Read & Play: Game Design as Narrative Architecture

Part 1: Game Design as Narrative Architecture Notes 

Intro

• Long conflict between games (interactive) and storytelling (narrative)—some industry experts think they represent opposites/can’t co-exist 
• Average gamer will think narrative as choose-your-own-adventure book 
• There’s a lot game designers can learn from storytelling media
• Author’s key points

1. Not all games tell stories
2. Many games do have narrative aspirations
3. Narrative analysis need not be prescriptive even if some narrologists advocate for games to pursue narrative forms -> The goal should be to foster diversification of genres, aesthetics, and audiences, to open gamers to the broadest possible range of experiences. 
4. The experience of playing games can never be simply reduced to the experience of a story
5. If some games tell stories, they are unlikely to tell them in the same ways that other media tell stories.

• Most ludologists are very critical, dismissing the value of narrative. Problems with this:

1. Discussion based on too narrow models of narratives (e.g. classical linear storytelling) 
2. Discussion based on limited understanding of narration (focusing more on the activities and aspirations of the storyteller and too little on the process of narrative comprehension)
3. Discussions deal only w/ the question of whether whole games tell stories and not whether narrative elements might enter games at a more localized level
4. Discussion assumes that narratives must be self-contained rather than understanding games as serving some specific functions within a new transmedia storytelling environment

 

Spatial stories and environmental storytelling

• Game design documents historically prioritize level design over plot/character
• Games have prehistory in mazes and board games (spatial design focus)
• Early games (Zork, Super Mario Bros etc) centered on navigating compelling spaces
• When adapting films to games, events translate into environments
• Games fit tradition of spatial stories (hero’s odysseys, quest myths, travel narratives)
• Writers like Tolkien, Verne, Homer prioritize world-making over tight plotting
• Disney’s environmental storytelling: physical space conveys story -> evokes atmosphere rather than reproducing plot

 

Four ways environmental storytelling works

1. Evocative Spaces

• Build on pre-existing narrative knowledge
• Games draw on existing narrative competencies in broad strokes
• Example: American McGee’s Alice—players bring mental map from Carroll’s universe, read distorted images against familiar background
• Transmedia storytelling—games don’t retell stories but enrich larger narrative economy. Star Wars game dialogues w/ films rather than regurgitating them

2. Enacting Stories

• Players perform or witness narrative events
• Narrative enters on two levels: broadly defined goals/conflicts and localized incidents
• Spatial stories are episodic—episodes compelling on their own, often reorderable
• Resolution hinges on reaching final destination
• Accordion-like structures— certain plot points fixed, other moments expandable (like musicals, action films)
• Game designers balance plot framework w/ player freedom at local level
• Micronarratives – short emotionally-packed units (Eisenstein’s “attractions,” Odessa Steps example)
• Similar to commedia dell’arte improvisation within set parameters

3. Embedded Narratives

• Distinction between plot (syuzhet) and story (fabula)
• Narrative as body of information distributed across game space
• Players test mental maps by acting on them
• Detective stories ideal: investigation chronological, crime events told out of sequence
• Examples: Myst, Half Life, The Undying
• “Following Saknussemm”— discovering clues/artifacts left by others (Journey to Center of Earth)
• Melodrama model— artifacts/spaces contain affective potential; external projection of internal states (Doctor Zhivago, Rebecca examples)
• Majestic—embedded narrative across multiple channels (websites, webcasts, emails etc)

4. Emergent Narratives

• Not pre-structured but shaped through gameplay
• The Sims as authoring environment/”sandbox”
• Design choices increase prospects for romance/conflict
• Characters have will, desires, needs that create dramatic encounters
• Space design critical: highly legible narrative space w/ artifacts performing specific functions
• Procedural authorship + thoughtful spatial design
• Kevin Lynch’s urban design principles: spaces should have “poetic and symbolic potential” w/ totally predetermining use

 

TLDR

• Game designers are narrative architects who structure space w/ narratological consequences
• Different spatial design strategies suit different narrative models (evoked, enacted, embedded, emergent)
• Game spaces facilitate narrative experiences through their organization and features

Part 2: IF Game (“You’re Gone” – Furry Version)

Game context

“You’re Gone” (furry version)’s target audience is likely furries and perhaps people who have recently lost a loved one or can relate to this situation. The creator is Madison Rye Progress, a transgender writer, editor, and software engineer. She focuses on furry fiction and non-fiction, using that as a framework for exploring across genres. 

“You’re Gone” is hosted on a web app—it’s set up in the context of the player texting their recently deceased cat wife from the POV of a coyote who is grieving. The player has to continuously click the message send button to unveil the full story on what happens after the cat wife’s death—everyhting from coping with the death to conflicts with the wife’s mother and stepfather. 

I played the full game to unveil the whole story (took about 15 minutes). 

Link to furry version of “You’re Gone”: https://makyo.ink/assets/posts/youre-gone/ 

 

Narrative Strategies Used

This game mainly uses an embedded narrative in a single channel (messages/text) since it involves a pre-written story that follows a more linear structure. As the player clicks the “send message” button (see Figure 1), the story unfolds with more context through each text message from the coyote’s point of view. Unlike some embedded narrative games where clues and story elements are scattered, this game presents clues in chronological order (e.g., the coyote goes to the funeral -> argues with his wife’s mother -> the mother is arrested -> he goes to therapy, etc.).

Figure 1 Story unfolds as player clicks on “send message” button

 

Game subgenre

This game’s subgenre is a kinetic novel, since the story unfolds linearly. This means that players can’t make choices (they just click the “send message” button to unveil chronological clues and context). However, I still feel that this limited action allows players to deeply empathize with the coyote and experience what it feels like to grieve a loved one’s death and navigate external challenges afterward. Allowing players to send texts one at a time offers more than a book-like narrative because it enables them to immerse themselves in being the coyote who is texting his dead wife.

 

Inspiration and Criticism for my Own Narrative

I thought it was really unique that the game designer set this game in the context of a coyote sending one-sided texts to his dead wife. I know a lot of games that involve two-way texting, but it was unique in that we weren’t getting context from another player (e.g., whoever is texting us back). Instead, we’re getting clues and unraveling the story from a first-person POV without explicitly reading a single block of text. For my story, I want to explore different mediums and channels (e.g., perhaps I can unveil clues by reading emails or text messages, rather than directly telling the story through long blocks of text).

 

Drawing empathy 

The game successfully drew empathy toward people who have recently lost loved ones and are grieving. The game designer did this by showing the coyote’s raw thoughts in POV and revealing what he wanted to say directly to his dead wife. The absence of the dead wife was amplified by having no one respond to the texts, which made me feel the loss and pain of her death even more. For example, the coyote repeatedly texted things like “I miss you so much,” “It feels weird you’re not at home, not at chemo. You’re just gone,” and “My therapist said I should get over you. I’m going to delete your account” (see Figure 2). Overall, I think the game designer was successful in drawing empathy because the game truly made me feel the pain and shock of losing someone close—and how reality doesn’t hit immediately. It takes time to grieve and move on in a healthy way.

 

Figure 2 The messages emphasize the pain and grief the coyote feels in first person