Storyline Format

#1 I mean no offense by this, but this is what is known as "Frustrated Author Syndrome." Games are a different medium than books, so if you have a 100 page story for a game, it may not be a game at all.

A good book to read is Game Architecture and Design by Rollings & Morris. To quote from them, "There is plot in any game, but for the most part it is created by the player himself. It is the player, not the game's designer, who is the author of the game's events. The game is a tool for allowing the player to create stories." I think everyone should read this book. It really focuses on game design and should be read by every aspiring game programmer (in my opinion). Some of us don't think enough about design and just try to jump in (I've done it myself). I see you are doing design before programming which is a really good thing.

That being said, you can still make a game with an incredibly long story, but then what you have is interactive fiction rather than a game, at least in my opinion. If the story is too long, you probably have a very linear game (which is ok if that's what you're shooting for).

-Kirby

#2 well... you dont really want to write an RPG like a novel because there is a lot of environment that you have to describe which would be a lot easier to design visualy than verbaly. I'm also working on an RPG and what I do is switch between two writting formats, a paragraph description about what is going on and what the characters must do and their interaction with the environment which acts as a designe for the game, and then a script style with exactly what the players are going to say in the game.... heres an example, its a short little part of my RPG, this isnt anything special, just a little peice I picked randomly to give you an impression of what I mean.


Now the player has control of the group again and they can start traveling through the town. First they must navigate their way through the suburb outskirts of the City before they are able to get to the downtown area. They will be able to knock on doors and talk to the occupants, unlike most RPG’s however, they probably will not be too welcome and be looked at more as trespassers than visitors. There will be people outside watering their lawns and washing their cars, if you go talk to them then they might be more friendly. The story does not progress however until the party reaches the center of the town. Skyscrapers define the center of the city, with dark alleys, large traffic congested streets and a majestic park. The city however seems somewhat eerie, after talking to the citizens walking around you soon find out that the city has been afflicted with a resent crime wave, with robberies and murders occurring daily. Your party is told to be careful and take refuge in a hotel before it gets dark, but you heed little warning to the threat, however you could use a rest after your journey, you agree with the citizens around town that it would be a good idea to visit the hotel and stay for the night (this should be a hint to the player to stay in the hotel to make the story progress). Once the party arrives at the hotel the player loses control and they go sit on the couch and chairs in the lobby where they have a conversation…

-Saint: well guys, here we are… Caprious City
-Laurie: ya no kidding, this place is huge…. And I thought Yurkies was big
-Gabe: you thought Yurkies was big??? Haha, you really did appear out of thin air
-Saint: hey, don’t knock Yurkies, it’s a good town
-Gabe: ya well… I guess your right, my home town’s not much of a step up….. nothing like this place
-Saint: this really is impressive
-Laurie: ….. this place is so big, theres gotta be someone here that will recognize me
-Saint: (cheering up a bit) ya Laur! I bet there is
-Gabe: ya, you know, this is the closest town to Yurkies, theres a good chance you live here
-Laurie: (now seeming kinda confused and in disbelief of what Gabe said) ya… I guess I could
-Saint: oh well, tomorrow we can go search for your missing identity… for now I’d like to get some rest, we’ll need it if we run into DarkFigure tomorrow
-Gabe: eh, I wouldn’t worry about that… I can feel him… but his essence is musty, I don’t think he’s been here for a while
-Saint: huh, that’s weird….. oh well, off to bed

The party gets up and goes to the reception desk

-Gabe: yo, clerk guy, you here (as Gabe is slamming on the little bell thing)
-Saint: ha, calm down man
-Clerk: (voice from a back room) sorry sir, I’ll be right out
-Clerk: (walking through a door leading into the back room) good evening sir, I’m assuming you would like to check in?
-Gabe: you assumed right my friend, please give us your cheapest room 
-Saint: (looking kinda embarrassed) uh hey man, don’t we need two rooms?
-Gabe: why?
-Saint: well, you know… don’t you think Laurie would be a little more… comfortable with some privacy?
-Gabe: (yelling over to Laurie) hey Laur, you getting sick of us?
-Laurie: nope
-Gabe: ok, that’s settled, (reading the clerks name tag) now jim, your worst room please?
-Clerk: ha, right away sir
-Gabe: (talking to Saint) hey man, I get what your saying, but hotels are really fucking expensive, we’re really pushing our budget staying here as it is, I mean, I usually just camp out in the woods… Remember, we still need our money to eat
-Saint: (replying to Gabe) ah, point taken
-Clerk: ok sir, here you are, number 435… I hope its crappy enough for you
-Gabe: oh, it better be
-Clerk: (chuckling) haha, goodnight sir
-Gabe: later
-Clerk: (as he’s going turns around and goes through the back door again the player can hear him talk while the party cant) brats… they’ll get theirs

Now your party goes up to their room to bath and rest. Once they get to the door…

#3 Yeah, that's why I asked this question. I realized that a long winded story would make for a bad game. Seems like cutscenes should be written, and gameplay described. Thanks for the tips guys. And look for my awesome game in 2006. |C: So long from now...

#4 so so long *sigh*

#5 You'll want to lay out the basic premise of WHY your game exists. That will be your plot. History behind that plot can be optional for avid fans.

Really, a game plot is a lot like a book, except not as in-depth: the player creates not only the scenary and characters, but also the events surrounding the major plot turns. Just mention things in the plot as if it were a timeline.

#6 try to write mainly dialogue, and minimal story. The story is what teh player should write for the most part.

