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| Home > Articles > Tutorials > Game Design > In-Game Story Types
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In-Game Story Types
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Author: Modesty
Updated: October 05, 2007
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In RPG/Adventure games, many times a creator chooses to tell a story. There are
a few common styles of game story-telling that are used.
Open – The game
designer has only created a world and a set of characters.
The player
has complete control of where they go and what they do in the game.
There
is really no dialogue included in the game unless there are shopping options or
rest areas. All events in the game are randomly generated.
Examples of
this are: Rogue, Text-Based Dungeon Crawlers, Etrian Odyssey, MMORPGs, Mario
Brothers, Arcade Games
Semi-Open/Fluid – The game designer creates a
world, characters and settings/situations. The player can play through the world
however they see fit. There is usually one main storyline or main branches of a
storyline that the player can choose to follow.
The player is given
choices which affect their gameplay. Their choices in branching dialogues,
choice of quests, and so on will allow the player to craft their own
story.
Events in the game are based on in-game choices made by the
player.
Examples of this are: Neverwinter Nights and similar style games,
World of Warcraft to some extent, and Pokemon games.
Closed/Linear – The
game designer creates a world, characters and a storyline to follow.
The
player is guided down a linear story thread. There can be side branches but the
main game does not move on until the player finishes a task that the game
designer set in place.
Events in the game are set by a specific trigger
decided by the game designer.
Examples: Tales Series, Legend of Zelda
Series, Final Fantasy, Dating Sims, most RPGmaker
games.
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There are pros and cons to each type of game.
Open games are not really good for story-telling. It gives authorship to
the player. Usually the games are about a specific system or exploration. There
really is no story to tell.
Semi-Open games is where the game designer
and player co-author in a sense. The Game designer may set limits or a situation
with multiple possibilities along the way. The player can choose any combination
to make their game personal to them.
Of storytelling games, this is the
hardest to write for. The more choices you can give a player, the more freedom
the player will seem to have.
Branching dialogue is a defining feature
of this style. “Collecting” style games also fall into this category.
Linear games turns the game designer into the author and the player into
a reader of sorts. There is a definite beginning, a middle and an end. This can
be easy or difficult to write depending on how well the game designer writes
stories.
Linear games can be made more dynamic and interactive if they
borrow elements from Semi-Open and Open games.
A linear game can have
customizable characters, branching dialogue, a variety of quests to choose from
and other choices to present the player.
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