Game Structure

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absinthe
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Game Structure

#1 Post by absinthe »

I just finished reading a book called "Writing for Multimedia and the Web". It's was a pretty interesting book -- I haven't really seen much on the subject out there. I've always been a fan of theory, so when I saw this on the shelf I jumped at it.

The last half is pretty much all about what it calls "interactive narratives", for example, Dracula Unleashed (which has some nice tricks) or The 11th Guest. I think I like the term "interactive narrative" better than "visual novel", myself. It includes case studies, script samples, organizational material, stuff like that.

Anyway, the writer breaks down the structure of this style of game into four broad categories. Nothing hugely surprising there, but I thought it was useful to see the different structures side by side.

Linear with Scene Branching: one storyline, but occasionally scenes branch off and then return to the main storyline. This is what I usually think of when I think "visual novel", and probably the easiest to write (for me anyway).

Hierarchal Branching: Each choice leads to a separate path, with each choice along that path leading to a separate path, and so on. Suffers from exponential growth of scenes that can make even a simple game complicated to create.

Parallel Narrative: Multiple paths that run parallel to each other (say, paths a (happy), b (neutral), and c (sad)) and the player's choices move him across the paths (say, from a to b or from b to c) as well as along it towards the ending. Once the player is firmly entrenched on a path, it becomes harder to leave it.

String of Pearls: The game is broken into finite sections (usually time periods or physical areas) that are explored in sequence. Specific actions must be completed before moving on to the next section (or time period). Can really ratchet up the suspense with this structure.

I'm sure there are other structures out there, but these seemed like good starting points to me.
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#2 Post by mikey »

Hmmm, on the subject of theory, I found it very good to first try something myself, develop a routine or try forever to come up with something and THEN look for some theory on the matter. Because when you have first-hand experience, you can understand the point of the theory much quicker.

I've read several books on game design before entering the industry, but to be honest I really only understood the points after I've done some design work myself. At that stage however, the books were not just helpful, but also informative (it was fun to find out how others do it).

So I suppose it's best when you get the very first experiences for yourself. This way it's easier to define your own style, as you don't think that there are only so many ways of making something right. many great inventors were never from the field they invented for.

So back to the story line types, you could probably throw in time as a factor (repeated day - just like in that movie when the guy wakes up every same day) or perhaps the popular multiview adventure, where a story line is given, but the fun is in uncovering it from different angles. You can have flashback/traceback stories and so on...

Theory is sooo nice ^_^. Anyway, I also think that games like the 11th guest can be titled interactive narratives, or interactive stories. But the term interactive has somewhat been rejected because of the wave of trash interactive movies in the early nineties when the CD got more widespread.

Recently I started calling my games "graphic text adventures" - the word adventure being lifted from the usage it has in common western games (and specifically old point-and-click adventures), and text meaning it emphasizes text like old text-only games, plus graphic meaning elements of a comic/manga which are called graphic novels.

Well, yes that's a bit weird, but then again, the Japanese call their games however they like (or rather, whatever sounds good to them), so why couldn't I give a type name to my games? 8)

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#3 Post by PyTom »

mikey wrote:Recently I started calling my games "graphic text adventures" - the word adventure being lifted from the usage it has in common western games (and specifically old point-and-click adventures), and text meaning it emphasizes text like old text-only games, plus graphic meaning elements of a comic/manga which are called graphic novels.
The only problem with this is that text adventures and the old-school Lucasarts or Sierra adventure games generally focus on puzzle solving, with the story basically being a way of rewarding the users for solving puzzles.

I tend to like the term "storytelling game" or Tony's term "narrative game", which emphasize that VNs (and similar games) are as much a medium for storytelling as much as they are a computer game.

The blurb for the mac edition of MW on download.com reads "Play a story-telling game.", which is I think as good an introduction as any.
Well, yes that's a bit weird, but then again, the Japanese call their games however they like (or rather, whatever sounds good to them), so why couldn't I give a type name to my games? 8)
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Re: Game Structure

