Games Stories

Not going to lie, when I saw the word 'stories' my eyes lit up.

I am very fond of Wikipedia's definition of art being 'the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to senses or emotions' because it means that whenever I write a story it becomes art.

Purpose, form, idiom,structure, craft, surface. All these are things I have to take into consideration while writing, as they all have a part to play in the creation of a story.

The small bit about 'What was your first great game idea' and the response being 'It'll be just like Pacman meets Space Invaders. Only better!' is quite literally the driving idea behind what most people like to call 'Fanfiction'.

Which is a perfectly acceptable form of art and if you disagree I shall gladly argue my point.

Tragedy meaning a serious and lifelike story hits a bit too close, as nowadays people try to make the worst things possible happen to characters who don't deserve it simply for 'wangst'. And I agree that there is still a lot of bad writing out there, but there is a greater amount of good writing!

Plot: An important thing that we figure out later.

Theme: Something we don't think about or realise until after the story is complete.

Character: One of the two things that probably created the story, thinking of a character, or of powers and wanting a character to use them.

Diction: Ary The other thing that might create a story, simply thinking of a line of dialogue that sounds amazing and you are so amazed you thought of it you need to make an entire world just so you can say that one line of dialogue and then after you've finished writing it you realise you forgot to say it.

Rhythm: Ha. What rhythm?

Spectacle: The 'eye candy' of the story. What makes your story unique. What makes it different to every other story about magic or about a dystopia. What makes your story?

All stories include crossing gaps of some kind? All stories are about change? Ok yeah that I can accept. Change can come in many different forms, and usually that change is a victory. Changing a goverment, changing the world, changing your clothes. Hey, not all victories are about the big things.

Ah, found something I disagree with.

"Having the player make moral choices for the main character is hard, because the choices often don’t involve real consequences."

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It has consequences for the player character, and for the person playing it. Plus, consequences on the players emotional state. 

A scene from TellTales 'The Walking Dead'

Frankly, if you don't have a heavy moral decision without consequences in your story-driven game, you haven't written a good story.