Game Storytelling: Brevity

There has been a school of thought that video games should be taking more cues from movies and television as they move to tell more engaging stories, birthing the Cinematic AAA game exemplified by the Naughty Dog catalog post-2012. Games where the focus is on framing the experience like a scene in a movie that the player gets to live out in real-time. A fine idea in theory, and as much as I like to point out that companies like Naughty Dog are missing the forest for the trees somewhat with these games, creating perfectly fine 7/10 stories and bolting them to refined and functional, if not groundbreaking, gameplay loops. However, that is another rant for another day. Today is the carrot before the stick when I praise Naughty Dog, and others, for their understanding that while the story is a big selling point of their game, it's still a game at the end of the day.

This issue has been a struggle that games have been wrestling with ever since the dawn of the RPG. To condense and weave an engaging tale of high fantasy much the same as any other work of art while keeping in mind the gameplay elements and storage limitations of their games. And while the steady march of progress has neatly curb-stomped the latter problem, the former still exists in spades today.

Dialogue becomes a powerful and dangerous tool as part of the delicate balancing act between gameplay and story. When used correctly, it's sparingly used to fill in elements of the game world and story that gameplay cannot. When not, it hampers the player with information and stalls the overall flow of gameplay. I know the old adage is "show, don't tell," but that was a slogan born out of non-interactive mediums. So, while we can use that when writing more traditional scenes in games, the bulk of the time, the saying should go, "Play, don't talk."

Because in the end, the gameplay is the most powerful element that a game has to tell a story. Just as the most potent aspect a film has to work with is the actors' actions, a game uses the player's actions to get the bulk of the story across. However, there comes moments where dialogue is needed to convey information to a player. It may also be the only way to get information to a player due to the limitations in the game. Yet, no matter the limits, two things should always be in the front of your writer's mind: "How can I tie this into the gameplay, and how can I make this as punchy as possible."

See, dialogue and any written text in games work best when it's short and punchy. The lines are memorable; they're impactful, don't beat around the bush, and end as quickly as they start. Good examples can be found in the first Uncharted, The Witcher 3, and Fire Emblem Echoes. So, to make good on my promise at the start, Uncharted keeps its scenes short and quippy, with Nathan Drake and company snapping off quick little blurbs to one another. Both setting the player up for the next set-piece and telling them more about these characters in the process. Then, just as quickly as they start, they're over, Nathans getting shot or running away from something, and control is placed back in the player's hands. This formula goes on for the whole game, only slowing down a little whenever the player is invited to walk through a village or climb a wall they can not fail to climb. Sorry, that was a bit of the stick; back to the carrot.

Overall Uncharted remembers that it's a game and that the player focuses on the exciting shootouts, spectacular chases, and labyrinthine puzzles. So, to keep the pace up and engage the player, they need to keep the parts they have no control over short and packed with info cause they will not get many other chances to reiterate. Of course, there are exceptions here and there; Persona 5 has some rather lengthy parts that meander around, not doing much at all. However, the shorter Confidant scenes are almost prime examples of what I'm talking about. But I would caution using RPGs as the prime example of brevity, as most of them try and get you to read at least ten full-length novels by the end.

However, Persona 5 still retains that crucial element of brevity, player agency. See, you can have lengthy series of interactions in your game, but it should be peppered with chances for the player to interact with the story. Much in the way, Nathan Drake will go from talking to Sully one moment to dodging gunfire the next; Joker will be sitting listening to his friends discuss their next plan of action, interjecting his own option when prompted. Now, while these may not seem like the same thing, and for the most part, they are not equal in granting player control, they both put control back in the player's hands. Even if it's something small and relatively meaningless, like Joker's responses in Persona 5, it still makes the player feel like their actions are being considered in the story. In the same way, Nathan Drake will die if the player doesn't perform well in the combat arenas; Joker will not know what to do next if the player doesn't nudge him in one direction or the other.

These frequent interludes engage the player in your story. After all, they are the main character, but if you give them nothing to do for long stretches of the game, they'll start feeling like side characters. Good example of this being done poorly is Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Here the balance is way off; in the 3 hours it takes the game to get started, only about an hour of that is gameplay. Now, you could argue that Persona 5 is just as long and dialogue-heavy; however, the main difference is the time between player actions.

In Persona 5, you're frequently prompted to respond in every cutscene at least once. In Xenoblade 2, you get no such option and are not prompted to do much of anything until the cutscene ends. There is also an overall difference in the quality of writing between these two games, but again, future rant. However, what should be the takeaway from Xenoblade 2 is that you must keep that balancing act in mind when writing your game. Games are at their best when they work within the confines of being games and play to those strengths, not by imitating another medium that only shares tangential elements.

That means knowing how to utilize your limited space effectively and keeping scenes short enough so you don't exclude your players. Be it through your primary gameplay loop or through dialogue options. In all honesty, it's a tightrope to balance, and the definition of "too long" shifts from person to person. However, similarities start to crop up when a game has a good pace and knows how to use its time effectively. Namely, the gameplay alone spoke for itself, and when the game had to talk with words, it made sure it had something to say, was brief, and let the player get back to making decisions.