Reading week 10

One of the articles we had to read for this week was from Bratiewaite and Schreiber. In the article they give us advice on how to integrate a story into a game.

At first they give us the STORY ACTS:

'3 act story act'

Act one - Starts off with an inciting moment, changes that effect the main character. (The game starts with the main character having a problem)

Act two - Dramatic reveal occurs. This reveal should be logical and shock the players to get the most impact

Act three- The goal is achieved (e.g End game)

The 3 story act is the classic act which outlines the basic structure of a story and  the most commonally used act.

'5 PART HERO'S JOURNEY'

Part one- the journey begins 

Part two - the hero passes a series of challenges 

Part three - hero confronts final evil and goal is achieved 

Part four- hero returns to every normal day

Part five - hero applies the lesson learned to the world.

The five part hero's journey was originally in a book written by Joesph Campbell who said that there really is only one hero and one path that can be written in a thousand different ways. I agree with the 5 part hero journey, from previous experience of playing games, Campbell's theory has been played out in one way or another in adventure games now a days. 

After telling us about the acts they then both tell us what different types of stories can be played in games.

Linear stories 

-Getting from A to B, they say that it can be emotionally powerful, to which a can agree to some extent, but i have found that linear games also have the risk of becoming boring, as they don't really give the player much freedom to do what they want.

Branching stories

-Presenting the player with multiple way though the story and obtaining multiple endings as well. The play path changes in response to the players choice. leaving the story line in the players hands give then more options to play the game in a style that suits them. 

Open end stories

-The total opersite to Linear stories, the game starts at a spot and the games allows the player to go anywhere, as well as the freedom to do anything, they game dynamics change with the player decisions.

Instance 

-Special case of open end stories. They are like mini tasks within the game, they can choose whether they do it or not. ( out of all the types of stories they tell us, i think this one has the most impact. i have played many games which i thought were too much to handle e.g final fantasy 7, and with instance i think it takes away the pressure of completing the game, while still playing the game )

Emergant stories 

- Stories that are created by the players e.g sims, minecraft 

Thematic stories

-AKA opening cut scenes. this shows the players what they have to do, instead of them playing the game to understand. 

The second article we had to read was from Southland he argues 'The real substance of a story is conflict.' 
Southland gives us the basic confilts that can feature in games.


The 3 gaps 
-A gap opens up between the hero and the ordinary life
-second gap: the protagonist learns something that they didn't know before
-third gap: (after overcoming the second gap) the hero takes the biggest gamble to get the object they desire.


Reversal
-when the hero accomplish the ordeal before them, the reversal that occurs stops them from going forward.
-Reversal's can happen though actions ( like the shooting of a cops partner) or a reversal actions
-A good reversal is when everything you know is true, but there's more and the world is flipped on its head with new knowledge.


Other types of conflicts
-internal conflict  which is novels
interpersonal conflict. e.g plays and t.vs 
externals e.g games and movies


What are the basic conflicts in stories?
In what fundamental way dies game story development differ from storytelling in other forms of media?