AFT715-NARRATIVE SKILL OF GAME

DEVELOPMENT
COURSE COORDINATOR :- KRISHN VERMA (20194)
COURSE DESCRIPTION:

• “AFT715- Narrative Skill of Game Development” is a basic course of

quest design in game with design theory principles.
• This course provide an opportunity to put our theoretical
understanding of the subject in perspective, as well as give us a
sense of what makes both classic and contemporary games
compelling from a user’s vantage point.
COURSE OBJECTIVE

To provide the student with

1. - a broad sense of the history of video games as an art form and an industry
2. - a sense of the social impact of video games
3. -an understanding of the organization and culture of the video game industry
4. -enough information about video games to decide whether they would like to work in the industry,
5. and to identify potential roles they would play in it
6. -enough basic knowledge to qualify for an entry-level job in the video games industry, should they
choose to pursue one
COURSE OUTCOME

Through this course students should be able to

• develop the understanding of the vocabulary which relates to each of the
major elements of game design, game theory, and its rules and its principle
• By applying the fundamental basic ,will be able to execute GDD document .
• To develop full understanding of game development pipeline and will be able
understand structure of game development.
COURSE CONTENT

• INTRODUCTION TO GAME CULTURE PIPELINE AND GAME DESIGNER RESPONSIBILITY,DOK LEVEL OF

GAME DESIGN
• GAME HISTORY AND ITS DOCUMENTATION
• PLAY GROUND GAME DESIGN AND TRADITIONAL GAME
• GAME CONTENT DEVELOPMENT AND GAME THEORY
• PRINCIPLE OF GAME DESIGN
• DESIGN PROTOTYPE AND PLAYTESTING AND FINISHING AND RELEASING BORAD GAME
• 2d GAME DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT CODING LIKE FLAPPY BIRD USING GAME MAKER OR STYNCL etc
METHODS OF EVALUATION

• Attendance and Participation

• The best way to demonstrate what you have been learning as well as fine
tune your ideas in dialogue with your classmates.
• This means regular and prompt attendance, coming to class having done the
work.
• Speaking when you have something to say, and listening respectfully.
• An excess of two absences over the course of the semester will negatively
impact your grade
CLASS BLOG

• Once a week, you are expected to post 1-2 paragraphs to the class blog
(http://nyugames.blogspot.com).
• You will write a minimum of 10 posts during the semester, asking questions or
making observations about the readings and/or class discussions, or alerting us to
some new and interesting development in video game industry, culture or design.
• Can cover anything up to and including other’s class. They will be used frequently
to guide our discussions. These assignments are not graded individually, and you
cannot make them up. Each post isworth 10 points towards your grade for this
segment.
 GAME PRESENTATION

• Once during the course you will be responsible for researching and playing a game on your own time, and then
presenting it to the rest of the class during “lab” time.
• We will assign games and dates during the first class. While this should be fun, it should also be scholarly: discuss the
game from a critical perspective, bringing our class readings and discussions to light, as well as your own experiences and
interpretations. I
• We will look for the following three characteristics in your evaluation.

• Organization.
• You must send me a digital copy of the presentation via email, before class starts.
To minimize technical difficulties and delays everyone will use the personal or respective issued computer , which will be
waiting for you in the classroom.
CONTAINT
You are free to pick any game you want. In presenting your game, please answer the following questions:

➢who is the developer?

➢Who is the publisher?

➢When did it come out?

➢On what platforms is it available?

➢What is the estimated number of sales (units sold/shipped)?

➢What does the game play look like? What is the main demographic for this game?

➢What do you think is noteworthy about the game (and why)?

Format.
You will also be evaluated based on your ability to present in a cogent
manner. This
means:
1. You address the whole group and not face away.
2. Your presentation is no longer than 20 minutes.
3. You speak in a relaxed, clear manner.
4. You do not read of a piece of paper or from a slide.
Plagiarism
Academic plagiarism is a serious offense. If you do it, in any form, you will fail the entire
course. Just to be clear, this includes every unacknowledged use of materials written by
others (even sentences or obvious paraphrases without quotes).

