What all goes into creating a game? A lot!
When it comes to storytelling in games it can be difficult. However, if you make it entertaining and enjoyable for the players, it is a success. I love when game makers entice players into making bad decisions by making that choice seem more interesting. Why would I put out a distress signal when I could just pop ‘er in reverse into the wormhole (That’s a little easter egg for those who know what I’m talking about 😉 ). It is especially great when each run through of the game is never the same and it involves so many paths. For example, Until Dawn! Wonderful game.
Play my game! PLease please Please!
Getting people to play the game is something you need to approach differently. You have to take the genre into consideration and also the taste of those in the demographic. You can always pull more players into a genre by designing the choices to broaden the audience it panders to. I thought the categories for the types of players were fun: achievers, socializers, killers, explorers. Having the genre and the type of players you want to pander to can help with insights into the writing. Who is this game for? What type? Etc. You want to make the game diverse and interactive, showing off that creative writing put into it along with all the mechanics (depending on the game).
Who Are You?
Choosing the perspective is definitely important as well. Will the character the player plays as be a simple avatar they can create, one that is already set, or a specific character tied to the story already? It could range from creating a character in Dragon Age to Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. Depending on what it is can change how a character engages with the game. Aloy already has a set relationship with her surroundings and npcs, but your custom character in Dragon Age knows little to nothing (depending on their background). You want to plan the structure after you pick the perspective. The most common thing is to connect the story close to the environment and use that to heighten things within the story. It could be an open world or linear gameplay.
No Turning Back
You want to make sure the actions and choices you have players make in the game mean something. “The kinds of choices you incorporate into your game will depend heavily on the kind of experience you are trying to create.” You want the players to be aware that they’re making a choice. That choice should cause consequences and impact the story itself, showing how their choices changed the story. This can be for better or worse. Then you want there to be permanence showing the player that things are irreversible and have a lasting effect throughout the game. It makes you really worry about the choice you make (unless you’re into chaos).
I love games and this has definitely given more insight on how much thought it put into them.
Comments
3 responses to “I Love Games!”
Hey!
I think you do a great job at discussing the topic of game creation. I can tell you are passionate about games, which made this post a lot of fun to read. I like how you said, “You want the players to be aware that they’re making a choice. That choice should cause consequences and impact the story itself, showing how their choices changed the story. This can be for better or worse. Then you want there to be permanence showing the player that things are irreversible and have a lasting effect throughout the game.” I think this gives me a lot of insight to the world of games, since I am not a game maker or player… You make it sound so intentional and fun to play a game, which in my case I never felt. I think it’s cool that you also took away something from these readings even though you already (probably) knew a lot about games to begin with.
I also really like when game developers made the “bad” choices more interesting! Being able to experience more of the story is so much more fulfilling than getting the best ending possible in my mind. Being able to cater some of those decisions in a game (and the game as a whole) is a really important thing to think about. Along with that, thinking about how to design the game to cater to as many player types and people as possible is best practice, as more people will see themselves represented and want to immerse themselves in the game. I love, love, love when games have you make choices that will have permanent consequences that you can’t take back without restarting the game. Undertale is one such game: it forces you to live with the fact that you’ve killed the citizens of this underground world, or you have to continue on the pacifist path, even if your journey will be filled with more peril and danger. Overall, game design is complicated but can pay off really well when all considerations are taken!
Hello! I really like your last point about how this reading didn’t just make you think about our next big project, but about other game you enjoy and what it is that makes them fun. Even though I’m not super into video games, the reading did make me realize that there are commonalities in the games I do enjoy. I also like that you highlighted the key points from the section on making choices that actually impact your game. Again, even though I’m not a super big gamer I think this one applies to that rule from storytelling (especially if you’re thinking about a mystery or something like that) that if you mention something it has to be important later.