The Mass Effect Trilogy: Story-Driven Gaming

Character Mary Pletsch No Comments

It’s my firm belief that the Mass Effect trilogy is the future of video game storytelling.

For those who are not familiar with the games, a basic primer.  Playing Mass Effect is like an action movie where you control the main character.  That means you choose dialogue options, affecting how your character interacts with other characters; mission options, picking what your character will do and in what order; upgrades-as you advance in the game, you have points to spend at your discretion, allowing your character to become somewhat skilled in many fields or very skilled in a few-and combat.

Commander Shepard can be female or male, of any race.  S/he can have romances with a variety of different characters, including alien and same-gender romances, or s/he can be utterly indifferent to romance.  S/he can develop platonic friendships – or anger shipmates.  S/he can make Paragon (virtuous) choices, Renegade (“badass”) choices, or a mixture of the two.  Most importantly, saves from the first game can be carried over into the second; and then into the third.  That means the possibilities for the future change, depending on the player’s decisions in the past-ie, what you did in the second game will change your options in the third.  The end result is a storyline directly affected by the player’s input.

The series is not without its flaws.  One common complaint is that a few plot points always lead to the same end, regardless of player input.  For example, at the end of the first game, Commander Shepard can either encourage space cop Garrus to respect the institution of law enforcement and rejoin Citadel Security, or to reject the regulations as hurdles impeding justice.  No matter which option is chosen, though, Garrus ends up in the same place at the start of the second game:  hunting down criminals on a lawless space station.

Looking outside the story itself, my guess is that there was a question of practicality.  Theoretically, if Garrus had stayed with the police (the Paragon version of Shepard’s advice), the developers would have had to create a whole new mission to encounter him in the second game.  The time and cost of developing two wholly different missions to achieve the same end (getting Garrus to join your crew) was probably prohibitive.   In-story, though, the second game focused on Garrus’ frustration with lawlessness, to justify his decision no matter what advice he received.  I think that as technology improves and games become more powerful, it will be easier for developers to provide more complex options for players, and a wider variety of consequences for each decision made.  Given the variety that already exists in Mass Effect, I’m pleased with the past, and anticipating the future.

Throughout the game, Commander Shepard is called upon to make moral judgments; to solve disagreements between characters; to make tough ethical decisions;  to decide when to use force and when to try to talk out a problem.  These choices shaped my concept of the character.  My first Commander Shepard usually did the noble thing, but she made Renegade choices when she got angry.  My second Commander Shepard was mostly renegade, but there were some lines even he wouldn’t cross.  I developed an emotional attachment both to Commander Shepard and the characters with whom s/he interacted.  And in every game, there are choices that can lead to those characters’ deaths.  It’s not possible to complete the first game without at least one crew death, and it’s gut-wrenching every time, no matter who I lose.

This, I think, is the reason I keep playing Mass Effect over and over:  the wedding of characterization and storytelling.  The secondary characters are fleshed-out people who I want to spend time with.  I could skip the dialogue and go right to the shooting, but I don’t want to.  I have a lot of games where I can shoot things.  I don’t have a lot of games where I can be whatever kind of hero I can imagine, interacting with characters I’ve come to care about, making decisions that have real consequences.   I hope in the future, I’ll be playing a lot more games like this.

When Did The Sun Come Up? Immersion in Video Games

Gregory D. Little The Writing Life No Comments

Immersion.  It’s that feeling of being completely swept away in a story, so much so that you forget the real world exists outside it.  As I’ve gotten older that sensation has gotten harder to find.  Maybe after years of writing my brain is too accustomed to dissecting what I read.  Whatever the reason, when I do manage to lose myself in a story, it’s the best kind of treat.

One thing’s for sure.  When it comes to immersion, video games have a distinct short-cut that books lack.  When you read a novel, you passively watch events unfold.  The best books make you feel as though you live these events through the eyes of the character.  But however immersive a book is, you will always be the passive observer, unable to influence the events unfolding before you.  What I’m going to talk about in this post is how we can leverage video games’ greatest cheat—interactivity—into making our own writing the kind that sweeps the reader away.

A video game is like a story where the reader instead of the writer is in charge… at least to a limited extent.  In a book you place your faith in the author, but when gaming it’s your responsibility to see that the hero survives to reach the next scene.  For somewhere between eight and 120 hours (curse your vastness, Skyrim!) you are the driving force behind whether the hero succeeds or fails.  Even with the most clichéd of plots and characters made of pure cardboard, this sense of agency is a video game’s greatest weapon in capturing and holding interest.  I’m going to examine two games that go about this in very different ways, examine how we might use those techniques to further our own writing, then offer a brief warning.

