Game Comparision

referred to the game design. This is where the story is told in a linear fashion, but the story can be interrupted by the player sometimes. The reason why this structure is so unique to video games is because the interactivity required for the freedom of the player cannot be found in any other mediums. This type of structure is typically seen in role-playing games. With that being said there is another structure in video games where the story is fully branching, this means that the players play a major role in how the plot, the characters and the story develops and what is the ending of the story. In fully story-based games, this is the structure usually used. It is important to note that the fully branching structure is found before video games, in the form of interactive books. These types of books give the reader choices at the end of each chapter, each choice is sending the reader to a diff erent chapter, which allows the reader to create their own story. The graphics below will show you a summary of all the three structures in video games.

There are also other ways that narrative can be shown to the player in game, such as short cinematic, dialogue, text and the storytelling through the environment and the world. Most video games use diff erent combinations of these narratives to communicate the story elements to the player.

If we compare the games from 40 years ago to the nowadays games, we can see the evolution of narratives in video games. Let’s compare Nintendo’s Donkey Kong and Life is strange. Nintendo’s Donkey Kong is considered to be the fi rst game that actually had a story that players could see unfold on the screen. The game was released in 1981 and it was directed by Shigeru Miyamoto. According to an article about Donkey Kong’s history, ‘Miyamoto wanted to make sure the whole story, simple though it was, could be told on screen in a way that could be instantly

grasped by players. But what exactly is Donkey Kong? Donkey Kong is a 2D platformer, where the player’s character must follow his pet (a monkey), as the monkey has escaped with the player’s girlfriend. Shigeru Miyamoto had a different perspective how to communicate with the player then the rest of the industry at that time. At the beginning of the game, the game uses cutscenes as well as short animations and text to convey the story. What we understand is that the role of the plot is like a motivation to the player, giving them a goal to achieve, which makes the player to want play and progress. As previously discussed, the structure is linear, because the player completes a sequence of levels, however there is no gameplay branching choices, and no player options that lead to story branching. Keeping in mind that this game is from about 40 years ago, we will now look to compare it with ‘Life is strange’. ‘Life is strange’ is an episodic adventure video game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix, where parts of the story are released periodically in ‘chapters’. ‘Life is strange’ has a full branching narrative, because the player’s choices affect the story, and it is ending. From the viewpoint of Max Caulfield, which is the main character who finds out that has an ability to rewind time, the player watches the action unfold before them. Via multiple choice actions and dialogue, the player makes decisions, and all these decisions impact characters and events in the future. This game is completely story-based, which means that the game is trying to tell a story, while the player is controlling how the story will develop and how will end with his decisions and choices’. Comparing these two games, we can see how different they are from one another. First let’s talk about the structure of progression. Nintendo’s Donkey Kong is using a linear structure, while Life is strange is using branching narrative, which means that in the early games’ players are not allowed to interact with the game and its story, no matter how they progress through the game it will never change, it will always stay the same, because players are not given any choices or any decisions to control, change or interact with the story. Players have no control of how the story will develop, or how will end. On the other hand, modern games encourage player interaction, by giving them different choices and decisions that allow players to make their own story. Not only the structure has improved, but also the narrative role also changed. For instance, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong, here we can see that the story existed to provide context to the game and to give players a goal to achieve and a reason to play. While nowadays games are being made with a story in mind before the existing of the actual game, which means that the narrative and the gameplay become equal importance in the game. In a blog post regarding the development of the narrative, the developer Naughty Dog’s games, Chris Bowring writes that “In Uncharted, the story was merely there to logically funnel you from one segment of gameplay to the next. However, in The Last of Us, the story and gameplay is one cohesive whole.” Even though Chris Bowring is talking about ‘Last of us’ which is another story-based video game similar to ‘Life is strange’, we can agree with the context. Video games are becoming more and more advanced and complex, which allows the game narratives to evolve the same way. The computational ability of early games was very limited to small games such as 2D Games that could not accommodate the complexity required for such narratives to exist. Nowadays games have a massive budget that allows developers to invest in complex and detailed narratives. Early games have embedded narratives, which means that the narrative content that exists is pre-generated. At the end what we can say is narrative in video games has evolved and became more complex and more detailed moving from embedded to emergent, from stories used to show games to games used to tell stories.