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[McMutton]

http://io9.com/5916970/the-22-rules-of-storytelling-according-to-pixar

An interesting read about what those from Pixar have to say about storytelling.

[poe]

Fun read

[paste]

This is probably the most helpful thing I've found on this subforum.

[DanFessler]

This is absolutely great.  I was a bit expecting a lot of the rules to be just fluff, but each one was super important and powerful.  Makes me wonder if a similar kind of list could be made for game developers.

[Lynx]

Why not re-interpret them as game design rules and see how they fare?

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

I could read this a few ways:

1a. Some character doing something cool in the cutscene is only cool once.  Cool stuff that happens in the game is cool every time.

1b. You admire the game's difficulty more if you have to try more than once.

1c. As a consequence, watch how you treat failure and setting the player up to try again.  Does your player's character seem like this kind of character?

#2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

Works as is.  See: art games.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite.

Maybe you start programming your game thinking it's going to be a puzzle game where you rewind time to solve levels...  Then you throw in between-scene narration and in-scene discoverable story snippets describing how your protagonist is trying to rewind his real life and replay it in the same manner.

And suddenly you have an epiphany, like a nuclear bomb went off in your head.  Now...  You need to go back and fix your game so that it supports your vision.

(okay, obvious Braid reference)

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Let's fill this in for Tetris.  Every day, a bricklayer took the bricks that appeared and laid them flat into rows.  But because his boss hated him, he would arrange for the bricks to be delivered faster and faster, and he would get misshapen bricks that were hard to fit in.  The bricklayer tried as hard as he could, but eventually there came a time that his workspace overflowed with terrible bricks.  (insert scene of gruesome violence in the office)

Ahem.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

Well, you probably don't want to rewrite your entire game, but IMO once you have the game basically coded and you can play it from start to finish, that's a good time to look at what is working for your game and what isn't.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

Substitute player for character?

Let's make this a game, continue from here, how would you rework these rules as game design rules? :D

[Belimoth]

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.

So relevant to so many things. I've failed at trying to explain this to people before, very eloquently put.

[Graham-]

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.

So relevant to so many things. I've failed at trying to explain this to people before, very eloquently put.

Yeah, it's called describing your relationship. Self-expression, you know.

[Graham-]

Why not re-interpret them as game design rules and see how they fare?

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

I could read this a few ways:

1a. Some character doing something cool in the cutscene is only cool once.  Cool stuff that happens in the game is cool every time.

1b. You admire the game's difficulty more if you have to try more than once.

1c. As a consequence, watch how you treat failure and setting the player up to try again.  Does your player's character seem like this kind of character?

How about:

The player is put in a position where he can go through ordeals, to impact the world in positive ways, that don't have obvious tangible benefits for him.

I think the item is about altruism. You admire a character for doing more than what is needed for him to get the things that he needs, or would obviously benefit from.

Games are about overcoming a challenge, getting a score, getting a cinematic, getting a finisher. In Farmville you compare your shit to your friends'. RPGs, you grind to level or advance the story. I love goofing off in FF7 (or other rpg) talking to townsfolk. There's no benefit to the character doing that. Well, there might be some secrets and stuff, you never know, but that's not the only reason I'm doing it. Those escapades don't have an impact on the game world. If I make a "good" decision in Fable/Mass Effect there's an obvious shift in a meter somewhere. I get more blue sauce. If I stare-down Geometry Wars it's for a highscore.

I like your bit about the cutscenes, and especially trying to succeed more than once. If a player appreciates trying a bunch of times, they've accepted the non-returns of trying only once. Maybe the act of trying repetitively should exist within the game world? Maybe we as players will do things for no reward, but our characters don't seem to unless it's "part of the story." There's no link there.

Games focus very acutely on our "success," how we've succeeded, how much more we've succeeded than someone else, how much further we have yet to go before we succeed. Haven't succeeded? Oh, well, "don't worry, you'll get there, no story until you do." And if it's "impossible" for us to succeed, then it's like, "here, have easy mode, super easy mode; we'll bend over backwards for you, retard our game, anything you want, because you must succeed eventually. That's what the game is for."