Late Assignments
Late assignments will be marked down one letter grade for every day they are overdue.
If you think you are going to be late with an assignment, you must notify me before the
assignment is due (and this does not mean an email an hour before class).
Please respect yourself and me.
Lame excuses and lying will not be tolerated.
Texts and Supplies
Readings will be made available digitally. In addition, students are encouraged to immerse
themselves in
the business and culture of games, by reading web sites such as the ones listed below:

>Joystiq: http://www.joystiq.com/
• Kotaku: http://www.kotaku.com/
• Wonderland: http://www.wonderlandblog.com/
• Terra Nova: http://terranova.blogs.com/
• Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/
• Slashdot: http://games.slashdot.org/
• ChrisM: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ChrisM/
• 1up: http://www.1up.com/
• Magic Box: http://www.themagicbox.
com/gaming.htm
• Game Industry Biz: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
• GameSpy: http://www.gamespy.com
• Gama Sutra: http://www.gamasutra.com
• Blue’s News: http://www.bluesnews.com/
• Water Cooler Games: http://watercoolergames.org/
• Serious Games: http://www.seriousgames.org/
• Greg Costikyan: http://www.costik.com/
• Avant Game: http://avantgame.blogspot.com/
• Raph Koster’s blog: http://RaphKoster.com
• Re-Mission: http://www.re-mission.net/
• Select Parks: http://www.selectparks.net/
• Eddo Stern: http://www.eddostern.com/
• Speed Demos Archive:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/
• Addicting Games:
http://www.addictinggames.com/
• Game Girl Advance:
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/
• Int’l Game Dev Assoc: http://www.igda.org/
• International Hobo: http://www.ihobo.com
• Video Game Museum:
http://www.vgmuseum.com/
Storytelling is a feature of daily experience.

We do it without thinking about it when we recount some experience we

have had, whether it is the story of how the golf match went with our
friends, or a fiction made up for story time with our children.

Video games often include fictional stories that go beyond the events of
the games themselves.

Game designers add stories to enhance a game’s entertainment value,

to keep the player interested in a long game, and to help sell the game to
prospective customers.
For the topic of episodic storytelling in games, the Internet has helped to make possible.

Why Put Stories in Games?

❑Stories can add significantly to the entertainment that a game offers.

✓Without a story, a game is a competition: exciting, but artificial.

✓A story gives the competition a context, and it facilitates the essential act of
pretending that all games require.

✓A story provides greater emotional satisfaction by providing a sense

of progress toward a dramatically meaningful, rather than an abstract, goal.
 Why Put Stories in Games?
❑Stories attract a wider audience.

✓To motivate them to play; if the game offers only challenges and no story,
they won’t buy it.

✓Although adding a story makes development of the game cost more, it

also makes the game appeal to more people.

❑Stories help keep players interested in long games.

✓Simple, quick games such as Bejeweled Candy Rush don’t need a story.
 Why Put Stories in Games?
❑Stories help to sell the game
A simple game such as Space Invaders requires only a one-line backstory
and nothing else: “Aliens are invading Earth, and only you can stop them.”

Indeed, such a game should not include any more story than that; a story
only distracts the player from the frenetic gameplay
 GREAT DEBATE ABOUT THEORTICAL ARGUMENTS.

➢The game industry doesn’t even know what to call it.

Interactive storytelling, interactive narrative, interactive
drama, interactive fiction, and story-playing have all been
proposed.

➢The narratologists (people who study narrative)

conducted fierce and often impenetrable arguments with
the ludologists (people who study games and play)
The following factors affect how much of a story a game

1)Length, 2)Characters , 3)Degree of realism ,4) Emotional richness.

Length:

➢As the previous section said, the longer a game, the more it benefits from a story.

➢A story can tie the disparate events of a longer game into a single continuous
experience and keep the player’s interest.
Characters:

➢If the game focuses on individual people (or at least, characters the player can
identify with, whether human or not) then it can benefit from a story.

➢If the game revolves around large numbers of fairly anonymous people—such as the
visitors in Theme Park—then adding a story won’t be easy.
The following factors affect how much of a story a game

1)Length, 2)Characters , 3)Degree of realism ,4) Emotional richness.

Degree of realism :
➢Abstract games don’t lend themselves to storytelling; representational ones often do.

