My friend who is in gamedev said I should probably make a storyline for my game before making the game mechanics and other stuff.
Well, that's pretty contentious and depends very much upon the kind of game you want to make. But even in a very story-driven game, you have to choose a story which fits well with the game's mechanics. That means doing both at once, and evolving them at the same time.
Everything depends on what you want from the story; on how you want the story to interact with the game. There is no particular reason why you should aim to make your story believable, metaphorical, or otherwise meaningful (and I say this as a game writer). For every Life is Strange, there's a Super Mario Bros: both are good game stories in their own right because they contextualise and enable gameplay. In many ways Mario's story is more successful than Life is Strange's.
Here's some general advice for you to think about:
* Decide what sort of story you want to have. Is there an overall plot, or is the player repairing the town just because the town needs repairing? I mean, that's already a perfectly good plot for a game.
* Does the player interact with other characters? Is there dialogue? Is there a nemesis the player must fight against? Do you want a plot twist, or to convey a particular message?
* Do you want to tell your story through dialogue, or using the environment? Or silent animation?
I would advice that you incline towards simplicity. Keeping story light and loose, like Pokemon (beat all the gym masters, speak to the occasional character who has a single line or dialogue, where every line is basically a gameplay tip in disguise), is easier to do and more likely to engage players. Complex stories which ask a lot of the player are more likely to fail (I know this from experience).
Telling a novel, innovative, emotionally engaging story in a video game is very hard. If you want to do that, then you need to be a very skilled writer and game designer. And a bit mad. If you don't want to write the Best Game Story Ever, you're already winning and you don't have to worry about whether your story is simple, or predictable, or clichéd. Clichés can be good because we understand them - that's why there are so many stories about World War 2, or the Middle East, or Orcs and Elves. Players understand them instantly and they don't need to invest effort in understanding the basic structure of the world.
So keep it simple, decide how you want the story to be told to the player, and build it up as you go.
Community