You can play a game for reasons other than success, but it's not like the game notices or cares. Game-lovers always bring their own set of rules to an experience. We have our own shit that we bring and follow and use. Non-gamers have a tough time understanding this. They're like, "what's the point of killing a million zillion orcitudes?" And it's like, "what's not the point...." The game doesn't give you the point; you give you the point. The game measures success. You find the value.

Characters are interesting if they do more by their own principles than their rewards. Games care about rewards. Except.... Minecraft! (and, well, every game). In Minecraft you create for the sake of creating. That game may or may not be popular, I don't know.


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EDIT:

I don't think it's about altruism. When characters do things on principle just because it suits them, that's very interesting. Using some philosophy you could call that altruism, but it isn't obviously true.

[Graham-]

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Let's fill this in for Tetris.  Every day, a bricklayer took the bricks that appeared and laid them flat into rows.  But because his boss hated him, he would arrange for the bricks to be delivered faster and faster, and he would get misshapen bricks that were hard to fit in.  The bricklayer tried as hard as he could, but eventually there came a time that his workspace overflowed with terrible bricks.  (insert scene of gruesome violence in the office)

Ahem.

How about:

There was once a guy who wasn't very good at dropping blocks. Every day he'd try to drop the blocks in the obvious way. One day he had an insight, and started to drop the blocks using a more complicated strategy. Because of that, he got to drop way more blocks than he ever thought possible. Until finally, he realized he was never very good at dropping blocks in the first place.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

Well, you probably don't want to rewrite your entire game, but IMO once you have the game basically coded and you can play it from start to finish, that's a good time to look at what is working for your game and what isn't.

I think it's always a good time simplify and focus. If your game has elements that aren't necessary at the end, you missed some refinement opportunities.

Games have a harder time with this because our ideas don't flex as naturally as words-on-a-page. But wait... flexible code is re-usable... if you wrote excellent code... maybe... we'd have more flex than the movie people.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

Substitute player for character?

Let's make this a game, continue from here, how would you rework these rules as game design rules? :D

Make the player comfortable with a way of playing, using move sets in a certain way, dealing with particular patterns. Using the Mario paradigm, you could easily create million levels using the basic building blocks, then divide them endlessly into categories. The actual Mario games are collections of these divisions. Players are always more "used" to one way of playing than another.

Giving the player something unexpected to do is exhilarating. When I got captured in Deus Ex - you actually "die" in one mission then re-awaken in a prison without your freedom and guns for the very first time - I got super excited. I actually reloaded the save a few times and killed all the soldiers before I gave up and stared at the death screen, then realizing that's what was supposed to happen. Very surprising, exciting.

The first half of Gears of War? Exactly like the second half. I can predict the ramp-up. Where's it going? I don't know. Yes I do, it's obvious.

The hard part is turning the player on a dime without frustrating them. They need to suddenly feel a tension, a bunch of questions about, "how will they play now," without taking away the desire to see it through.

[Graham-]

I'll do a few more.

Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

The first half of a game is more exciting than the second half. The second half is exciting just because I've been playing it so long, I have to finish to get my value and resolution.

Good endings do two things, they:
  1. Bring all the interesting bits of the journey to the front of the audience's minds.
  2. Resolve the tension.

Good stories have conflict, somewhere. If you know everything listening to a story, you won't listen. Stories you listen to again and again (willingly) are always giving you new angles to view them from, just because there is so much to see in them. Bad stories have nothing to offer. Your story needs conflict.

The climax brings all that shit out, and says, "here's all the shit you've come to relate to since we've begun." If you can't do that with your story, then it's boring to begin with.

Then the climax resolves that stuff. It gives answers to your questions. Your internal conflict needs to be resolved. Was the main character going to overcome his personal weakness? He's a ninja, so in what way would he do it, know it'll be totally awesome? (Mission Impossible).

Note, in mission impossible, the middle bit is way better than the ending. Know why? The middle bit is about being a ninja. The beginning was about being a ninja, a tech ninja, on a ninja team, with espionage and cunning and double-crossing. The middle was about these things. Then the ending was about, "ooh, this guy is the bad guy, oooh what are the moral reasons for these decisions? oooh, my plot is soo important." Where's the ninja? How was our hero going to use his ninja to ninja the ninja? In what way was he going to evolve from his past mistakes and ninja into the heavens? By moving in slow-motion on the top of a train, being surprised at other characters' ethical decisions, and avoiding death by coincidence. Oh yeah, turn of events there. Question of the movie: how awesome is awesome? Answer: none, explosion, end titles. No resolution, no nothing.