➢It is difficult to write a compelling story about a purely artificial set of relationships
and problems, while a realistic game can often benefit from a story.
➢Highly realistic vehicle simulators and sports games usually don’t include stories
because the premise of the game doesn’t require one
Emotional richness :
➢Ordinary single-player game play seldom inspires any but a few emotions:
pleasure in success; frustration at failure; determination to do , perhaps;
and occasionally an aha! moment when the player figures out a puzzle
➢Deeper emotions can come only when the player identifies with characters and their
problems, which happens within a well-written story
STORY
➢ In the loosest definition, a story is an account of a series of events, either historical or fictitious.
➢ For the purpose of putting good stories into games, we need to expand the original
➢ definition beyond “an account of a series of events.” A minimally acceptable story,
➢ then, must be credible, coherent, and dramatically meaningful.
• Credible simply means that people can believe the story, although in the case of fiction, they may
have to suspend some disbelief to make belief possible
• Coherent means that the events in a story must not be irrelevant or arbitrary but must harmonize
to create a pleasing whole.
• Dramatically meaningful, the story’s events have to involve something, or preferably someone,
the listener cares about. The story must be constructed in such a way as to encourage the listener
to take an interest in, and preferably identify with, one or more of the story’s characters
INTERACTIVE STORIES

• An interactive story is a story that the player interacts with by contributing

actions to it. A story may be interactive even if the player’s actions cannot
change the direction of the plot.
• Normally written using the past tense. An interactive story, on the other hand,
takes place now, with the player in the middle of the series of events, moving
forward through those events.
• Furthermore, the player’s actions form part of the story itself, which makes an
interactive story very different from a story presented to a passive audience
INTERACTIVE STORIES
• An interactive story includes three kinds of events:
• Player events (are actions performed directly by the player. In addition to giving the
player actions to perform as part of game play to overcome atomic challenges without
talking to create dramatic action)

• In-game events (are events initiated by the core mechanics of the game. These events
may be responses to the player’s action (such as a trap that snaps when the player steps
on a particular stone) or independent of the player’s actions (such as a simulated guard
character checking to see that the castle doors are locked.

• Narrative events (are events whose content the player cannot change, although he may
be able to change whether they occur or not. A narrative event narrates some action to
the player; he does not interact with it )
INTERACTIVE STORIES

• if the player’s actions do not change the direction of the plot (that is, the plot is linear)
the story is not interactive.
• The power to change the direction of the plot—the story’s future events—is called
agency.
• Some designers feel that if a game with a story does not offer the player agency, it can’t
be said to be a truly interactive story.)
• If his decision does not actually affect the future events of the story, he has no agency.
But his decision about how to get through contributes to the plot; his own actions are
part of his experience of the game. This is how a story can be linear and still be
interactive.
NARRATIVE
• The term narrative refers to story events that are narrated—that is, told
or shown—by the game to the player. Narrative consists of the non-
interactive, presentational part of the story.
• Narrative consists of the text or the discourse produced by the act of
narration
 WHAT IS NARRATIVE TEXT?
• Narrative text is a kind of text to retell the story that Linguistic features :
past tense. The purpose of the text is to entertain or to
amuse the readers or listeners about the story. 1. Use active verbs.

• The generic structure of Narrative text : 2. Use past tense.

• Orientation :
It set the scene and introduce the participants (it answers the question : 3. Use conjunction (and, then, after that, next,
who, when, what, and where). etc) Also Temporal conjunction, like: once upon a
• Complication : time, one day, long time ago, …
Tells the problems of the story and how the main characters solve them.
4. The first person (I or We) or the third person
• Resolution : (He, She, or They).
The crisis is revolved, for better or worse.

• Re-orientation : 5. Use specific nouns.

The ending of the story. Maybe, happy ending or sad ending.
6. Use adjective and adverbs
• Evaluation :
The stepping back to evaluate the story or the moral message of the story
THE ELEMENTS AND STRUCTURE OF NARRATIVE

• Narrative writing is not just a writing style. As much as narrative demands creativity, it also demands
discipline. Much of that discipline falls into the three categories examined here:
• Development of the elements or ingredients of a story.
• Development of the narrative structure.
• Knowing what not to use in the story itself and how to use supplementary “layers” to enhance the story
presentation and to tell the story using multi-media
• Example- The Legend of Toba Lake

