind of thing where you wake up at 3am just because you had a new idea for something that could happen. But if you don’t believe in the story then it just won’t come to you. You end up staying up til 3 am looking at it thinking to yourself “Dear God, this is worthless.”

Relax, it’s happened to the best of us, just a natural part of the process I’m afraid. Anyway, to take your mind off of it, let’s have a look at this week’s questions on “Gamasutra - Features - What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about StoryBy John Sutherland”.

“The real substance of a story is conflict.”

Well that’s true. Conflict in games is the driving force that the story needs to get the protagonist from point A to point B. But it’s not as simple as that, in fact like all good stories it needs to be made up of three Acts. The first act is setting up the pieces; we get to know everybody and what is going on around in the game. To get the ball rolling there is often some kind of tragedy in place to give the hero the push they need, or we get to experience conflict in some way, shape or form.

Then we get to the second act where the darker sides of the story come into play. Things go wrong, bad stuff is flung at the hero in hopes of driving them down. Perhaps a friend is lost, or something beyond the hero’s control has created a gap between the hero and the rest of the world he/she thought they knew.

Finally, we get to the third act. This is where the story has been building up to. The hero gathers his/her strength and moves forward. They are forced to face the evil or whatever darkness they are presented with and need to overcome it. Often in games, the third act continues as the darkest part right up until the last moment when an event happens where the hero ends up triumphant.

What are the basic conflicts in stories?

According to John Sutherland – by the way this book is very very good in terms of the old story writing tips – we have a fair few conflicts that the hero can face.

·         Internal Conflict. I love this one; it’s where the hero is forced to confront a situation where his/own morality and thoughts are creating the conflict. It’s a defining moment, for example let’s say our hero is part of a group of bandits and the leader tells our hero that he must burn down a house that turns out to be an orphanage. This is where the internal conflict happens. The hero suddenly thinks “Hey hang on a minute this is not something that I want to be doing.”

·         External Conflict, This is the basis of every action game ever made. You see that Baddie over there? Club him over the head. There’s your external conflict right there. It’s when the hero physically confronts something and proceeds to deal with it however the hero deems necessary

·         And finally we have Interpersonal conflict. This means that the hero is confronting something or someone that means something to him, and has often wronged him in some way. Let’s say that the hero’s brother has taken over the hero’s kingdom by exiling the hero. When the hero catches up to the baddie we got a Thor verses Loki situation on right there.

In what fundamental way dies game story development differ from storytelling in other forms of media?

One thing that I have noticed whilst reading is the fact that Games are related to movies, yes it’s true, but even this isn’t a close relationship. Unlike films or books or plays, Games are the one piece of media where the storyteller has no control over their hero.

Nope, Instead, all the story teller can do is set up the problems and the conflicts that the hero must face, and sometimes they might even give the player the illusion that the story teller is dictating what the player must do and the player will do it.

But that’s the thing about games. The player is in control and (depending on how vast the game universe is) they will deal with the conflict in the way they deem fit. My favourite example of this is in the game The Matrix: Path of Neo, where right at the beginning the player had the choice to take the red pill and play the story or bug out and take the blue pill. Sure it meant that the game was over when you took the wrong pill, but it gave the player the choice that they hadn’t been able to see with the films, they could tell old Morpheus to stick the Matrix up his CPU port.

Things like Skyrim, where the player is given a task “Steal this item”. Now the player can go up to the shop and sneakily steal the item. They can go in bright day time and try to distract the shop keep whilst they steal it. Hell, they may even do the direct approach and walk into the shop and kill the shop keeper and take every item. This is point; it’s the player’s choice.

What practical use is 'The Hero's Journey' to story tellers and game developers?

Then I came across this question. Is this a joke? The hero’s Journey is perhaps the best guide to storytelling I have or ever will read.

It boils down everything into how a story is built from the foundations upwards, telling you exactly what traits characters need to become the characters they need to become. It tells about how the game world should work, and why the hero needs to fight for it.

It allows story tellers and game designers (who are often different people entirely) to relate to an issue in a way that they can both understand. For example, a game designer can show the story teller the code in the game and the story teller won’t understand it. The story teller will will show the game designer how something is critical for the story to move forward or to create drama for the reader and the game designer will not understand it (maybe). But the book allows the game designer and the story teller to get together and say, “The reason that the story needs to move forward here is because of this, and here the player will need to do this” etc.

It’s a good book.

Simple Level design

Ed Bryne’s passage about building simple levels teaches its readers more than a few lessons about what one needs to keep make sure that the level is successful (in terms of entertaining the player and challenging them).

·         There are 8 concepts needed for a level to be “complete”. If the level designer can nail all of these (Concept, Environment, Beginning, Ending, Goal, Challenge, Reward, Failure) then the players will be able to enjoy the level no matter how long/short it seems

·         Designers should be able to make the Goal of the level clear without having to outright point the player to it. This may be as simple a as message in the beginning hinting (or even telling) the player what they need to do, but it must not tell the player how to do it. In some of the most successful games, the player only needs to be told once what the overall goal is and they will do the rest

·         Designers have to take into account the genre of the game i.e. puzzle and fit the gameplay mechanics around it. Also Designers must not deviate from the characters set abilities, for example, if the player can only jump and move left and right, designers shouldn’t randomly introduce a mechanic halfway through that allows the character to interact with the environment via switches etc

·         For the reward of completing the level, it is often enough to move the player onto the next level, though sometimes the player may receive a small animation to tide them over – but there doesn’t have to be a huge fuss made each time they complete the level

·         As for failure, players will simply have to restart the level or if the designers are particularly evil, the entire game again

·         Players need to feel immersed in the level, so the less hints or advice the game gives them, the better they will feel once they have completed the level. Basic psychology actually

·         Another lesson is based on failure, mainly not giving the player reason to hate the game or specifically the level because they can’t find a way to complete it. Give the player all the tools they need to complete the challenge and try to make it obvious to the player what they need to do with each tool when they pick it up without having to outright tell them. For example, if there is a leaking pipe and the player can see a wrench lying around – generally speaking – the player will know what to do from there