I completed Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us just about a  week ago so this seems as good a time as any to gush all over it.  If ever there was a video game contender to submit as “serious art” this game is it (Honorable Mention goes to L.A. Noire).  At a glance nothing seems particularly remarkable about the game or its story. The Last of Us is essentially a zombie survival horror game, where society has collapsed thanks to an infectious outbreak that “zombifies” normal people.  A hard-bitten survivor named Joel must escort a fourteen year old girl named Ellie to safety through areas teeming with both infected and with equally hard-bitten human survivors.  About the only thing original the premise does have going is that the infectious agent is fungal in nature and its mind-warping abilities are based on a real class of fungus:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps (warning: nightmare fuel).

Despite a fairly pedestrian premise, the characters of Joel and Ellie are so well written, acted and animated that it elevates the entire game to something sublime.  Combat is merciless, usually punishing any mistakes with instant death.  Playing as both characters alternatingly, you will feel every hurt they incur and their mounting sense of despair.  When you (as Joel) brutally kill a man who is attacking Ellie, you’ll feel a savage glee that is entirely intentional yet profoundly unsettling.  The sense of a world falling apart around Joel and Ellie is palpable throughout the game, and though I won’t spoil events, the plot is driven believably and courageously by its characters and delivers an ending that will positively haunt you.

But how do we recreate this in writing form without video game short-cuts?  As in the game, it starts with character.  While a reader can’t direct the actions of your characters, if you delve deep into the mind state of your viewpoint characters and ensure that the actions of the character are so well-grounded that they feel almost inevitable, you can transport the reader into the mind of that character fully.  Make the reader understand and believe in the actions of the character and you will reel them in.

In stark contrast to the total character immersion of The Last of Us we have the total world immersion of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  An open world fantasy role playing game, Skyrim has no structured plot per se, only a series of quests that you unlock by exploring the vast world of the game.  There are two sets of “main” plot quests, but they (and all the rest of the quests) are entirely optional.  Accomplishing some quests will make others unavailable, as everything is interconnected.  I still remember when my character was offered a chance to join the Dark Brotherhood (guild of assassins) and had to choose between several people to assassinate to complete my initiation.  Instead I turned on my Brotherhood contact and after dispatching them, I got a message that several quests were permanently failed.  But then a new message flashed up on the screen: “NEW QUEST:  DESTROY THE DARK BROTHERHOOD.”  Niiiiiice.

This is an entirely different level of immersion, a game and a story where you literally have input into everything.  But I’m not advocating we all start writing Choose Your Own Adventure novels, because you can still get this sense of total world immersion in a book with a fixed plot.  The key is in the worldbuilding.  Robert Jordan’s early Wheel of Time books did an outstanding job of building a working magic system where you could see exactly how the pieces fit together.  He established the rules early on, then later when he had characters figure out how to bend the rules to achieve greater ends, it all felt very natural, like another set of laws for physics.  If you focus on constructing your world so that all the pieces fit and move together in ways that the reader can see and appreciate, you can achieve something similar.

So we’ve gone over immersion by character and immersion by worldbuilding.  And now, the promised warning:  with great immersion comes great expectations and therefore great responsibility.  The more a player (or reader) feels they have a stake in a particular story, the more they start to dictate in their mind how that story “should” end.  With enough readers or players, there’s going to be a pretty large divergence in expectations.  I’m sure everyone has their own example, but it’s worth remember that the more investment the person has put into the story, the greater the anger if they feel the writer doesn’t stick the landing.  And if you have enough readers, you won’t be able to please everyone.

Of course, I suspect that for most of us, that’s a problem we’d relish having.

Fable

Guest Posts No Comments

Fable-01[1]A guest post by Jace Sanders.

I rummaged through the selection of video games at a local store, looking for the perfect escape. The week was long and my mind screamed for relaxation. I had recently reread the Lord of the Rings series and decided to diversify my entertainment fixes by replacing a book with a controller.

I’d struck out several times before. Some games had incredible graphics, but little to no plot, while others had a decent story, but the controller commands were too complicated. A young man suggested I try Fable, and my video gaming days have consequently not been the same since.

Fable begins on a beautiful day in the small village of Oakvale in the realm of Albion. The gameplay is infused with ambiance, making the experience that much more enjoyable. The main character is a young man who spends his first day performing tasks to earn money for his sister’s birthday present.

I was immediately drawn in as a participating creator of the story, as I was able to choose my own adventure in the various scenarios I came across. Without even realizing it, I was actually being taught the dynamics of the game.