• Once upon a time, there was a man who was living in north Sumatra. He lived in a simple hut in a farming field. The did
some gardening and fishing for his daily life.
One day, while the man was do fishing, he caught a big golden fish in his trap. It was the biggest catch which he ever had
in his life. Surprisingly, this fish turned into a beautiful princess. He felt in love with her and proposed her to be his wife.
She said; "Yes, but you have to promise not to tell anyone about the secret that I was once a fish, otherwise there will be a
huge disaster". The man made the deal and they got married, lived happily and had a son.
Few years later, this son would help bringing lunch to his father out in the fields. One day, his son was so hungry and he
ate his father’s lunch. Unfortunately, he found out and got furious, and shouted; “You damned son of a fish”. The son ran
home and asked his mother. The mother started crying, felt sad that her husband had broke his promise.
Then she told her son to run up the hills because a huge disaster was about to come. When her son left, she prayed. Soon
there was a big earthquake followed by non-stop pouring rain. The whole area got flooded and became Toba Lake. She
turned into a fish again. Finaly it became a lake. People then call it LAKE TOBA
THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE

• The primary function of narrative in a video game is to present events over

which the player has no control.
• Typically these events consist of things that happen to the avatar that the
player cannot prevent and events that happen when the avatar is not
present, but we still want the player to see or to know about them.
• Scenes depicting success or failure are usually narrative events
• Narrative also lets you show the player a prolog to the game or the current
level if you want to. It not only introduces the player to the situation in the
game—the game’s main challenge—but also to the game world itself.
THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE

• If you don’t design that culture and history, the game world will feel like a
theme park: all false fronts and a thin veneer over the game’s mechanics.
• To establish a feeling of richness and depth, you must create a background,
and you can reveal some of that through narration.]
• Narrative very often serves as a reward when the player achieves a major
goal of the game—he gets to see a movie or read more of the story he’s
playing through.
• Players who don’t like stories in games usually ignore these narrative
moments, but many players enjoy them a great deal.
NARRATIVE BLOCKS
• Many video games use blocks of narrative material—brief episodes of non interactive content—to tell parts of the story.
• Designers commonly use a narrative block as an opening sequence,
➢ to introduce the story at the beginning of the game; as an ending sequence,
➢ to wrap up the story when the player completes the game; as an inter evel sequence that often takes the form of a briefing about
what the player will encounter in the next level (or chapter or mission);
➢ or in the form of cut-scenes, that is, short non-interactive sequences presented during play that interrupt it momentarily.
• Narrative blocks presented between levels tend to last from 30 seconds to 4 or 5 minutes.
• Players of slower-moving games such as adventure games or role-playing games tolerate long cut-scenes better.
• Players who like fast-moving genres such as real-time strategy games or action-adventures are annoyed if you keep them
listening or watching for too long without giving them something to do.

All narrative material must be interruptible by the player. Provide a button that allows players to skip the
sequence and go on to whatever follows, even if the sequence contains important information that players
need to know to win the game. A player who has played the game before already knows what the narrative
contains.
BALANCING NARRATIVE AND GAMEPLAY BY
DRAMATIC TENSION AND GAME PLAY TENSION

• Because playing games is an active process and watching a narrative is a passive one, the player notices
the difference between them.
• The more narrative you include, the more the player sits doing nothing, simply observing your story.
• Too much narrative also tends to make the game feel as if it’s on rails, the player’s actions serving only
to move the game toward a predestined conclusion.
• When the designer takes over too much of the telling, the player feels as if he’s being led by the nose.
He doesn’t have the freedom to play the game in his own way, to create his own experience for himself.
 DRAMATIC TENSION AND GAME PLAY TENSION
• When a reader reads (or a viewer watches) a story, she feels dramatic tension, the sense that
something important is at stake coupled with a desire to know what happens next. (Screenwriters call
this conflict, but game developers use conflict to refer to the opposition of hostile forces in a game and
prefer dramatic tension
• When a player plays a game, he feels game-play tension, also a sense that something important is at
stake and a desire to know what happens next. But game-play tension arises from a different source
than dramatic tension does; it comes from the player’s desire to overcome a challenge and his
uncertainty about whether he will succeed or fail. In multiplayer games, the player’s uncertainty about
what his opponents will do next also creates game-play tension
• A key difference between dramatic tension and gameplay tension lies in the differing abilities of these
feelings to persist in the face of randomness and repetition.
• Randomness means unpredictable and arbitrary changes in the course of events.
• Repetition refers to identical (or extremely similar) events occurring at different times in the progress of the story or
game.
 THE STORYTELLING ENGINE AND CORE MECHANICS
Weaving events as third component of video game along with the core mechanics and the user interface refers as
Story telling engine.

Core mechanics generate the game-play and the storytelling engine manage the interweaving of narrative events
into the game.

The core mechanics oversee the player’s progress through the game’s challenges and the storytelling engine oversees
the player’s progress through the game’s story.

The storytelling engine and core mechanics must work together to create a single, seamless experience.

Lets understand the relationship between story telling engine , core mechanics and user interface

http://aesopstoryengine.com/
 PLAYER

Output Output

USER INTERFACE

Narrative Events In Game Events

Player Events

Triggers
STORY TELLING ENGINE CORE MECHANICS

Relationship between story telling engine , core mechanics and user interface
Normally, the level designers do the work that actually implements such events in the game. Among the level designer’s tools for level-
building will be a mechanism The relationship between storytelling engine, core mechanics, and user interface STORYTELLING ENGINE
CORE MECHANICS USER INTERFACE PLAYER Outputs Narrative Events In-Game Events Triggers Player Events Inputs for detecting the
avatar’s position and for triggering both the cut-scene and the transfer of the avatar’s property.
 HOW TO STRUCTURE A STORY: THE EIGHT-
POINT ARC
• You’re a short story writer or flash fiction writer rather than a novelist, this structure still applies, so don’t be put off by
the title of Watts’ book.

The eight points which Watts lists are, in order:

1. Stasis
2. Trigger
3. The quest
4. Surprise
5. Critical choice
6. Climax
7. Reversal
8. Resolution
 Structure of A STORY
• 1. Stasis
This is the “every day life” in which the story is set. Think of Cinderella sweeping the ashes, Jack (of Beanstalk
fame) living in poverty with his mum and a cow, or Harry Potter living with the Dursley’s.
• 2.Trigger
Something beyond the control of the protagonist (hero/heroine) is the trigger which sparks off the story. A fairy
godmother appears, someone pays in magic beans not gold, a mysterious letter arrives … you get the picture.
• 3.The quest
The trigger results in a quest – an unpleasant trigger (e.g. a protagonist losing his job) might involve a quest to
return to the status quo; a pleasant trigger (e.g. finding a treasure map) means a quest to maintain or increase
the new pleasant state.
• 4. Surprise
This stage involves not one but several elements, and takes up most of the middle part of the story. “Surprise”
includes pleasant events, but more often means obstacles, complications, conflict and trouble for the
protagonist.
Watts emphasizes that surprises shouldn’t be too random or too predictable – they need to be unexpected, but
plausible/appealable. The reader has to think “I should have seen that coming!”
• 5. Critical choice
At some stage, your protagonist needs to make a crucial decision; a critical choice. This is often
when we find out exactly who a character is, as real personalities are revealed at moments of high
stress. Watts stresses that this has to be a decision by the character to take a particular path – not
just something that happens by chance.
In many classic stories, the “critical choice” involves choosing between a good, but hard, path and
a bad, but easy, one.
In tragedies, the unhappy ending often stems from a character making the wrong choice at this
point – Romeo poisoning himself on seeing Juliet supposedly dead, for example.
• 6.Climax
The critical choice(s) made by your protagonist need to result in the climax, the highest peak of tension, in your story.
For some stories, this could be the firing squad leveling their guns to shoot, a battle commencing, a high-speed chase or
something equally dramatic. In other stories, the climax could be a huge argument between a husband and wife, or a
playground fight between children, or Cinderella and the Ugly Sisters trying on the glass slipper.
• 7.Reversal
The reversal should be the consequence of the critical choice and the climax, and it should change the status of the
characters – especially your protagonist. For example, a downtrodden wife might leave her husband after a row; a
bullied child might stand up for a fellow victim and realize that the bully no longer has any power over him; Cinderella
might be recognized by the prince.
Your story reversals should be inevitable and probable. Nothing should happen for no reason, changes in status should
not fall out of the sky. The story should unfold as life unfolds: relentlessly, implacably, and plausibly.
• 8.Resolution
❑ The resolution is a return to a fresh stasis – one where the characters should be changed, wiser and enlightened, but where the
story being told is complete.
❑ (You can always start off a new story, a sequel, with another trigger…)
❑ I’ve only covered Watts’ eight-point arc in brief here. In the book, he gives several examples of how the eight-point arc applies to
various stories. He also explains how a longer story (such as a novel) should include arcs-within-arcs – subplots and scenes where
the same eight-point structure is followed, but at a more minor level than for the arc of the entire story.
Tone – creepy, light-hearted, sentimental, etc. – what will the audience feel?

