Game Writing and Design Guide Notes #3 - Architecture, Technology, and Strategy

Set the game’s world background

Narrative mainly gives meaning to game design, but many times we are forced to watch long cutscenes before we even start playing, explaining characters we do not know or care about.

In games, players always need a goal or a challenge, so the reasoning behind the story can feel weak.

So what we should do is keep the narration concise and get players into the game as quickly as possible.

For a story-driven game, the best state is a main line with major events and plot, plus the illusion of free action and non-linear play created by design and fiction.

Story and dialogue should burst within a short time. There should not be long cutscenes. Cutscenes should be treated as milestones that provide information, reward the player, and move the game forward.

Explanation and medium

A complete game often needs many explanations: plot explanation, character explanation, world setting explanation, and gameplay explanation. But as mentioned earlier, players hate long explanations. They only want the shortest possible guidance, such as “Open this door.”

So the best approach is to blend various explanations into concise lines, for example:

Sergeant, your task is to check this steam valve. Head to Hill 17.

This single line conveys relationships, worldbuilding, and some plot. With enough lines like this, players gradually fill in the world and the explanations achieve their purpose.

Character and world

The core advantage of games is that they let people enter another reality, another world. Its depth, impact, and breadth are greater than other media.

The world shapes the characters, and players understand the world through those characters.

If the protagonist is a mouse, then cats naturally become enemies, and dogs are likely friends.

Going further, you need to consider the world’s rules: what is your mouse’s background, appearance, and personality? These change the entire world design.

Characters plus the style of the scene – these two together have a major impact on the world you create.

Every story contains another story that did not happen. Every event needs a twist. In branching plots, you can write different directions for the story.