Games? Final Fantasy? Final Fantasy is all about growth and exploring the story. It's about steady refinement and studied comprehension. In what way will the story turn next? In what way will I have to adjust my strategies to greet it? Under what restraints will I have to deal with the next challenge? In what way will my previous preparation be tested? Do the end bosses have anything to do with these things, the skills and work you've put into answering them? Nope, they're just a longer battle. The developers think at the end that the reason we're playing is to "resolve the plot." Right, that's why I turned off Seinfeld for this shit.

Mass Effect's ending? Yeah. Same thing. People play for the choice, they end with a moral.

She says it well: "good endings are hard. Seriously." Like seriously, if you think your game just "finishes" itself, you didn't actually finish it.

[Graham-]

#9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

No boring missions please. Make a flow, or do something else.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone.

Prototype.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Seriously, prototype a lot.

#13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience.

Every time the player is expected to do something he better be given a good reason. The reason should be good within the context of your game's mechanics - i.e. what the player wants - and your game's narrative - i.e. what the character wants.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it.

If you wouldn't burn to play your own game, considering all the options out there, don't make it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

Let the player control the character in the way that he wants. He/she should either be allowed to exercise his will, or be convinced of what his will should be.

The player should not be forced down a path. If a circumstance demands action from a player, and the player doesn't see the point, then the player shouldn't have to perform.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don't succeed? Stack the odds against.

Is there a cost to losing at Halo? Can you lose? So what if you die? So what if you take damage? Health and rebirth are free-er and free. What's the message there?

There are stakes within the narrative, sort-of, but these aren't re-enforced in the mechanics. You have personal stakes sort-of. Failing means you suck. Success means you are focused, or have improved. Are my personal stakes reflected in the game? Is the game an inch different for a master player and me? To us, yes. To the game, no. The personal states, the most important ones, are ignored, invisible. We have nothing to lose. Or if we do, what we actually lose, and what the games says we've lost, are different.

Think about Super Mario Bros 3. You die, and it's silly. If you die too much you get a continue, with a picture of Mario going, "Oh no!" You go to "continue" - notice, the choice is to continue or quit - and Mario is marching on the spot ready to go again. You start a level and he raises his arms, ready to go. The game leads your attention around. It suggests how you should think about failure, trying again, quitting.

Think about Zynga/PopCap games. They're all about showing the player the point of playing. All their games are about easy feedback. "Here, this is how you are doing right now. This is what you'll be doing next. Look, this is what you did before, and what you're doing now. See the change? See, you're getting better. See? SEE?"

What are the personal stakes for the player? What does it mean to play this way or that? Why isn't that explained to me? How is my life different if I succeed this much, or this much? My real life, how is it different?

Minecraft. You set your own goals in Minecraft. Success is achieving the manifestation of your imagination, which was spurred naturally through the basics of survival. If you fail, your imagination welters. If you succeed, you can see your success; you go around and touch it, play with it, improve it... share it. :O. And it's all emergent.



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I'll uh... wait for somebody else before I keep going.

[Miko Galvez]

man, talk about PK tl:dr lol

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone.

This can also mean for design docs.

[Graham-]

I have a habit.

[Lynx]

Games focus very acutely on our "success," how we've succeeded, how much more we've succeeded than someone else, how much further we have yet to go before we succeed. Haven't succeeded? Oh, well, "don't worry, you'll get there, no story until you do." And if it's "impossible" for us to succeed, then it's like, "here, have easy mode, super easy mode; we'll bend over backwards for you, retard our game, anything you want, because you must succeed eventually. That's what the game is for."

I don't think it's about altruism. When characters do things on principle just because it suits them, that's very interesting. Using some philosophy you could call that altruism, but it isn't obviously true.

I was going to point that out!  When you admire a character for trying, it's not necessarily because they're doing something good, but because they're exhibiting passion.  They're going above and beyond an ordinary level of effort.

There just seems to be something in us that admires the scrappy types, the ones who stand up even from a devastating loss...

Which brings me to a thought on game success/failure and our urge to restart the game if we're losing.  Basically, we design around the idea the player is going to succeed-- make that jump, dodge that bullet, push the enemy back from that resource point.  But we need to design for player failure too.

If the player misses the jump, then if the player feels it's the game's fault-- UI too clumsy or unforgiving, and the player is penalized harshly, i.e. having to replay an hour of the game, or having the character losing stats permanently or even permadeath, then the player may decide to stop playing the game, in reaction to that.  What's critical is to inspire in the player a spirit of "try again".

Put it another way.  Let's say the game's an RTS.  If you fall behind in the game, in a positive feedback situation (winning makes you more powerful, losing makes you weaker) your position becomes weaker and weaker, and there's very little you can do to come back.  Negative feedback means the winner gains less, the loser gets some advantages and incentives to help the loser catch up.  How do you want 'try again' to be represented in your RTS-- by restarting the level, resigning the game and beginning a new one (in the case of multiplayer), or maybe by persevering and coming back from the brink of defeat?

So "admire the character more for trying", IMO means that you want to set up your game in a fashion where the player becomes the character who tries and ultimately succeeds despite difficult odds.  So you have to pitch your difficulty level right, and you have to work out the 'try again' game flow.  Do you want to make the game easier if the player is having a hard time?  Or do you want to make it clear and easy to restart from checkpoints spaced not too far apart so the player can try again?   Or...  Some other model of try, try again?

[Lynx]

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Seriously, prototype a lot.

Seriously, no, that's not the intent of #12, I think.

This is more aimed at cliche storytelling.  We all know the standard JRPG cliches-- hero's village is destroyed by big bad guy, hero sets off on quest to fix bad guy's wagon, and encounters a subset of stereotypical characters.  And yet, we so often repeat them, because they <I>feel</I> appropriate.  The big guy with the heavy gun, maybe a bit dim.  The femme fatale.  The wise-cracking rogue.

And when we haul all these old cliches out to play, the player may find all this a bit boring because he or she's seen it in other games.

If we want to retain player interest, we have to do something interesting.  That means looking at what we're doing, gameplay and story, and coming up with a variation that makes it uniquely ours, not Zelda #1516.

#13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience.

Every time the player is expected to do something he better be given a good reason. The reason should be good within the context of your game's mechanics - i.e. what the player wants - and your game's narrative - i.e. what the character wants.

Ironically the player's character has to be malleable in the hands of the player.  Having the player's character do something at odds with the player's desire can be infuriating-- the player may be thinking 'Kill the villain, this is only going to end in tears' and the character is softheartedly turning the villain loose.  Or the player may want the character to strike up a romantic relationship with a companion, and the option doesn't even come up.

So, this kind of needs to be split into two parts: the player's character, and the NPCs that surround the character.  We need to care about the NPCs.  We need to care how our character relates to those NPCs.  And within the game, we need to be able to act out that care, within the game mechanics.

I'm not saying we need to throw in a 'Initiate Romantic Relationship' button or something like that, but it's one of those things that the designer needs to anticipate, and build in a response.

I think of it like programming an adventure game: what happens if players try to VERB that OBJECT?  If they get just a generic response "I can't do that" or "Nothing unusual happens", when they expected something interesting to happen, it takes away from the game.  KISS MORRIGAN should not yield "She's not my type" if it's a legal action in your game.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

Let the player control the character in the way that he wants. He/she should either be allowed to exercise his will, or be convinced of what his will should be.

The player should not be forced down a path. If a circumstance demands action from a player, and the player doesn't see the point, then the player shouldn't have to perform.

So, an argument about the ME3 ending?

Well, I agree with you about that, at any rate, but the thing is that if you're telling a story-based game, you can't code every response to every action the player may attempt...  You have to guide the player down to fixed channels-- did the player pursue peace or war?  Give the player appropriate results, but don't try to nuance it based on whether the player pursued peace by negotiating with NPC A or B, at some point you need to box that scenario up and give it some fixed outputs so you can move on.

For me, what this rule is saying is that the results from the box have to make sense, you have to pay attention to your story's consistency and the logical places where your player really wants to have a choice.

