Week 5 – Narrative Design

Lecture notes: Narrative design for GDD

“A good game generates stories when people play it. It is what Jesse Schell calls the story machine.”

“Environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in at least one of four ways: spatial stories can evoke pre-existing narrative associations; they can provide a staging ground where narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene, or they provide resources for emergent narratives.”
– Jenkins, 2004

The narrative might change according to the state the world is in. An earlier decision might affect later decisions with no need to branch.

Choices matter.
• Choices in your game matter
• Impact for choices, it is the measure of players believing your choices matter
• All comes down to player emotions
• Cascades, call-backs, heuristics

What is the design part of narrative design?
• First, what are the players doing in the story-world? Searching? Scavenging, shooting, talking, exploring, investigating?
• The narrative designer is responsible for those game mechanics that are used to convey the story

Step One: Outline the Major Storyline
The major storyline will depend on the type of story you choose to write (i.e. linear, string of pearls, branching) but the goal of this outline is to identify the story’s path along with the major plot points you want your character to experience. For those who want to write a linear story, your task will be less involved than those who choose to write a more interactive story; however, regardless of your choice
consider starting with these areas:

• Note all the major events for each character
• List at least three different ending possibilities (if applicable)
• Make your outline as large/detailed as possible

What should go on the GDD?

• Sample script, some game text (like flavour text, action dialogue)
• Characters (list them and describe them, specifying which are playable and which are NPCs)
• Universe or world (if it’s on our planet Earth, describe where on the earth and what the time period is)
• Backstory/situation (What is the history of the game world, and it has led us to what situation that the characters are dealing with?)

Narrative design and writing are different. Writing is responsible for the character; the dialogue, character arcs, themes and tone. Design is responsible for the player; choices and consequences, branching, mechanics.

Scene structure:
• Objective (target player goal or experience)
• Conflict (something that makes the objective more difficult to reach – you can use narrative/mechanics /both)
• Outcome (then reached by requiring change from the player/characters)

Major and minor focuses:

• Major: An area you excel at or have a sharp interest in continuing to develop.
• Minor: An area that you are less comfortable with and want to start working in.

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Figuring out my story line

“Identify the story’s path along with the major plot points you want your character to experience. Consider starting with these three areas:

• Note all the major events for each character
• List at least three different ending possibilities (if applicable)
• Make your outline as large/detailed as possible”

Each of my main NPC’s follow their own story. I need to outline the major events of each of their stories, and then figure out how to tie them all together.

Kitt’s story:

• Kitt owns the only cafe in town, his business is quite successful.
• A large coffee company tries to buy Kitt’s business from him for a large sum, but he refuses.
• Eventually Kitt learns the coffee company is planning to open a shop opposite to his shop, and he is furious.
• The coffee company needs approval from the town before they can open their shop, the player can choose to help Kitt, do nothing, or maybe help the coffee company.
• If Kitt wins, the coffee company leaves town, and Kitt decides to make some positive changes with his cafe.
• If Kitt loses, the coffee company opens the new shop, and Kitt loses a lot of customers. He is slowly going out of business.
• If you help Kitt, he is very grateful and you gain 3 relationship points. He will place more orders with you to help you in turn.
• If you don’t do anything, you lose one relationship point with Kitt. He is clearly sad with your choice, but he stays friendly with you. This may have different impacts depending on your relationship level with Kitt.
• If you help the coffee company, you lose 5 relationship points with Kitt. If you had a high relationship level with Kitt, he is angry and feels betrayed by your behaviour. You can still buy from his shop, but Kitt won’t have much to say to you. If you had a low relationship status with Kitt, he has a depressed demeanour but he doesn’t direct his anger at you and you can still buy from his shop.
• If Kitt has lost and is slowly going out of business, you can campaign to help him get business back, and put the coffee company out of business. You will gain back 4 relationship points for this, and Kitt will be friendly with you again. Eventually the coffee company goes out of business and Kitt decides to make some positive changes to his cafe. He will place more orders with you to help you in return.
• If Kitt has lost and is slowly going out of business, and you choose not to help him, after a week in game when you go to town, Kitt’s cafe will have closed down and this cannot be undone. You don’t see much of Kitt after that. You don’t lose any relationship points with Kitt.

