This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 29, released in February 2009

Introduction

Game Development. The words have a way of sending a flurry of mathematical equations and complex code lines swirling through one's head; after all, it's exactly that which drives a game forward, isn't it? – having your logical pathways set out so that when objects interact with one another they do what is expected. We get so hammered down on programming and gameplay that it's easy to forget, particularly at the introductory level of game development, that there's much more to a game than simply getting the code to compile without any errors.

This 6-part guide is here to explain and give you an idea of one of the more abstract areas of game-development: Narrative.

What is Narrative?

Now, you may be wondering why you need to care about something like Narrative. Think about the last five or so game you played. Assuming you breach the sports genre, I will hazard a guess that the majority of those games had a story on some level. Narrative has always been a massive part of the gaming industry, and in recent times, has become even more complex in structure. So naturally, as a game developer, it should be of some interest to you.

So what is it?

To put things bluntly, Narrative boils down to telling a story. Simple enough – but that's an explanation that's only suited for shouting to a stranger as you pass each other by in a crowded room. In the greater scale of things, narrative involves a deeper set of qualities: characterization; dialogue; sequence of events; as well as the world in which all of these things take place. The manner in which all of these qualities interact with each other, forms a narrative.

Narrative is highly flexible, and can stretch as far as your imagination (so if you're a fan of Britney Spears, you may be in trouble here), no idea is off-limits. But there are a few things to take into consideration, and many things to avoid, but these will be covered as we get to them in the coming months. Just remember that you're making a game, and that whatever story you imagine has to be adapted to suit that particular medium.

The Narrative scale

Okay, so now we know what narrative is, how are we going to start implementing it? Well, it's a good idea to first determine what level of narrative structure you're going to have before anything else. This will stop you from going too deep, or not going deep enough, in terms of the world you're going to create.

The first mistake you will probably make is to think that genre determines narrative style. While not completely inaccurate, to let narrative be determined by genre means you will never be able to breach or expand that genre; which means that you're essentially restricting yourself. So instead, we're going to look at narrative on a number of levels, rather than by the genre of the game.

You will find that each level of narrative has an exception to the typical genre – which further presses the point that narrative isn't genre-specific, and that genres, particularly today, are branching out further and further across narrative levels.

Remember: DON'T limit yourself, not even by the level explanations that follow – these are simply here to make things easier to understand; the lines are extremely blurred in practice.