Narrative in games: Chris Crawford

Looking at an article by Chris Crawford (2005) On interactive storytelling : New riders I have seen a new light on the way story is told throughout games. Crawford suggests that gamers who play games that include a storyline don't complain about being jerked around through wild dramatic syrations as they don't actually see these storytelling conventions as protocols of storytelling. Many people don't see the storytelling part of the game to be the most important, however in my opinion the storytelling for me is actually very important depending on if the game is of a specific genre of course. Arcade games don't necessarily need a storyline, although containing a brief story doesn't hurt as long as the reason for playing is apparent from the start. But with games such as adventure game, I play many games such as Assassins Creed by Ubisoft for the storyline. The narrative that trails through their whole series captures my enthusiasm partly because I've always loved history and architecture, but back to the article.

Stories are about people, or personificated items. Items used can sometimes represent people as they would act within a narrative as a human being would do, or would seem to do. This is because the original story is created and told by a person. Stories can also have objects as their central components such as Lord of the Rings. The narrative suggests the story is about rings, however rings are the central object but the story is about the people who interact around the object as such.

Chris Crawford describes many of the games characters within games as Cardboard people and suggests that:

"The cardboard people in the games do for drama what inflatable dolls do for sex"

This obviously suggests that the acting within games are a pitiful attempt as to imitate proper storytelling instead of actually creating a deep and compelling narrative. As with any story in any language or genre The protagonists and antagonists contain these basic conventions:

Good guys: White clothing, handsome and noble.
Bad guys: Black clothing, black hats, missing teeth, bad breath.

Games are typically good at using the most direct form of stories and conflict, THIS IS VIOLENCE.

Puzzles are mentioned through the article as not being stories. But puzzles are often used as part of a story, or to unlock part of a story. Often used within hidden object and mystery games, puzzles can be used as a theme to extend the depth of a story, however your outcome of a puzzle never usually directly manipulates the games narrative.

Throughout a narrative, choices of the characters are an important aspect of the actual storytelling. In most stories, the story builds up in tension and revolves around a key decision or action from a person.

The is also stories which rely mainly on a spectacle. By providing exotic imagery for the viewer to immerse themselves within the game, this type of story tends to be a dominator in the movie/film industry. However computer games have mostly been dominated by the request for evermore realistic graphics, yet these graphics often contain huge spectacles. We are currently in a period where it is: Rise of the image, fall of the words. Storytelling is now being eradicated by visual thinking, but this should not be the case as storytelling gives us humans a purpose that has lived on throughout time.

Games need to pay more attention to the way in which they convey a story to the player, especially if the game is story-based.