Game Stories week 9

Getting a player to identify and connect with a character is an extremely important part of developing a game. Developers try to use the players empathy to connect with a character, especially the protagonist.

The are 6 main elements to the making of a story:

• Plot. The narrative that describes what actually happens.
• Theme. What does it all mean? Why does it happen?
• Character. As in, a single role within the story.
• Diction. The dialogue, and also the actor’s delivery of that dialogue.
• Rhythm. This does include “rhythm” in the sense of music, but also the natural rhythm of human speech.
• Spectacle. This is what Aristotle called the “eye candy” or special effects of his day. He often complained that too many plays contained all spectacle and nothing else – sound familiar?

All stories have the following form:

• The protagonist has a goal, which is created by an inciting incident.
• The protagonist tries to reach the goal, but a gap (that is, some kind of obstacle, not necessarily a literal gap) opens up and prevents the immediate achievement of the goal.
• The protagonist attempts to cross the gap. Either the gap widens and they are unable to cross, or they do cross the gap but a new gap appears.
• This cycle of gap-crossing continues until the protagonist either finally completes the goal, or is prevented from completing the goal in an irreversible manner.
• In a typical three-Act structure, there are two reversals (new gaps) that happen between the Acts.