TVG.TRIPLETAP - The Art of Storytelling #2 Feature
Gwynne Dixon
17/01/2008
In part two of "The Art of Storytelling", TVG speaks to Rhianna Pratchett about her work as a freelance games writer while also taking a look at the future of stories in games...
The TVG.TRIPLETAP series of features aims to investigate the questions on the lips of many an avid gamer and talk to the key people involved. Following on from yesterday's first part of "The Art of Storytelling" - which included discussions with Quantic Dream's David Cage, Free Radical's Rob Yescombe and Rhianna Pratchett - TVG now goes on to talk with Rhianna Pratchett about her experiences as a freelance games writer, as well as consider the future of games storytelling regarding new technology and writing techniques.
Going It Alone
While Rob and David are writers who work full-time, at one game studio, on specific game genres; many game writers take on a freelance role which allows them to work on a variety of projects. Rhianna Pratchett is just such a writer and the reality of her job means that she is rarely employed for the whole duration of a game's production.
She might be brought in at the end of a project (to add dialogue to a game that's more or less finished), employed at the beginning of production to pen a story's outline, and sometimes she'll be involved in casting or - as in the case of Overlord - co-directing the dialogue. Rhianna tells us how writers' responsibilities vary depending on the point in the production cycle that they're bought in:
"If it's right at the start, they may be responsible for a fair amount of IP and world creation. Things like brain-storming the environments, races, characters, themes, look and feel of the game. So in those instances a writer can take on a semi-design role. There's usually a lot of pre-production work involved (something I did a lot of with Overlord, Heavenly Sword and now Mirror's Edge). This involves tasks like character profiling, journeys, themes, casting notes and story docs. So you can actually end up doing a hell of a lot of writing before you've actually written a word of dialogue."
She goes on to point out that it helps if a writer isn't introduced to a project at the eleventh hour. "Really, the sooner, the better. Bringing writers in very late onto a project, when they can only do very restricted work on the narrative, is a major, major gripe amongst games writers. You'll always hear us banging on about it!
"Usually the core gameplay and some, if not all, of the levels will be decided before a writer comes in," says Rhianna. "Meaning they'll have a structure to work with and possibly some bones of a story. In Heavenly Sword's case there was already a first draft script in place when I came onboard and I re-scoped and re-wrote that. However, it's still pretty rare that a full story will come before all the gameplay and levels have been decided."
With all this unpredictability regarding when a writer is bought onto a project, what they'll be asked to do and the freedom they're given to do it, it's hardly surprising that Rhianna sees her job as a big challenge, but one that she clearly relishes:
"Games narrative is hard work, I don't think even I realised quite how complex it can be until I stepped over to that side of the fence. There are umpteen elements, all with the potential to pull your story apart and you have to remain holding onto the narrative strings desperately. You have to be flexible. The narrative needs to work with the gameplay and the level design, otherwise there's no point. But if there's no one holding those strings it's all too easy for the narrative to come tumbling down. It's rather like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in a gale-force wind!"
The characters in games that Rhianna has worked on have certainly been unique, and succeed in pulling off the otherworldly traits that the game studios were going for. Take the somewhat untamed, but loveably sensitive, Kai and the dastardly weird Flying Fox in Heavenly Sword; or the serf-like loyalty of Overlord's gremlin 'Minions'. Obviously, much of this character creation is down to the artists, designers, directors and voice-actors on such projects, but Rhianna's dialogue has a tendency of fitting snugly into the appearances of the characters we've see on-screen.
"Most of the time I'm working with a character that usually has a role (specified by the developers) and sometimes a look - so my job is really about putting meat on the bones and thinking about how that character might feel in their given situation, how their journey through the game world changes them and their relationship to other characters - and even things like how they might move and talk."
"For Nariko in Heavenly Sword I tried to expand on all the sword and sorcery flicks I'd seen as a kid and look at what it really means to be a stoic warrior figure. The first Conan movie, for example, delved a little into exploring the humanity within the warrior and how hard it is to forego the aspects of normal life that others might take for granted, such as love and companionship. Also something like the Princess Bride, which adds heart and humour to the whole sword-slashing proceedings."
A Beginning, A Middle And An, Err..., Future?
So, what of the future for stories in games? The Holy Grail of plot-based games has always been an entirely freeform storyline. In other words, every play-through of such a game would be entirely different with almost limitless story branches, AI characters that react differently dependent on your every move and endings which aren't even set, let alone multiple finales.
Games through the ages, such as Deus Ex and the original Fallout games, have toyed with storylines that lead to multiple endings along numerous plot branches. Nevertheless, such games have been few and far between. Even when developers have nailed such a task (with much praise showered on them for doing so), so far it has only been a step along the long road to the aforementioned Holy Grail. However, there are clear constraints on developers which mean that such a mammoth project just isn't on the cards in the foreseeable future.
Rhianna tells us, in no uncertain terms, the issue at hand. "One word: Budget. It's simply not a practical use of resources to create oodles and oodles of content that might not be seen by all your players. However, I think there's a lot you can do, both in smaller scale narrative, and in overall game design to tailor a story (sometimes in quite small ways) to an individual player. Bioware and Obsidian are very good at that. But the branching narrative approach (which really has to be tied into branching gameplay) is not always practical for smaller studios."
This is something that Rob agrees with, saying "To be honest with you, that's a budget issue," while David talks about the sheer strain on developers to achieve such a task.
"Each variation of a story requires additional sets, characters, dialogues, animations, sounds, cameras, special effects, interfaces and game play. Tree structures can also quickly become exponential, as a variation will lead to three possibilities that will lead to three possibilities each, etc. Very quickly, you end up with a zillion branches in your tree and your production manager will die of a heart attack.
