How is Narrative Design Accomplished? Game Review: Every Day the Same Dream & The Stanley Parable

In the book Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, Jay Posey explains the role of narrative designer by saying:

 "… if narrative is 'the story the game tells' Narrative Design is the creation of that story and the design of the mechanics through which the story is told. That is, Narrative Design encompasses not only the story itself but also how the story is communicated to players and how other game features support and immerse the player within the game world."

Posey says narrative designers are the combination of a writer and a designer. An that the difference between how a designer and a narrative designer would look at a save-game feature; the designer has to make sure it functions properly, while the narrative designer must make sure the way it is presented to the player is cohesive with the game itself.

The most common ways to implement narrative design are displayed in the classics most people are used to. Things like audio, well-written character dialogue, journals, narrators, loading screens, and side-kicks go a long way to convey story to the player without breaking immersion — this, of course, being the main goal to think about in narrative design.

Environmental Storytelling

There are many different ways to amp up the level of narrative design within a game. One way is called "environmental storytelling." This is the most subtle way to provide back story without actually using dialogue or any other written word. Amnesia is a perfect example of environmental storytelling. You are not given much to go on in the beginning of the game, so you must observe your surroundings to gather more information about the situation at hand.

(taken from http://www.gamnesia.com/articles/narrative-design-in-video-games#.VEU_oildXIV)

Whilst researching into narrative in gaming I came across a pretty simple game called save the date, where you have to pick from a list of possible thing so do/say which more often than not lead to the date metaphorically dyeing or quite literally eg choosing to go to a thai restaurant leads to the date dyeing of an allergic reaction. You must keep the correct ones in memory to get further and further. "Save the date successfully demonstrates how cross-session memory can be used to enrich the narrative experience by reflecting the player’s growing knowledge" that is taken from a review I watched on it.

Every Day The Same Dream:

Is a short, 2D flash side scroller that was made in 6 days for the Experimental Gameplay Project the creator, Paolo Pedercini, claims it is "a short existential game about alienation and refusal of labor." You play as a regular office worker going through everyday life, I have played it and it was quite a bleak surreal experience. If you go go onto go through a normal day e.g. get dressed, talk to wife, drive to work, sit at the desk then the day automatically restarts. It reminds me of a more depressing monochrome version of the film groundhog day (without all the romance), you continue to restart the day and each time try and do or not do everyday things in different orders in order to break out of the endless cycle. The only thing that does change is an old woman in the elevator who offers the cryptic message: "5 more steps and you will be a new person." Eventually you have done all the steps and continue on to the office as usual to find it empty, only to watch an identical character to jump of the roof, here the game ends.

I find the end quite morbid, and feels that it suggests the only way for the character to break out of the daily routine he is trapped in, is to throw himself of his work building. When we finish the game are we winning? If that person you watch jump is yourself, does suicide count as winning as it does break out of the mundane routine. "Some find the label "game" unfit for this work, offering "interactive experience" as a more accurate definition" I understand this statement, it goes to show how much game designers are starting to push the boundaries of what a game is and means. I enjoyed the monochrome visual style of the game, it was simple yet effective, it emphasises the mundane life you as the character are trying to escape. (can be played here: http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html )

The Stanley Parable:

Is somewhat a mix of the two above games; Everyday the same dream and Save the Date, in terms of it being about an escape from the mundanity of everyday life and the idea of multiple narratives being possible. I haven't been able to play it but the review below about The Stanley Parable by IGN's Keza MacDonald really caught my attention i have highlighted a few lines that really interest me. The Stanley Parable is an experimental narrative-driven first person game, It is an exploration of choice, freedom, storytelling and reality.

DOES CHOICE MEAN ANYTHING?

The Stanley Parable is an experiment with interactive narrative, another attempt to find a new form of storytelling unique to video games. It’s funny, self-referential, surprising, and sometimes uncomfortable to play, a tale told not through one linear story but instead through many different branching paths that twists the illusion of control that video games work so hard to give us.

The Stanley Parable starts in a standard cubicle in an artfully bland looking office, cursor blinking on the screen of a beige monitor. You are Stanley, an obedient salaryman who spends his days obediently typing commands in a grey cubicle. One day, all of his coworkers disappear, leaving him to explore the office alone in the company of an avuncular narrator.

This narrator is not like most, he teases, mocks, gets bored or angry with you, whispers conspiratorially with you and – most importantly – tells you what to do to advance the story as you explore an office that’s terrifying in its dullness, from the uniform carpeting to the marketing platitudes on the whiteboards and generic nature paintings, almost everything stamped with a number.

My immediate instinct was to disobey the voice in my head, but however you try to subvert it, The Stanley Parable is ready with yet another prepared scenario, another chunk of witty script, at once mocking and rewarding you for attempting to deviate from the set path – although, and this is the crucial point, everything is a set path in The Stanley Parable, and it mocks the illusion of choice. You think that you’re manipulating the outcome, but really it’s always the narrator manipulating you.

I suppose the point of The Stanley Parable, if you feel compelled to find a point to it, is probably to see all of its various endings and permutations, which spiral out from basic choices – like taking the door on the left, or the door on the right – into alternate plot lines with further branching events, fanning outwards to unpredictable conclusions. The text “the end is never the end” loops across the screen when you find one of these endings, and you are returned to Stanley’s cubicle to start again.

What’s impressive is how limited environments and apparently limited choices lead to so many different outcomes. Occasionally you’ll make the exact same decisions and something different will happen, as the narrator changes track. In about an hour I found seven different endings, and as soon as I watched someone else play, they found another two that I’d never seen before.

“

Sometimes The Stanley Parable feels like an exploration of the peculiar madness of boredom.

My first Stanley Parable experience was a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare where every attempt I made to exercise my power of choice led me deeper to an increasingly rigid, inescapable series of commands that I had no choice but to follow, culminating in my death. Many of its permutations trap you in infinite loops, forced to listen to the narrator pontificate until he deigns to give you another command. The narrator’s total control over what you can do and when you can do it sometimes makes him feel like a jailer; other times he’s a friend, a companion, a gentle jocular guide.

It’s an intensely strange experience for somebody intimately familiar with video games and their rules. You think you can break them, but the narrator is always a few steps ahead of you, and ultimately you’re left questioning what the point of choice is at all in a system where every permutation is laid out for you and some omniscient narrator seems able to predict your every move. The only way to The Stanley Parable’s ironic “best” ending is to follow the narrator’s directions and do as you’re told like a good little droid, at which point a cruelly arch achievement pops up congratulating you for “beating the game”.

Based on its premise, I thought The Stanley Parable might be a celebration of choice, of the power that we have to break out of our life’s constraints by simply acting differently, but that’s exactly the notion that The Stanley Parable attacks. I found it very uncomfortable to play at times, like I was trapped in it – it’s the closest a game has ever come to replicating that feeling of being stuck in a repetitive dream.

THE VERDICT

Sometimes The Stanley Parable feels like an exploration of the peculiar madness of boredom. Other times it’s something else entirely: a joke at the player’s expense, a commentary on choice and consequence, a parody, a bureaucratic nightmare. All its different plot lines and personalities overlap and combine to create something that’s intriguingly opaque, but always entertaining, and genuinely funny. Whatever it is, it’s worth playing.

Extra Credits - The Illusion of Choice - How Games Balance Freedom and Scope ( worth a watch)