ME3 did some nice things with Paragon and Renegade interrupts for instance.  Even if there was little net outcome, they made your character feel different and gave you a little reward for clicking at the right times.  You felt more like your character was an extension of your will-- if you were thinking 'Dangit, shoot that guy' then you get to react at the right moment.

[Graham-]

So "admire the character more for trying", IMO means that you want to set up your game in a fashion where the player becomes the character who tries and ultimately succeeds despite difficult odds.  So you have to pitch your difficulty level right, and you have to work out the 'try again' game flow.  Do you want to make the game easier if the player is having a hard time?  Or do you want to make it clear and easy to restart from checkpoints spaced not too far apart so the player can try again?   Or...  Some other model of try, try again?

Something like that. Often there is a dissonance between how a play experience goes - the mental journey a player goes through - and how a narrative experience goes - the journey the character goes through. Doing something because it reaps the best rewards and carries no risk is uninteresting. Stories need conflict. Most games have a story like, "Bad Thing. Succeed continuously. Achieve goal." While most play experiences are like, "Try, fail, repeat. Grow." The internal conflict that a player goes through - "How will I fare this time? Will I be quicker on the turns? Will I do something new?" -  frequently lacks an in-game representation.

The true conflict in games, the one in the player - the _player_ trying for more than success - isn't directly addressed most of the time. The game assumes the player can tell his/her own story. Playing in an individual way, trying things that aren't necessary, (being a person?) are the interesting things, but the game never tells you this directly. It assumes that you know. You have to find out how to connect to the events on the screen in your own way. The humanity of an adventure isn't there unless you understand this.

Interesting aside. Nerds live inside their heads... by definition. We have a thing that non-nerds don't. We can play games. The regular public doesn't understand them; they see something different. Expressing ourselves inside our heads is what makes us who we are. So games, which require you to always do that, come naturally to us. If games illustrated the internal narrative required to enjoy them regular folks would enjoy them as much as we do, and we'd enjoy them even more. Why is Farmville so popular for being so obvious... because it gives the mental training wheels that regular social folk need to play. They suddenly "get" the joy of bike riding.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Seriously, prototype a lot.

Seriously, no, that's not the intent of #12, I think.

This is more aimed at cliche storytelling.  We all know the standard JRPG cliches-- hero's village is destroyed by big bad guy, hero sets off on quest to fix bad guy's wagon, and encounters a subset of stereotypical characters.  And yet, we so often repeat them, because they <I>feel</I> appropriate.  The big guy with the heavy gun, maybe a bit dim.  The femme fatale.  The wise-cracking rogue.

Mmm. I meant the abstract idea of a prototype. If you draft an essay it's a kind of a prototype. If you think about what you'd like for dinner, maybe first considering pasta before settling on burgers, the first things you think about are prototypes.

Prototypes are valuable because they lead you away from your first ideas, to your better ones. First ideas are normally cliche. If your ideas don't go through many iterations then they are cliche. I think what she's saying is that no human can arrive at genius in a single idea. People who think that they can don't understand the work required. You have to assume your first ideas are no good. You dig down into the good ones. There's no other way.

Show me a good game that could've been better, I'll show some flaws that would've been obvious had the developers prototyped their ideas first. There's no studio that prototypes enough.

So, an argument about the ME3 ending?

Well, I agree with you about that, at any rate, but the thing is that if you're telling a story-based game, you can't code every response to every action the player may attempt...  You have to guide the player down to fixed channels-- did the player pursue peace or war?  Give the player appropriate results, but don't try to nuance it based on whether the player pursued peace by negotiating with NPC A or B, at some point you need to box that scenario up and give it some fixed outputs so you can move on.

For me, what this rule is saying is that the results from the box have to make sense, you have to pay attention to your story's consistency and the logical places where your player really wants to have a choice.

ME3 did some nice things with Paragon and Renegade interrupts for instance.  Even if there was little net outcome, they made your character feel different and gave you a little reward for clicking at the right times.  You felt more like your character was an extension of your will-- if you were thinking 'Dangit, shoot that guy' then you get to react at the right moment.

