Narrative In Gaming

The sequence that events happen to a player in a game is the Narrative, which is closely linked with the Story and plot.Due to low computer memory many early games could be said to not really have a narrative or story and so used what Wolf (2003) refers to as "Extradiegetic Narration". Extradiegetic Narration is where some of the games narration (or perhaps character back history) comes from outside of the gameplay. This could include; looping story demos, it could be based on a familier film or book, even simply written on the games case. As computers and consoles have become more powerful, this form of Narrative has become less necessary. With more powerful computers though, Grodal (2003) states that "the interactive capability also raises a series of new problems that were absent in the earlier media". Torben is refering to the discussions on Interactivity vs Narrative. Narrative or story progression in earlier media forms is solely in the hands of the writer or director. In games, the interactivity means that a partial amount of the story progression is controlled by the player through their actions (or lack of). Two groups have been discussing how much Narrative should impact on a games design; Narratologists and Ludologists.

Narratologists state that the whole game should be made of narrative pieces and everything should be in relation to the story. Ludologists state the game should concentrate on the gameplay aspects (the player interaction) and the narrative should be kept to the non-gameplay aspects. This means items such as Cut-scenes but as Crawford (2003) points out "Integrated cut scenes don't solve the problem of interactive story-telling, because they do nothing to make the story interactive." and "The story and the game remain isolated from each other".

Wolf (2003) tells us two ways that some game designers have tried to add Interactive storytelling to their games to differing success. The first is by making the game have just one linear narrative which is within larger story. As the player plays through the main game story they can interact with characters or events which give information etc which are in relation to the larger story but do not actually effect the main game story. This could be things such as further background story information or extra information about the world. Interaction with these characters or events might help further the players understanding but isn't truly really interactive storytelling as the player still can not affect the story's narrative. The second way is through branching storylines. In a game with branching storylines, the designers will have added sections where choices can be made which will send the players down differing story routes. These routes mean that if the game is played again the player could experience a different storyline if they make different choices. Sometimes these different story routes would lead to a different game ending but it is not entirely necessary as the routes can merge back together at a later point.

Further Narrative types in games are explained by Jenkins (2004), who discusses four types of Environmental Storytelling.
The first, Evocotive Spaces, is similar to Wolf's Extradiegetic Narration in that the game world is based on something already known and familiar to the players. The story is not copied from the original but must stay withing the rules of the original. The next, Enacting Stories, relies on the geographical movement of the player around the gameworld. This usually creates spacial stories which have what Jenkins calls Micronarritives, which each provide a small bit of plot progression.
Embedded Narratives is the third type and here some of the narrative information is given or discovered by the player during their progression through the game. The last is Emergent Narratives which deals with games where the programming and the space the game is set in allow for "player generated narratives".

Bibliography

M.Wolf "Narritive in the Video Game" in M.Wolf (ed) The Medium of the Video Game (University of Texas Press: Austin, 2003) p93-111

T.Grodal "Stories for Eye, Ear and Muscles" in M.Wolf & B.Perron (eds) The Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge: New York, 2003) p129-155

C.Crawford, Chris Crawford on Game Design (New Riders Publishing: Indiana, 2003)

H.Jenkins "Game Design as Narrative Architecture" in N.Wadrip-Fruin & P.Harrigan (eds) First Person : New Media as Story, Performance and Game (MIT Press: Cambridge, 2004) p123-129