In the GDC2017 Talk Narrative Sorcery: Coherent Storytelling in an Open World, Jon Ingold from Inkle demonstrates how state trees can be used to construct robust story quest.
This approach enforces the rule that a narrative state is aware of all the previous states. It's a high water mark.
This can be used to simplify the challenge of determining what a player has been exposed to in nonlinear game play.
GDC2017 Talk: Storytelling Tools to Boost Your Indie Game's Narrative and Game Play by Dr Mata Haggis
copperstonesea.com
Possibly Unrelated
My favorite moments in games are often the quiet times.
Setting and watching the rain in Fallout or Hollow Knight.
Watching the sun set or rise in RDR2 or GTA V.
Waiting for the perfect shot with a sniper rifle.
The beach walk with Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite.
Thoughts on Narrative
A story is about change. Even a game like Tetris is about change. The change is related to the player's motivation.
Start your story before the big events begin.
It's important to build empathy with the characters early. We must want the characters to overcome the challenges ahead. Example: Firewatch.
The Inciting Incident: once the play/character knows their place in the world, we can start to set up the challenges. Increase the narrative or mechanical tension. Add an antagonist or enemies, risk, or break in the usual situation. Overcoming this problem is usually the external motivation of your plot.
the player/character avoids this problem. The player usually doesn't go straight for attacking the problem. They explore, avoid, or attempt smaller battles.
The complexity increases as the story progresses. The basic abilities seem less effective, new enemies are added, new story elements show that things were not so simple... Complexity has to increase to make the experience compelling.
Hope overcomes fear, with effort. The player finds new weapons, tools, strategies, allies. (External Change: leveling up, power ups. Internal Change: determination, skill improvement)
The Black Moment: all the hopes of success are at risk. The final boss is killed, but it's not its final form! All the knowledge, the relationships and the strategies developed through the player's/character's experience are need to overcome the final challenge.
And then, you end it as fast as possible.
Scene Structure
All the scenes or levels in the game must have:
An object (player's target goal or experience)
Conflict that makes the object more difficult to achieve (narrative/mechanical/both)
An outcome is then reached by requiring change from the player/character.
The player either resolve or adapt to the conflict, building to the next part of the experience.
In the GDC2017 Talk Narrative Sorcery: Coherent Storytelling in an Open World, Jon Ingold from Inkle demonstrates how state trees can be used to construct robust story quest.
This approach enforces the rule that a narrative state is aware of all the previous states. It's a high water mark.
This can be used to simplify the challenge of determining what a player has been exposed to in nonlinear game play.
GDC2017 Talk: Storytelling Tools to Boost Your Indie Game's Narrative and Game Play by Dr Mata Haggis copperstonesea.com
Possibly Unrelated My favorite moments in games are often the quiet times.
Thoughts on Narrative
Scene Structure All the scenes or levels in the game must have: