Sutherland argues that:
- The real substance of a story is conflict what are basic conflics in stories?
- In what fundamental way does game story developement differ from storytelling in other forms of media?
- As games evlove, people want more depth, not just higher polygon counts.
'A story is a universal human expericance'.
- Games aren't movies.
- Movies aren't plays.
Moving pictures:
1. They are a form of story, not just a new toy.
2. Their particular form of story differs from all previous forms of story and has other things in common with all forms of story.
- Storytelling is becoming more important in Games...
- Classic 3 Act Structure - Storytelling:
- The protagonist and their world.
- Then the world is thrown into chaos. - Reversal:
- Overcoming various trials that test the character. - The Resolution.
- Story is dialog.
- Story doesn't matter (Sometimes in games)
Story is Conflict
- Appealing to a mass audience.
A Starting place:
Mckee states that the real substance of story is 'Conflict'.
- Story is conflict
- Conflict is part of the structure. Which means it needs to be planned from the beginning of the development process.
How classical stories move:
Classical story structure:
- It's simple.
- It works.
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- First there's a protagonist, or hero.
- His or her world is thrown out of order by an inciting incident.
- A gap opens up between the hero and an ordinary life.
- The hero tries the normal, conservative action to overcome the gap.
- It fails. The world pushes back too hard.
- The hero then has to take a risk to overcome the obstacles that are pusing back.
- Then there is a reversal something new happens, or the hero learns something she or he didn't know before and the world is out of whack again.
- A second gap has opened up.
- The hero has to take a greater risk to overcome the 2nd gap.
- After overcoming the second gap, there's another reversal, opening a third gap.
- The hero has takes the greates risk of all to overcome this gap and to get to that Object of Desire, which is usually an ordinary life.
Character and why it matters to Games:
Characterisation - The superficial stuff.
Character - Why he chooses to do something.
Principle of atagorism - Pressure on the hero to bring out alternative choices.
Movies:
- 80% Visual
- 20% Auditry
Plays:
- 80% Auditry
- 20% Visual
The importance of Reverals - can happen through actions.
Types of Conflict and Types of Story:
- Internal Conflict happens mostly naturally in novels.
- Interpersonal Conflict happens most naturally in plays and in soup operass.
- External Conflict happens most naturally in movies and in games.
Internal Conflict - What goes inside your head.
Interpersonal Conflict - Between people.
Exeternal Conflict - Conflict with society in general or the physical world.
Gamers generally don't tolerate a lot of dialogue and I agree with this.
Empathy and the big protagonist flip:
Writers try to create heros that the audience create empathy for.
- Gears of War 3, Doms Death Scene is a good example of this.
Pacing Stretches, Dialog Shrinks:
In films you can get bored of the same scene after 10 minutes or so. But in video games the user feels much more immersed and spent 20 minutes hiding in a ditch not wanting to die. To them, is feels like a life and death situation which is arguably the closest thing to real life yet most people can tell the difference between film and real life. Games are just simply more immersive.
