Unite 2010GDC ChinaAsia Game Show 2010GDC 2011
|
Two Kinds of StoryThere are two very different kinds of story found in a game. First, there is the story the game's designer wishes to tell. I will refer to this as the game's "high level" story. This is the story which designers are most concerned with. It includes the major events of the game, character development, and those plot devices which are designed to create a powerful experience. The other type of story is the player's own. I will refer to this as the game's "low level" story. While the high level story is created by the game's designer, the low level story is created entirely by the player. While not every game has a high level story, each and every game does have a low level story. What is more, the low level story is different each time the game is played. Consider the story in Tetris. Does this sound strange? Does Tetris really have a story? It most certainly does. Here's a story one player might experience: "I had made a couple of mistakes, and the blocks were almost to the top. I knew the game was hopeless, but I didn't give up. I kept putting everything to the right, waiting for the piece I needed. Just at the last moment, I got the straight piece. I whipped it all the way to the left just in time, and that gave me a tetris, and some more room. The game was still hopeless, but I managed to hold on long enough to earn another 3000 points." Certainly this is not a story which Alexy Pajitnov coded into his game. Yet this story, and thousands more, are experienced by players around the world every day. Tetris is often cited as a game with endless replay value. This is generally said to be because the game mechanics in Tetris provide the player with great freedom. But I believe that there is another, parallel explanation. I would say that Tetris has such infinite replay value precisely because the story in Tetris is different every time, leading to an infinite number of experiences.
|
Level Stories