"I tried to solve this issue with bending stories by considering the story like a rubber band that the player can stretch and deform with his actions. The rubber band is the backbone of the experience, and the player can only play it with a limited bandwidth that remains under control."
On this matter, Rhianna and Rob are quick to defend the role of linear storytelling, with Rhianna saying that "'Linear' has become something of a dirty word, but there's actually a lot that can be done to give players a certain amount of freedom, but with quite a linear overall structure - something like Bioshock for example."
Rob Agrees: "There's absolutely nothing wrong with linear storytelling," but goes on to talk to us about the factors that bring a game alive and why they will never change, regardless of money or technology, and how the role of a writer is key in translating that.
"When people say 'What does a writer bring to a project?' I tell the same story: it still stands to reason that when I used to be at home playing a game, my Dad used to say: "Oh, you're just in another corridor shooting people." And I used to say to him, "Dad, it's not about being in a corridor shooting people; it's about why I'm in the corridor shooting people." Because what a writer can actually do is bring motivation to action."
"If you look at a game like Shenmue, for instance, it's a game where you're trying to hunt down your father's killer and it's kind of like a kung-fu melodrama.
"Once you get to the end of the first game, you'll be basically playing a round of Virtua Fighter with this guy who you've been chasing. But, if you bought Virtua Fighter off the shelf, that round of combat would mean nothing to you - it would just be one of 50 - but, because of the writing and story imposing the emotional emphasis on that single round of Virtua Fighter, it becomes more important."
Rob also touches upon about why the almost photo-realistic graphics of next-gen games are a double-edged sword for writers. "I enjoy games still - I'm still playing them. However, I don't enjoy them as much as when I was younger. The main benefit for me as a writer is having more realistic physical performances from the actors. They look more real and they can behave in a more real way - that's good.
"However, the flip side is that when we were younger, games looked worse and you kind of had to use your imagination to bridge the gap. Of course, your imagination is much more powerful than whatever technology we have now, so it's kind of over compensating. But now, as things look more real, people feel that they have to use their imagination less, so the task really does fall now on the writer to make sure that people don't have to use their imaginations any more.
"If you look back at a game like Metal Gear," Rob continues, "the cut-scenes look absolutely terrible and the in-game engine was - well it wasn't terrible by those standards at the time - but compared to where things are now, you can see an enormous gulf of technology. But somehow, you know, using your imagination to put Vaseline on the lens made all the difference."
It's a view shared by all three of our games writers, with Rhianna adding that "If something is obviously meant to not look real, or it has primitive 12-pixel graphics, then often our minds will happily fill in the gaps. However, if something is trying to look real and there's something not quite right about it - the eyes don't move properly, the inside of the mouth is the wrong colour, the lip-sync is off - then it can break a player's immersion in the game world far more than if it wasn't trying to look real in the first place!"
David puts in his two cents on the matter and, typical of his somewhat visionary style, talks about where this will lead in future. "Talking only about storytelling, I think that we could do more fifteen years ago, when story-driven games were only text-based. There was no need for virtual actors, advanced 3D engines or MoCap animations, and most of the experience happened in the mind of the player (which was cheaper and easier to produce).
"Today, everything is visual, so yes, the hardware helps a lot to reach the visual quality that becomes necessary," says David. "Virtual actors especially are for me the most important part. I see them as the vectors of emotion and I need them to be as believable as possible in their acting performance and emotional response. Quantic Dream has massively invested over the past ten years in this aspect by acquiring a Motion Capture system internally and working very hard on facial animation and advanced rendering systems in particular."
Indeed, the rather outspoken David Cage had a lot to say concerning the current stagnation of videogame genres. As Quantic Dream's last offering (Fahrenheit) truly broke the mould concerning genres and exactly what a game should be, we can only expect more of the same for the eagerly anticipated Heavy Rain. The title looks poised to dive into the next-generation, with features such as "real-time virtual actors" set to blur the lines between a dramatic production and traditional game once again. David tells us his thoughts on some of the more conventional games in today's market.
"The main problem of videogames in the matter of narrative is that most of them consider gameplay as a set of repetitive patterns that must be used with the right timing at the right place. If you look at most action games, you have controls to navigate, a button to shoot, a button to crouch. What kind of story can be told where the hero is only able to perform four actions? What place is there for storytelling in this type of experience?
"Our industry will have to reconsider what interacting means at some point," David continues, "and find new ways of playing without only using a gun or driving a car in patterns. Then we will be able to tell interesting stories and start to offer deeper and more mature content, bringing a real meaning and not just 'some fun destroying stuff'
"This change will only happen if the market sends the message that it is bored playing the same games over and over again, and that it is now time for something new. I believe this is currently happening and it's probably the most positive thing that can happen to this industry."
In terms of the long-term future of games, David was certainly optimistic, providing hope that the Holy Grail may not just be a pipe dream after all.
"Long-term (five to ten years from now), we will see a new generation of narrative games arriving based on emergent storytelling. Scripts won't be written anymore. The author will just specify characters, their personalities, a starting point for the story and maybe some templates of narrative structures, and the story will be generated on the fly based on player's actions and advanced characters' AI.
"This is very exciting of course, but I don't see this happening before a while..."
TVG would like to thank David Cage, Rhianna Pratchett, and Rob Yescombe for their time and co-operation. Keep an eye out for next month's TVG.TRIPLETAP where we'll continue to look upon key topics from the world of videogames.