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Advantages of Low Level Stories

There are a number of advantages which are inherent in the use of low level stories. One is that they can be used in conjunction with high level stories. This offers the best of both worlds. Richard Rouse III draws attention to this in his book, Game Design: Theory and Practice: "The ideal for interactive storytelling is to merge the designer's story and the player's story into one, so that the player can have a real impact on a story while the story retains its dramatic qualities." This allows the designer to provide a high quality, compelling and unique storyline, while also adding to the game's replay value by making use of the low level story.

Since the designer does not need to use the high level story to provide replay value, the story can be developed with less work and fewer resources. The game can be completed in less time, and at a lower cost. And unlike using branching storylines, in which case the development team's efforts must be divided among the branches, the designer can concentrate all his efforts on creating one great story. Of course, branching storylines, or any other method of increasing replay value may be used while making use of the low level story. That is the beauty of using this technique.

Also, unlike the high level story, which the designer must make sufficiently different in order to provide good replay value, the low level story is bound to be different each and every time without any effort at all on the part of the designer. In fact, it is not even necessary for the low level story to be different each time. All that is required to make a game replayable is that the player be allowed to make the decisions he would like to make. Since the player will naturally avoid doing something which he finds stale and boring, he will always make the low level story as enjoyable as he can.

Nor does this require any great effort on the part of the player. Unlike being expected to "earn" something from the game, the player does not mind creating a good low level story. This is because he creates it simply by playing the game, and making whatever choices he enjoys at any given moment.

And unlike branching high level stories, which are limited in number, the low level story is limited only by the player's choices, and whatever opions the game mechanics provide. Providing more gameplay options naturally leads to more low level story options, and greater replay value. The result is that the designer does not need to limit player freedom as much as he does when relying solely on a high level story.

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