I don't disagree with the box. I love Final Fantasy. Those games give you very little choice. You can affect small things in little side-stories, you can explore ideas in your own way, and that's it. ME3 was a mistake because the devs lead players to believe one thing and gave them something else. If you promise your child a particular toy for Christma, you better buy it. If you don't want to buy it - there's a lot of legitimate reasons - then you shouldn't have made the promise. It is up to you. Promise and deliver or don't promise and don't deliver. Either choice is totally fine. What you cannot do is promise and not deliver. There's no excuse for that scenario. Regardless of your reasoning if your child expects something you are responsible for it. Whether they had "reason" to expect it or not doesn't matter. You are the parent; you make the rules, you take responsibility.

The relationship between game-maker and player is the same. It's your game. Do whatever you want with it. You can justify anything; really. But, if you put something in there that raises an expectation in the player, and then you don't deliver, you've made a mistake. When I read a novel I can't make any choices. Everything is determined. I can choose how I imagine certain features - and that's actually a lot of freedom - but I can't determine the plot. I can't choose what the characters say or decide. What determines if I enjoy the novel or not is whether the author convinces me that what happens in their story is a natural conclusion of what happens in mine - and if what happens is interesting. If a character does something that doesn't make sense - if it "breaks" the experience - I'm going to not like it. In that case "my" character miss-aligned with "their" character.

Since I never have any choice all the author has to do is ensure that my expectations are never betrayed. In a game, as a developer, you are bound by the same rules. You can take and give choice to the player as much as you like. There's no rule stating that a player has to get any choice. But if you do give the player choices, then those choices must satisfy his/her expectations of what makes sense. If you don't want to give choices - and that's fine - then you should write a story so that your player doesn't expect to have any. It's not rocket science. Bioware screwed up. I don't care about the ending. I thought all the Mass Effect endings were boring - I liked the games anyway. But someone was upset. It's not hard to see why. So who you gonna blame?

I think ME3 is just a nice metaphor for a lot of mistakes games make. Expect a choice, give a choice. Don't give a choice, don't expect a choice. The number of choices in a game are irrelevant. Freedom is there if a player can relate to a story and their expectations are handled.

Maybe I went on about it.

[JMStark]

The employees of Pixar have provided some great storytelling advice over the years. I remember when I was younger I would listen to the commentaries of their earlier films and became obsessed with learning more about creating stories. While much of what they have to say is obviously more focused on film, which definitely differs from games in many key areas, Lynx shows that storytelling techniques from other mediums do not need to be abandoned entirely, but rather they can be thoughtfully adapted to apply to video games in a meaningful way.

Writing and designing with the split between player and character in mind leads to some very interesting challenges. I do not think the problems it presents have been close to being satisfactorily solved yet.

[Muz]

Love these, especially since they're so short and explain themselves. Hmm... would love to apply them to game designs too, but one thing to keep in mind is that movies tell stories differently to games. Movies want to illustrate a story, and tell it within 2 hours. Games want to stretch a story over a week, ideally in 30 min to 2 hour bursts of gameplay.

A lot of these translate really well to games, though.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Perfect example of something that doesn't translate well to games.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it's not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

Even more important in indie games than movies, especially with all the feature creep.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

I love this one. In the early levels, throw something that the character is GOOD at fighting, something that showcases their strengths. In later levels, give them an enemy that's not simply hard to beat via skills, but hard to beat because it's the character's weakness. Like if the character relies on flamethrowers, have water levels.

One thing I remember from high level AD&D campaigns was that past a certain stage, the heroes become much too powerful, and fights become dice rolling grinds. The solution: Make the enemies smarter. Trolls are vulnerable to fire, make the encounter in some explosive cave where the heroes die if they use fire. Vampires are burned by running water, so hide them in still water or a spell that freezes water.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it.

Also a very solid tip for games. What makes your game different? What stands out? That's your gameplay.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

Very underdone in games - too many cheesy, unbelievable, stereotypes. I think we all grew up with those NPCs who were just repetitive and were conditioned to think that it's what a RPG should feel like. When you make a NPC, just take 10 mins to empathize for them.

[Dr. Cooldude]

Aw, it seems to be down
Oh, it's up again, yay

[Trystin]

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.

So good, I really need to do this next time I sit down to write out a plotline.