Harper’s Story:

• Harper owns a second hand shop in town where most people buy their clothes from.
• The post office is closed at the start of the game, but after a week in-game it is reopened, allowing packages to be delivered to town.
• Adverts for online shopping start popping up on your own computer, and about town.
• A week after seeing the adverts, Harper confides in you that she is losing customers to online clothes companies. She is upset and isn’t sure how to fix the problem.
• A few days later, when you visit Harper’s shop, it has been re-branded to a ‘Thrift shop’. Harper is taking photos outside for a new social media account. She explains to you that to keep people interested in her shop, she needs to become trendy. By sharing her work on social media, she hopes people will discover the shop and want to visit it.
• After a few weeks, Harper becomes more desperate. She makes her own Advertisements for her shop and plasters them over the online ads. She asks you to display ads in your shop window.
• If you help Harper you gain 2 relationship points.
• if you don’t display the ads, harper notices and becomes a bit sad, and you lose 1 relationship point.
• Harper doesn’t go out of business, but ends up with less to sell. She may have to resort to shipping her own orders.
• You have the option to help harper hold a huge thrift sale in the town hall. harper is worried not enough people will hear about it. You have the option to post ads with your flowers to engage more people and post on social media. however you could get some backlash for this.
• If you post the ads and help harper run the event, even providing decor, you gain 5 relationship points and become good friends with Harper, she gives you a 5% discount for all items in her shop. the event us quite successful.
• if you post the ads but don’t do anything else, you gain 3 relationship points with harper. the event is still successful.
• if you refuse to post the ads but help Harper with the event, you gain 2 relationship points. the event is less successful but people still come.
• if you do neither, you lose 1 relationship point with harper if you have a low relationship with her. she doesnt tell you if the event was sucessful.
• if you do neither and have a high relationship with harper, you lose 5 relationship points. Harper is upset but pretends to understand. she tells you she feels disappointed and thought she could count on your help. She tells you the event was okay but didnt go as well as she hoped.
• eventually harper has to ship her own items due to the remoteness of the town. If you have helped her in the past, she is chipper and explains she is recieving lots of orders from happy customers. if you didnt help her, she seems more sombre, explaining she feels she will end up just like the companies she tried to avoid.

Asters Story:

• Aster runs the flower stall at the market, where most the town got their flowers from before you moved onto the scene.
• The player recieves a letter from Asters mother Ayleen on their first day in town asking the player to meet them at the flower market in town at 3pm, as they have a lot to discuss (This is how the player will learn to go to town.)
• when the player visits the market, they meet Aster. the player greets them as Ayleen but Aster quickly corrects them, saying her mother sent the note but got antsy and went back home to check on her Dahlias. Aster explains her mother probably sent the note because she is anxious about having competition in town, and instead proposes the two buisnesses work together. Aster tells you about the buisness, and says she sells in season flowers here everyday of the week -except sundays.
• the player agrees to work together with aster, but can choose to defer from this path as time goes on.
• If the player hasnt bought flowers from aster for a while, this will become the topic of your conversations. Aster might not directly confront the player at first, more saying things like “buisness has been slow,” or “how has buisness been for you?”. Aster will not automatically trust the player, and after a week of not buying flowers from aster, you will lose 1 relationship point. you will continue to lose these points as weeks pass. After 1 and a half weeks Aster will directly confront the player, asking where they are getting their flowers.
• if the player lies and says foraging (foraging should not be able to sustain the level of orders the player must make) Aster still wont trust you, and you will lose 1 relationship point.
• if the player tells the truth and says they ordered them from online, Aster will be disappointed and bring up your agreement. However Aster is not too angry, she instead explains to you why its bad to order online, and encourages you to try growing your own flowers.
• if the player continues to order from online, After 2 weeks Aster will show up at your door desperately asking for help. she says because of the players actions her and her mother will go out of buisness and they will have to move away. she says her mum will have to stop selling flowers which is her greatest passion, and get a job she hates. she begs the player to help them.
• if you agree to help them, aster is very thankful and tells you how much it means to her that her mum can continue her work.
• if you dont agree to help her she becomes very angry and curses at you, saying she wishes your buisness fails. You lose any relationship points you have with Aster after this.
• After this interaction if you dont help aster, after a week her stall is gone from the market and her and her mum have moved out of town.
• If you do help aster after this interaction, you gain 3 relationship points with her and she is very thankful, and gives you a seed pouch of dahlias and plant pot so you can start growing your own flowers.

Each story will affect the players relationship with that character, the towns appearance/environment, and the players own success in their business.

Relationship points range from -5 to 15. Everyones relationship with the player starts at 0. -5 means they really dont like eachother. 0 means they feel like strangers. 15 means they have a very strong bond. the most relationship point variations are from main story events like the ones above, however points can also be added or subtracted from mini interactions. these mini interactions include:

• conversations and dialogue choices
• helping with town events
• participating in town events
• remembering and gifting favourite flowers
• remembering birthdays

I’m not sure if the player should be able to see their relationship point level with each character, it could give them something to strive towards if it was similar to stardew valley, but it might make interactions feel more real if players werent given access to this, similar to kentucky route 0. I am leaning towards the player not being able to see point levels but i will continue to think on this.