#4 Post by herenvardo »

absinthe, your book has left out the most important structures: the hybryd ones. Theory is good, but is important to make a good use of it. As you start to put into practice what you've read, you'll soon find that there is no need to get stuck inside a stereotyped category (or, as your book calls them, structure). Feel free to make your game switch from a structure to another, ie: my project of this nanoreno would be structured as some sort of Branching of Pearls, trying to keep your book's terminology: there are some places (scenes) and you can go from one to another as you like, and at each one there are many paralel-lineal plots. The most important plots spread through all the game, there are some that spread to various scenes and also some that are 'intrinsic' to that scene. Also, some of the plots have triggers caused from other plots, branching them for a while. In addition, if we add some programming concepts, options are infinite. In the case of my game, it has many rpg elements on it (such as combats, inventory, shops, character customization and so on). The most relevant from this for the plot is that the story can end at any moment with some of this endings (theiy are examples):
you died in the basement of your home...
you 've fallen during a suicide battle against a dragon...
you defeated the dragon and saved this region
and so on... I guess your book doesn't expect this kind of structure :P
With that I want to show you that practice always breaks all barriers put by the teory. So, get a base of teory to begin, but then mix it up with a lot of practice, consulting theory or reference when you need it. That's the best recipe for any work ;)


Edit: O_o' I was writting my post and before I put it there, PyTom has already posted...
PyTom wrote:I tend to like the term "storytelling game" or Tony's term "narrative game", which emphasize that VNs (and similar games) are as much a medium for storytelling as much as they are a computer game.
Just wanted to point out that some role-playing games (book & dice ones, not that computer adventure named rpgs) use that 'narrative game' term. In fact, I feel the barrier between narrative games (or visual novel, or however you want to call it) and rpgs is very thin, if it's any.
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#5 Post by absinthe »

Yep, I think there are probably many types of structure not included; the book was written in '98 (I think I bought the second edition pub'd in 2000) so it mostly dealt with the cd-rom craze from that time period.

The author was pretty prescient, though, as at one point he mentions bandwidth limitations and how cool it'd be for multimedia game design when there weren't any.

I think I saw another book on the topic that had a lot more structure types, but most of them were variations on the basic four. I'll probably order it from Amazon tomorrow.

I'm planning to try a string of pearls structure next, or maybe parallel storylines. I've always liked the idea of using one storyline and multiple angles on it, too. I guess, like POV, structure just depends on the game.
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#6 Post by felix »

mikey wrote: Recently I started calling my games "graphic text adventures" [...] Well, yes that's a bit weird, but then again, the Japanese call their games however they like (or rather, whatever sounds good to them), so why couldn't I give a type name to my games? 8)
Just don't say that to the text adventure crowd - they're very picky about names. :mrgreen:

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#7 Post by felix »

PyTom wrote: The only problem with this is that text adventures and the old-school Lucasarts or Sierra adventure games generally focus on puzzle solving, with the story basically being a way of rewarding the users for solving puzzles.
Not anymore, thankfully. Modern-day text adventures tend to emphasize the story(telling), even when it's only a pretext for puzzles. Some of them are true literary masterpieces. Of course, being text adventures, they have only the writing to rely on for emotional impact, which is their main strength and limitation.

Unfortunately, the text adventure people insist on treating their medium as a closed one, and refuse to deal with/learn from other forms of interactive storytelling. Which is what pushed me to my searching for something different... and here I am.

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#8 Post by herenvardo »

absinthe wrote:I think I saw another book on the topic that had a lot more structure types, but most of them were variations on the basic four. I'll probably order it from Amazon tomorrow.
I guess I would never order a book from amazon... it's not something against amazon, it's only that I live just in front of the public lybrary of my town, and I've my DSL line, so there has been very long since the last time I bought a bool ^^
absinthe wrote:I'm planning to try a string of pearls structure next, or maybe parallel storylines. I've always liked the idea of using one storyline and multiple angles on it, too. I guess, like POV, structure just depends on the game.
BAD! Very bad. Do not plan to use that structure or that other, or you'll end up with a game that has a very solid structure but gets boring or simply bad. Just start writting down a schema for your storyline, and the features you want to put in your game, if needed. Then analyze it to figure out which structure/s does it use. After that, you can go to your book and take a look of what it tells of this/these structure/s to apply it to your game. If you start by picking up a stereotyped structure, then you'll kill completely your freedom. Making a game is a form of art, which embeeds some other arts (such as pastics, literacy, music, etc) and some technology. Freedom is essential to make good art. If you kill freedom, you kill art, and you'll get only technology. A game has to be more that technology (technology here refers mainly to programming/scripting) in order to be a good game.
Well, start from a predefined, stereotiped structure if you're gonna feel better by doing that, but never fear to switch structures during your storyline... stereotypes can be a good starting point, but can't be more than a starting point.
That was my most sincere opinion.
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#9 Post by absinthe »

herenvardo wrote:BAD! Very bad. Do not plan to use that structure or that other, or you'll end up with a game that has a very solid structure but gets boring or simply bad. Just start writting down a schema for your storyline, and the features you want to put in your game, if needed. Then analyze it to figure out which structure/s does it use.
Hehehehe, BAD absinthe! BAD! No biscuit!

