Scattered Notes on Games and Storytelling
Over the last few days an interesting idea has been popping up in various places. Not a new idea, but it seems more refined and widely circulated of late. It’s in Ken Levine’s GDC presentation, via Gamasutra, and I heard it articulated in a recent 1up podcast in which N’Gai Croal was a guest. I can’t remember where else I’ve heard/read it, but here it is, in a sort of nutshell:
Games are lousy vehicles for traditional narratives, but they’re still excellent vehicles for emotional storytelling, provided that the story is shown, rather than told.
Here are a couple of quotes from a summary of Levine’s presentation (via Gamasutra) that illustrate this point:
Levine showed a short demo of the prototype for BioShock — it looked very much like a game that could be released on the 360 right now; a convincing corridor-crawler with creepy monsters to shoot and smashed crates. Levine’s take? “The world is not saying very much to us.”
I read that and then considered the finished product. In Bioshock, every corner of every room tells a story. A tragic, horrific, amazing story. Exploring Rapture, the player is a sort of archaeologist, continually piecing the story of the broken world together through its found remains, aided by careful, emotionally powerful art direction. Portal is another example of a game that does the same thing, to great effect.
More Levine:
“What is mise en scene? Literally, to present or make a scene. Film does this. How did BioShock use this? To tell a story without words.” Rapture was designed to sell the story, and this was accomplished via mise en scene.
Bioshock also told its story via other means, of course, including through found audiotapes which provided plenty of more traditional exposition. But those materials were supplementary. They’re an adjunct to the much more visceral, emotionally compelling story delivered via the presentation of Rapture’s environs.
Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are also perfect illustrations of of how games can effectively show, rather than tell, incredible stories.