If you are anything like me, you find that your creative muse drives you in directions you never expected to go. I've worked on many different designs over the years, from a small two-player card game, a semi-cooperative space adventure, a ghostly hidden movement game that takes place within a graveyard, to my only published game to-date (a dark fantasy wargame). But I now find myself trying to swim in the deepest waters yet... designing a large one-to-two player cooperative story-driven fantasy adventure game.
I have the skeleton of the game designed, and so far am pleased with the various mechanisms and how well they integrate with one another. And I've always enjoyed writing fiction and have the story arc fairly well pinned down. It's an enormous undertaking (and I may cry uncle and seek a dedicated co-designer at some point), but for now I'm trying to map out the road ahead.
My question for this forum is, what elements of narrative-rich games do you find most appealing (assuming you like them at all - if not, you're not the target audience for this game), and what do you like least? I'm talking about games like Tainted Grail, Mansions of Madness, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Sleeping Gods, and far too many more to list here. Anything where story elements are a main aspect of the game.
What is the sweet-spot for you regarding narrative vs. gameplay? Which games do you find do the best job of integrating story - and which games do the worst? Why? And, if you have experience working on these types of games yourself, what advice can you offer for what works well, and what pitfalls should I watch out for?
Thanks in advance!
-Tom
I’m coming to the conclusion that how much narrative to include is completely subjective. One person may love reading multiple story entries, deeply immersing themselves in the game’s world, while others may roll their eyes every time a game calls for blocks of text to be read, just wanting to get on with it.
Upon further reflection, I find myself dividing narrative into three camps: Heavy, Mid, and Light.
Watching a playthrough of Agents of Smersh (Epic Edition) and Tales of Arabian Nights, these choose-your-own-adventure style games are heavily weighted towards complete narrative immersion, interrupted occasionally by skill checks and player choice to determine which direction the story branches. You will spend a lot of time just reading block after block of story text in these games.
Mansions of Madness (2nd Edition) is a good example of a game that offers a story introduction and conclusion narrative for each scenario, but then switches focus to gameplay, interspersing story elements throughout as specific events trigger them. Most adventure games seem to fit somewhere along this spectrum, including games like Near and Far, City of Kings, Solomon Kane, Gloomhaven, Tainted Grail, etc.. The focus on these types of adventures divides between gameplay mechanics interspersed with snippets of narrative throughout. The narrative may impact the game to some extent, or it may just be included to set the scene.
The final category are games which include flavor text, maybe character backgrounds, but don’t really focus on strong immersive narrative. Magic the Gathering and Aeon’s End come to mind as examples of this. Here, the flavor text ties to the theme, but is minimal and easily skipped without consequence.
But good narration isn't enough. The Dungeon Dive’s YouTube review of City of Kings points out that the well-written narrative on the enemy cards didn’t match the actual experience of fighting that enemy, which is an example of narrative disconnect - something definitely to watch out for. The narrative, theme, and mechanics should ideally integrate seamlessly together. Sounds obvious, but it’s something more easily said than done sometimes.
As for my own game, I’m starting to shy away from more heavy choose-your-own-adventure elements, and think I’ll focus more on “cinematic moments.” Rather than every encounter leading down multiple branching paths, I’ll attempt to paint various scenes and then have scripted “trigger events,” like in Mansions of Madness. I have enough gameplay elements already, without trying to write a novel as well. Furthermore, my soldiers are somewhat expendable, used more as resources than individual heroes. This makes character-driven quests problematic, though I can still focus on world building and interesting events. I think the trick is to find the right level of narrative integration unique to each game. But finding that perfect blend… that may be more art than science.
TERZAMOSSA:
I agree, interconnecting narrative and gameplay is the ultimate goal. Are there any games you think do this extremely well?
QUESTCCG:
Blurring the line between Heavy and Mid-weight story-driven games in the genre you’re describing are Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and Chronicles of Crime. These might be good games to review when considering your own crime-solving narratives.