by: Christopher Burke
Writing in games is a sore point for developers and gamers alike. Either writers aren't getting enough creative input, or too much, but either way, it often leads to games with laughable dialogue and ridiculous plots. At the Game Writers' Summit at GDC Austin, Eidos Montreal Group Lead Narrative Game Designer Mary DeMarle talked about making story-driven games that work with gameplay, rather than against it, and which ideas are making their way into her current project: Deus Ex 3.
Read on for the full story.
DeMarle began by describing what a good story-based game should do: make you, the player, live the story. Unfortunately, making a story livable is easier said than done, and not the sole domain of the writer.
She emphasized how, once you determine a game's theme or essence, the entire development team should be expected to live inside the world they are creating. In this situation, it's the writer's job to make sure the narrative is consistent across the entire game.
As for some things writers don't always do, but desperately need to: They absolutely have to play videogames in order to understand what it's like to experience a story from the player's perspective, they also have to play their own games, even before they're finished so they can catch possible problems, and lastly, they have to communicate with the rest of the team.
DeMarle described how a writer's enthusiasm for a world they have created can be infectious, getting the entire team motivated to make that world a reality through their own language, whether it's level design, voice acting, or character art.
All of these concepts have been applied to the development of Deus Ex 3. It has an essence, the gameplay echoes that essence, and the narrative is integral to the game. Once the team at Eidos Montreal had figured out what the story was going to be about, they started dividing each part of the story into playable sequences. Those sequences were then further divided into levels, with particular purposes in unfolding the story. Levels were then further divided into blocks of single events - boss fights, cut-scenes, puzzles, and so on.
The end result is that gameplay and story merge, creating a singular "gameplay experience", not the typical game with cutscenes tacked on.
If anything, DeMarle's talk is strong ammunition for the argument that games are art. I had never really heard developers talking about the artistic or narrative intent of a specific scene. When you have a Lead Designer asking themselves "Well, does this boss battle really reflect the game's narrative?", they've clearly stepped into the mindset of an artist.
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