No, no, seriously. I really like having at least something of the structure in mind when I start working; otherwise, I default to Linear w/Scene Branching every time without even thinking about it.

Besides, I have so many ideas (if only ideas were worth at least a cup of coffee), defining a structure really helps refine the direction I'm going. Even if it's just a quick flowchart or list of potential endings and the criteria for each.

I have to disagree with you on one thing, though -- it's just as easy to have a game that has poor structure and exciting content as one that has solid structure and is boring. The aim is to have solid structure and great content, and I think there are many ways to approach this goal.

I think it's probably more a matter of finding what works for you than of hard and fast rules. If I waited until I was mostly done and then tried to sort out the basic structure, I'd be rewriting huge chunks of text because I'm compulsive like that. Yet someone else might very well feel that they have to have a rigid and complete structure first, or that they absolutely can't worry about structure at all until they're done with the text.
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#10 Post by mikey »

PyTom wrote:The blurb for the mac edition of MW on download.com reads "Play a story-telling game.", which is I think as good an introduction as any.
It is. I still like the more general sound of "text" though. Anyhow, I do think the problem is because these are simply hybrids, combining so many elements from many different spheres (anime, photography, storytelling, music, gaming etc...).
felix wrote:Unfortunately, the text adventure people insist on treating their medium as a closed one, and refuse to deal with/learn from other forms of interactive storytelling. Which is what pushed me to my searching for something different... and here I am.
Well, there are also visual novel communities that are very particular about term usage as well. As said, whenever you're out of a pure territory, things get complicated.

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#11 Post by papillon »

What about when you're single-handedly building a new genre and need a name for it? :)

As far as I know, nobody's really done what I'm doing - jamming a puzzle-solving graphical adventure and a visual novel into the same room and locking the door until they breed. Although, from some of the published Hirameki commentary, some of the Japanese games are at least getting *close* to the idea, and may even have done it in games I can't read to play.

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#12 Post by Radhreni »

I suppose the project I'm working on would classify as a hybrid between the parallel and branching routes. It's hard to say at this point -- there's a definite start point, and so far the fledgling paths are more parallel than any other description -- but I also plan on it getting fairly wide-branched.

Actually, a tree (well, 'branch' hinting at one at least) probably isn't the best metaphor at all. Branches tend not to grow back into themelves, for one.

As for the 'branching of pearls' -- I immediately thought of actual necklace designs when I read that! Something tells me that's not the image you had in mind, though.

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#13 Post by Haeleth »

For describing generic games of this sort, "Novel game" is an option that's becoming quite popular in Japanese. For example, it's the term adopted by Yuuichi Suzumoto (who wrote the text of "Planetarian") for his soon-to-be-published guide to writing the things. I quite like it, though it has the problem that "novel" might be misread as "original".

On the subject of theory, most Japanese games take one of two options: either they're completely linear, or they use a hybrid linear/branching structure - four or five main storylines branching out of a common introductory section, and each storyline having many sections with alternative paths.

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#14 Post by RedSlash »

Perhaps "Game Novel" would clear the misconfusion, but it does sound a bit weird. "Visual Novel" is not a bad term selected for the genre, although I probably wouldn't have expected choices if I didn't know what it refered to.

I don't think that a little bit of confusion would really matter as long as everyone understands what it mean. Afterall, most people would not be confused that "Quicktime" plays movies. Defining new terms, on the other hand, would probably confuse people.

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#15 Post by felix »

mikey wrote: Well, there are also visual novel communities that are very particular about term usage as well.
Not the Lemmasoft community, I see. :)
mikey wrote: As said, whenever you're out of a pure territory, things get complicated.
It took me a lot to understand this, but it really depends whether you care about the medium or the message. If your final purpose is to explore, say, written language as art, you might consider epic prose and lyric poetry to be close relatives (or vice versa). If what you care about is storytelling, you'll see lots of parallels between, say, theatre and interactive fiction, though in fact they are different beasts. What bothers me is lack of openness about such matters. As if they could actually hurt somebody, or something.

Then again, I always liked to see things in perspective. Not everyone's like me, I guess.

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