Main Character – what does a viewer think about your main character?

Subject Matter – is the film set in the world of nuclear physics or beauty pageants?

Hooks – outside of plot and approach, what unique elements are there?

Special Interests – does the film encroach on a world outside of itself?

Source Material – is the film based on a book, short film or YouTube channel?
 GAME STORY IN GAME
A linear story in a video game looks similar to a linear Nonlinear Story
story in any other medium, in that the player cannot If you allow the player to influence future events and
change the plot or the ending of the story. change the direction of the story, then the story is
nonlinear.
➢Linear stories require less content than nonlinear Structures for nonlinear Story
ones. a) Branching stories
➢The storytelling engine is simpler. b) Fold back stories
➢Linear stories are less prone to bugs and absurdities.
➢Linear stories deny the player agency Granularity in the context of games that tell a story,
➢Linear stories are capable of greater emotional refers to the frequency with which the game presents
power elements of the narrative to the player.

Emergent narrative refers to storytelling produced entirely by player actions and in-game events (LeBlanc, 2000).
Emergent narrative storytelling does not contain narrative blocks (which he calls embedded narrative) created by a
writer.
The story emerges from the act of playing. There is no separate storytelling engine and no preplanned story
structure, either linear or branching; in principle, anything can happen at any time so long as the core mechanics
permit it.
 BRANCHING STORY
• The branching story mechanism is the classic method
for creating interactive stories that give players lots of
agency.
• The branch points don’t always have the same
number of branches leading away from them. A story
can branch in any number of directions at any given
point.
• The branches go down or sideways, but they never go
back up again. The diagram depicts the possible
progress of a story, and stories always move forward
in time, never backward.
• The diagram shows only one start point, but in fact a
story could have several start points if the player
made a key decision before the story actually began.
• Storytelling engine could choose from among several
designated start points at random just to make the
beginning different each time the player plays the
game.
DISADVANTAGES OF THE BRANCHING STORY
• Branching stories are extremely expensive to implement because each branch and each branch point
require their own content.
• Suppose 21 branch points and 35 different branches, each of which requires its own story content:
game-play and narrative material. If none of the branches merged again, there would be even more.
This rapid growth in the number of branches is called the combinatorial explosion
• Combinatorics is the field of mathematics that studies the number of possible combinations of a set of
things—in this case, a set of branch points in a branching story.
• Every critical event (those that affect the entire remainder of the plot) has to branch into its own
unique section of the tree.
• The player must play the game repeatedly if he wants to see all the content.
FOLD-BACK STORIES

• These are also sometimes called multi-linear stories. This may happen several
times before the end of the story.
• Most foldback stories have one ending, as shown in the figure.
• The foldback story is the standard structure used by modern games to allow the
player some agency without the cost and complexity of a branching story.
• Developers routinely construct the interactive stories in adventure games and
role-playing games as foldback stories.
• It is the easiest to devise and the most commercially successful.
Emergent Narrative
Emergent narrative, a term introduced by designer Marc LeBlanc in his
Lecture “Formal Design Tools” at the 2000 Game Developers’
Conference, refers to storytelling produced entirely by player actions
and in-game events (LeBlanc, 2000).

Emergent narrative storytelling does not contain narrative blocks

(which he calls embedded narrative) created by a writer.
The story emerges from the act of playing.