#7 Actually, it's the other way around... Minimal character interaction and more depth to why the game exists. It depends on what you're doing though.

#8 I think you should fully develope both the story and the character interaction... and as for a concept, I forgot to mention, I wrote one of those before I started writing out the actual game, my concept was pretty much just a page which outlined the greater story of the game, pretty much just a summary of what everything was about, but the story should really be defined as you write the game itself, just use the concept as a general outline.

#9 Yeah, an added monkey wrench in the whole operation is the fact that my story is going to be adaptive..so in a sense, the player really WILL have a direct effect on the story. Basically, the game will determine what happens to the player based on what kinds of actions the player makes. This allows for maximum freedom, problems are going to arise when trying to store all this data, cuz when this branches out, even an hour of gameplay could explode into a huge project. I really gotta make sure I write enough story for it to be interesting, but not so much as to make it an interactive movie (something a lot of non-MGS fans hated about MGS2). Thanks for the info though, I'll keep that in advisement. I got 2 months to write the story and develop a tech prototype (not to mention facilitate the training of my crew, and coordinate the design efforts), so I got a full plate. Gotta keep the turnover time for my story low.

#10 Branching stories can be a problem to make, as you mentioned. Potentially, any decision that the player makes can double the amount of story you have to write - it goes exponential.

A system that you might find useful is to arrange things into "mini-stories" (and depending on your game, several mini-stories could be running at any one time). A mini-story would only have a few branches, making them far easier to handle. The main story again would only need a few branches, and these branches can be chosen depending on how the player resolved the smaller mini-stories.

If that doesn't work... well, to do a large-scale adaptive story requires technology that hasn't really been fully invented yet. i.e. Story-world simulation, or some kind of drama engine. That's definately pioneer stuff :)

#11 Well, I figure my game will break ground in a way that pong did. Pong sucked by today's standards, and its implementation may or may not have been the best. Few games watch the player's gaming style and try to adapt to it. I am by no means claiming that my game will be 100% adaptive, but it will bring a new idea into the gaming world that people are afraid to attempt simply because there is no "clean" way to do it. My way will be very messy probably, and it will more than likely be brute force, but hopefully it will also inspire people to do it better. Journeys start with a single step, and right now, I'm just tying my shoes.

#12 I'd love to hear your ideas about how you're going to get adaptivity to work :) It's a subject that I have a lot of interest in. I personally think the player should set the theme of a game, rather than the storywriter imposing one. Getting the computer to detect and support a theme is another question though...

#13 I haven't really designed any methods as of yet. I've thought about it a few times, and it generally depends on genre. I have an idea on how to use it for action games, but RPGs are a little more tricky as the gameflow should be as seamless as possible. Hit my email (acecorban@acecorban.com) if you wanna discuss. If you inspire any thought in me, I can put ya in "Special Thanks".

Disclaimer: Any discussion may be privy to expansion into my project, so don't waste any intellectual property that you value on me, all I can give ya is ur name in the "Special Thanks" section of credits.

Yeah, definitely don't waste any ground-breaking ideas on me unless you are happy with only being reimbursed your name in the credits. But discussion could perhaps spawn a new revolution in gaming (and perhaps keep single player games alive for atleast another decade or so? Kinda worried about the future of the single-player game.)

#14 But where to start? There's a large forest ahead of us, and only a few people have begun to try to find a path.

I went through a phase a while back, designing some ambitious ideas for adaptive thematic dramatic storytelling, mainly for an adventure/RPG context. The only way I could get it to work was a combination of about four different engines - cooperating with each other to ensure characters, plot, drama and theme all merge into a good story. Some people thought I was insane, and that such a system could never work. Others would pick on one of the engines, ignoring the fact that the other three were supposed to compensate. I happily admit it still needed a lot of designing. I still believe it can work. I also happily admit that I am insane. Go figure :)

However I've stopped designing, probably until my game evolves to the stage where I need it. Which will take at least a year, if I work full-speed.

Anyway I'm still keen to discuss, if you have anything in particular that you want to thrash out. By email or publicly, your choice. The great thing about this topic (and other pioneer topics) is that so few people are brave enough to actually follow the dream, and are more than happy to call the ideas insanity rather than trying to steal them, so hiding the ideas is completely unneccesary :D

#15 If you want a lot of adaptivity, do this:

Have one starting point, and assign a class to each map area in the game. Also assign a class to each choice the character has in the game. When you enter an area or make a choice, its class is given an extra credit (A.class++, B.class++). Then the totals are amounted and the class with the most assigned points is the "winner."

Rather than assign specific results for each portion of the game, create general scenerios that will work with one another. This way, everything will fit together but the game will be different depending on what you do.

Now, to further piece them together, have areas of the game in which your characters discuss what's going on. To acheive this, make sure the scenerios only point out on a larger scale what's happening in the world. This way you won't have to address every single event, only what is learned from them. This way you can insert global variables within your text, so that the plot itself remains unbroken.

That should cut your work in half, although it requires some premeditations on how your plot fits together.

#16 At this point, I don't have the talent on my team to have a dynamically generated story (if that is what you all are talking about). Honestly, I don't believe a story can be generated dynamically by a puter. What it is going to boil down to is essentially a "Choose your own adventure." type story. All of the choices will be decided upon at design time. The only big difference is that in order to maintain a good game flow, the player will never be asked "choose your next destination", the game will basically keep tabs on choices the player makes and use that to decide what the next part of the story is. It is important that the choice making is as seamless as possible to the player. I cannot even begin to fathom how you'd get the game to make its own story, but again, I'm not sure that's what ya'll are getting at either.