Tragedy then strikes and the young man is whisked away onto an adventure of revenge and discovery as he trains to become a famous and powerful hero.

Rather than simply telling a story, Fable empowers me to help in its development. Many games have interfaces where you can design the character’s looks, but Fable was one of the first to tie a character’s features to choices made throughout the game.

The main character, known as Hero (or by other titles you can earn through reputation, like Chicken Chaser), grows from a young boy to an old man. Depending on small choices made throughout the game, the character’s appearance develops. If Hero eats pies and red meat, he will grow fat. If he travels at night rather than sleep, his skin will turn pale. His body scars if he fights without proper protection, though townsfolk wager money for the hero to increase the difficulty of a task by doing it in his underwear or without weapons.

Hero becomes a stronger swordfighter, or archer or mage, as he practices that particular skill. He can level up in an array of categories like strength, speed, and stealth.

Hero can also make moral choices. He can choose to protect someone, or perhaps steal from them. There’s no restriction in killing the innocent and then purchasing their homes and shops at the estate sale. But as the game suggests, “Every choice a consequence.”

My first time playing Fable, I naturally wanted to be a good person, and I made proper choices to ensure that I was seen as a standup hero, complete with a halo and butterflies that followed me wherever I traveled. But my second time through, the temptation proved too great to deny myself the evils of Albion. I gave into greed and gluttony, becoming a revered obese landowner with demonic red eyes and devilish horns sprouting from my head. Townsfolk fled into their homes and secured the doors as I passed by. Children screamed as I approached and commented on my horrific deeds.

The first time I played, I strived to focus on the main objective of avenging my family. Others in Albion asked me to assist them in menial tasks that I mostly ignored. My second time through, I pursued all the tangent stories and sub-adventures. I was able to grow stronger and richer. Some of that money I used to court the love of my life, or loves of my life—at one point, I had a wife in every town. Once I tried to marry two women in the same town, but I think they knew each other because the first divorced me.

I’ve spent hours exploring the corners of Albion. I found a fistfight club that met in the middle of the night. I discovered buried treasure. I went fishing, kicked chickens, dressed like an assassin, grew a beard, and got a tattoo, all while trying to avenge my family.

I returned to the video game store the day Fable 2 hit the shelves. While in line, I learned that the game was only available on Xbox 360, a console I didn’t yet own. It took a little explaining to my (real) wife that I deserved an advance on my birthday present, but that night I played Fable 2 till dawn. I don’t regret it, but honestly the second Fable was a let down. The graphics are better, but the storyline is almost the same. Rather than continue on from where the first left off, the story seems to repeat itself several years later than the first.

I didn’t purchase Fable 3; instead I borrowed it from a friend. I found it was more of the same with an extra dose of boring.

What makes Fable so powerful is its compelling story, which in some ways I help write as I build the character, along with his strengths and weaknesses. While the subsequent games have similar functions as the first in development through choices, they fail to tell a good story.

Guest Writer Bio: Jace Sanders lives in Arizona with his wife and five children. In addition to writing, he enjoys music, photography, and anything outdoors. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from Utah State University and works for a biotech company.

The Story in the Game

Matt Jones The Writing Life No Comments

Gaming Dice When I was a child, I considered myself lucky enough to own an original 8bit Nintendo Entertainment System. Even back then, I gravitated toward the role playing games, and deeply enjoyed the Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy series. Even those games, in their primitive brilliance, were able to tell great stories.

As more advanced systems arrived, the ability to tell an amazing story improved. I was able to curse the evil brilliance of the Zelda Water Level. I was lost in the harmonic masterpiece of the Final Fantasy 6 Opera Scene. I cried as Aerith died in Final Fantasy 7. I lived many different adventures, and died many glorious deaths. My name is still immortalized in an old online MUD (text-based multiplayer game) as a warrior who helped destroy an old god and bring about a new birth to the world. All these things showed me what worked and what failed when it came to telling a fulfilling and interesting story.

That being said, being able to write a novel and working to bend the fates that are a dice roll away from destroying you may seem like completely different mediums, but they both require a lot of imagination, creativity, and a little bit of luck to succeed. And, in my case, my adventures in a game has inspired more than a few stories. There are even quite a few novels out there that the authors claim came completely from a game played with their friends.

I’ve asked my fellow Fictorians how a good game has influenced their writing. We’ll jump from Halo to Barbie Queen to paper and dice role playing systems. Some will be a story similar to my own, others may be a cautionary tale. Sit back and enjoy the Fictorians talk about Gaming.