There is no separate storytelling engine and no preplanned story

structure, either linear or branching; in principle, anything can happen
at any time so long as the core mechanics permit it.
 ENDING WHEN TO USE MULTIPLE ENDINGS
• The different possible endings reflect the •Devise multiple endings for your story if—and only
player’s dramatic choices—critical decisions the
player made in the course of the interactive if—each one will wrap up the story in a way both
story— rather than her ability to overcome dramatically meaningful and emotionally consistent
challenges, then the player will definitely expect with the player’s choices and play.
her choices to affect the outcome of the story.
then the player will definitely expect her choices •If you didn’t give the player a lot of dramatic
to affect the outcome of the story. freedom, then there’s no point in giving her different
• Games that include a lot of decision-making— endings
especially moral choices, which feel dramatically
important—should be nonlinear and offer •You may have to create several endings, depending
multiple endings.
on how many critical choices you gave the player
MEANING-EFFECTS
• A meaning-effect is defined by Bundgaard (2010, p. 5) as ‘‘a cognitive response to a
textual stimulus.’’ Meaning-effects ‘‘cover the whole spectrum going from purely
emotional responses to highly elaborate interpretations’’ (Bundgaard, 2010, p. 5).
• A meaning-effect is not limited to a textual stimulus, but understood analogously as
something that is caused by a stimulus from a video game
• Studying how games can be used to create the meaning wanted by a designer, how
they create meaning despite the intentions of the designer, and how players create
meaning from the games they play is a large and complex set of questions, which is
why the focus is here limited to the more limited sense of meaning-effect
• Focalization, Mode of narration, and Granularity are some tools which can be used
to create meaning-effects in video games.
 TOOLS FOR MEANING MAKING
• Focalization, Mode of narration, and Granularity are the tools to discuss meaning making
in video game narration.
• These three concepts are discussed together because they all pertain to the perspective
and the way of telling the player/reader what it is that they are seeing and how.
• They all concern the perspective of telling: the way the narrative is told, and the point of
view the narrative is told from.
• During development of narratological tools for future research . In current scenario above
tools are these concepts will discussed in order to give game scholars a more
comprehensive vocabulary for studying how games create and contain stories.
• Designers can use these tools to convey the things they want to convey in a consistent and
effective manner.
• Means it does mean that the designer have sole authority on the meaning of a game.
• What designers can do is to aim for the best possible representation of their intent.
 Focalization
• Focalization
Zero External Internal
• Focalization is the point of view
Focalization Focalization Focalization
things are seen from.
• This can be the point of view of a Story is not External Internal focalization
character present in the story, those focalized into a focalization gives grants access to
of several characters, or even character but is a behaviorist their mental
outside any sentient being, a point told from outside view on the landscapes.
in space. any of them. characters

• Any of these can include ➢The difference between external and internal focalization is whether
evaluations, judgments, or feelings. there is access to the characters’ thoughts and emotions.
➢These can be mixed in a single narrative, and all three can be
• In the case of a point-in-space present.
perspective, the evaluations can be ➢This full scale of perspectives can be found in video games.
those of a narrator. .

• Genette (1988)calls this perspective.

He classifies perspective into three
categories:
• ZERO FOCALIZATION
• Games that are focused on the strategic level tend to have zero focalization. Example : Command &
Conquer RTS game (Westwood Studios, 1995). where the game is portrayed from a free-floating
isometric view. It can freely shift around the map, paying attention to areas chosen by the player.
• Real-time strategy games use a ludic mechanics related to the point of view.
• It is commonplace for the view of the player to be limited to a small area.
• This limitation is described with a term borrowed from military theory, ‘‘fog of war.’’ The fog of war
works in two similar manners. First, only the area that the player’s units are able to see is revealed to
them.
• To learn about the surrounding terrain, it is necessary to explore the game map. Second, when no units
can see a certain area, changes in that area are not shown to the player and that area is shown as
partially hidden.
• Enemy movement, new buildings, and other changes become evident only when the player sends units
to scout the area.
• This means that while the literal point of view might be a bird’s-eye view of the map, the perspective at
least partially blends with that of the commanded troops.
• Only information available to them is available to the commander.
• External Focalization
• External focalization is typical to video games: the story is told from the perspective of a central protagonist, but
from a behaviorist point of view, without access to the character’s consciousness.
• A player may control the actions of the protagonist without having access to their mental landscape.
• This is where games differ from literature. The player’s perspective may be inside the body of a character (i.e.,
first-person perspective), up to and including having control of all of their actions, without having any access to
their mental perspective.
• Example : Text adventure game Zork .The game is seen from the perspective of ‘‘you,’’ but this you lacks any
distinct qualities. This featureless you is used also in other text adventure games.
• Zork is one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre
game Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written between 1977 and 1979 using the MDL
programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels,
and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group. Infocom later brought out personal
computer versions.
• Internal Focalization
• Internal focalization can be achieved in games with measures similar to those in
literature.
• Video games can make use of the character-internal perspective to achieve a perspective
not available in literature. This perspective is embodied in the physical perspective of the
character being played but does not allow access to their mental landscape in the
manner of internal focalization.
• In other words, the player has control over a character’s actions while not having access
to the character’s mental landscape.
• Ex: Assassin’s Creed III, The Assassin’s Creed series uses a metanarrative in which the
player controls a protagonist called Desmond in the games’ near-future present and
Desmond’s different ancestors in their historical environments.
• Desmond is part of an organization known as the Assassins, who fight against their
eternal enemies, the Templars.
GRANULARITY

• Granularity, in the context of games that tell a story, refers to the frequency with which the game
presents elements of the narrative to the player.
• According to Bundgaard (2010, p. 26), ‘‘[g]ranularity and density capture the fineness/coarseness of a
description and its richness with respect to elements mentioned within it.’’
 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Environment Forest Waterfall Ruins Cave
No: Of levels 1 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 15 5
Player Acquire Sword Kamandal relic Tool relic Beads relic
Vedas relic Final Pieces Of
medallion

No: Medallion 3 pieces 4 pieces 4 pieces 3 pieces

pieces Player
Collect

No: of Boss 1 1 1 2
Event triggering Level 1: PC Level 8: Level 11: Level 16: Boss
levels Acquire Sword Explains the Explains the Fight to Acquire
Level 3: importance of importance of Beads relic.
Explains the Kamandal. Tools. Level 20: final
importance of Level 9: Boss Level 12: Boss Boss Fight to
vedas. Fight to Acquire Fight to Acquire Acquire final
Level 4: Boss Kamandal relic Tool relic. pieces of
Fight to Level 15: medallion
Acquire Explains the
Vedas relic importance of
Beads.
Movement
Ground movements
Walk and run
movement speeds are available:
● Default speed: Running
Walk & run direction
The player can only ask his PC to move right or left. The direction is controlled by two button
the right or the left. The PC will automatically face that direction.
Jump
The PC can jump, either to avoid a fall or to reach a higher platform.
The direction of the jump is controlled by <- ,->Directional buttons and jump button
Wall Jump
Player Character Can perform wall jump to reach the higher platform which PC can not reach
with normal Jump. Wall Jump is controlled by using combo of <- ,->Directional buttons +
jump button + jump button . Till you reach the platform .
Damage management
Every time the PC attacked by an AI the following events will take place:
1. The PC will lose 10% of its maximum health points from one hit by the normal
minions AI.
2. The PC will lose 20% of its maximum health points from one hit by the Standard
minions AI.
3. The PC will lose 33% of its maximum health points from one hit by the Boss AI.
Every time the PC will hit an Obstacle
4. The PC will die instantly when it hit by static obstacles like Spike, fire etc
5. The PC will die instantly when it hit by dynamic moving obstacles like Moving spike
wheel crushing hammer etc.
6. The PC will lose 10% of its maximum health points when it hit by shooting obstacle.
7. The PC will die instantly when it fall inside the pit
8. PC has Nil Fall Damage when he jumps from higher platform lower platform
 Types of gameplay Game over condition
GAME OVER Combat The PC has lost all his health points
CONDITION Fall The PC makes a fall in a pit
Static Obstacle The PC hit an obstacle
Dynamic Obstacle The PC hit an obstacle
Shooting Obstacle The PC has lost all his health points

Display Game over condition On-screen display

PC is killed while fighting on the ground 1. Death animation (PC collapses on the
ground)
2. Fade to game over screen
PC is killed by falling to his death 1. PC falls crashes on the ground
(camera follows his fall)
2. Fade to game over screen
PC is killed while hits an obstacle 1 Death animation (PC collapses on the
ground)
2 Fade to game over screen