Читать книгу Slay the Dragon - Robert Denton Bryant - Страница 9
ОглавлениеCHAPTER 01
WHAT’S IN A GAME?
A GAME IS NOT A MOVIE, and a movie is not a game.
No one decides to go out for the evening to watch a game; and we can’t imagine a scenario where friends text each other: SUP? U WANNA PLAY A MOVIE?
It makes no sense. How can you play a movie? You watch a movie. How do you see a game? You play a game. (Although Amazon’s billion dollar purchase of Twitch.tv is the latest evidence that video games are becoming something you watch as well—a spectator sport.12)
Games and movies are two distinct media. Filmed entertainment (movies, TV, scripted Internet videos—anything written for a screen) and video games are at once incredibly similar and totally different. But as these two storytelling platforms align more and more, certain conventions from the one have begun to influence the other. Two of the best recent video game movies were not based on actual video games. Edge of Tomorrow and Snowpiercer are both movies that feature video game tropes which may or may not be recognizable to the non-game-playing audience.
So what exactly do we mean by “video game”?
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GAMES
Let’s get the easy part out of the way: “Video” means, effectively, “played on a screen using a computer.” That computer may be in your mobile phone, your game console, or your laptop. But we like to use “video games” to cover all computer games. Fair? Good. We’ll generally be talking about digital (computer) games throughout the book. We have mad respect for the writing and world building that goes into so many popular “analog” (table-top) games, but, frankly, Bob still hasn’t learned to play Settlers of Catan, so we’ll usually be talking about video games. But not always.
The hard part—defining “game”—is a lot harder, especially since the ludologists got involved. (Ludology is the academic study of games and gameplay.) We are in a very evolving period of time as a debate rages about what exactly is a game.
Legendary designer Sid “Civilization” Meier said that “games are a series of interesting decisions.”13
Respected ludologist Jesper Juul said that a “game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable.”14
Iconoclastic indie developer and critic Anna Anthropy wrote that a game is defined as “an experience created by rules.”15
For our purposes, we like Ms. Anthropy’s definition the best, as it’s the least limiting, most versatile, and shortest.
But what are some of the core aspects of a game? And are any of these characteristics also found in other storytelling media like films or television?
Goals and Obstacles
Games have goals. Classic board games expressed this as “The Object of the Game” printed at the top of the instructions. In order to make those goals challenging, games have obstacles. From a pawn blocking a pawn in a game of chess to Jail in Monopoly or backtracking down a chute in Chutes and Ladders, there will always be obstacles to impede the progress of the player.
Drama in any form must have obstacles and conflict. If Odysseus had used Google Maps, the Odyssey would have been a lot shorter and way less interesting.
Characters
“I want to be the top hat!” Have you ever heard this? It can happen any time a group sits down to play Monopoly. Games often have characters that are “acted” by the players during the gameplay. Remember Clue? We humans have a way of identifying with (and as) other people (real or fictional), animals, and plants (see Plants vs. Zombies)—even inanimate objects, like Monopoly’s top hat. Even colors. Growing up, Bob always wanted to play as black in checkers. He thought black was smarter and cooler than red or white.
The play has a character (or “avatar”) who is—for the player—the protagonist of the story. There must also be antagonists. These can be other players, or computer controlled villains—obstacles that move and act and have cool dialogue.
Settings (or the Game World)
When you sit down to play a game, the game maker provides the dramatic context. The world. The setup. Building the world is the first step to creating an immersive experience for the player. Where does the game take place? The historic Atlantic City of Monopoly? The imaginary island of Catan? The nineteenth century United States of Ticket to Ride? Even such “simple” board games as Stratego, Battleship, and Risk show us a world—namely, combat in the field, at sea, and on a global scale. (By the way, where the heck did the aliens in the Battleship movie come from? They weren’t in our game box!)
Competition
Competition is a huge component of gameplay. Players compete against each other, or the game, or both, to win. In single-player video games, players play against the game system, but they may also be playing against the entire world when it comes to online leaderboards and achievements. Scripted drama consists largely of us watching a “competition” and rooting for the “good guy,” be they Othello, Atticus Finch, or Katniss Everdeen.
And, perhaps most importantly:
Rules
Games have rules. It’s the first thing participants discuss when starting a game. Someone will explain the rules. How to move. What the cards mean. How to win.
Movies and TV shows also have rules. Drama has rules. Characters must be motivated. Clues must be planted. Conflict must be resolved somehow. When stories deviate from these rules, we often find them unsettling, unsatisfying, or a Lars von Trier film.
Rules matter in games. Yes, there are some games where you play without rules. These are games you might have played at the playground in a sandbox as a kid. (Remember that word: sandbox.) Peek-a-Boo. Ring Around the Roses. Make-believe games like House or Dinosaurs. But on the same playground you might have kids playing games where they have to play with rules. Hide and Seek. Duck, Duck, Goose. Four Square (the ball game, not the app). All sports and card games.
And of course, board games.
So what is a rule? Think of it like an “if-then” statement. If I do or accomplish this, then this other thing will happen. It could be a reward or a setback. Simply put, when playing a Call of Duty or a Battlefield:
If I fall on a grenade, then I will die.
At some point during a board game, players might have to refer to the rule book or instruction manual. Computers are awesome because they automate the rules, making them close to invisible. The computer rolls the dice, does the math (physics and calculus) instantly, keeps score, and referees. The computer tracks changes in the game’s state (positions, statistics, achievements, etc.). Imagine having someone at the table on game night doing all that. In so many games, the computer is your Dungeon Master, without the sarcasm or the onion-ring breath. Because the computer is running the game, the player can stay immersed in the world of the game. Finally, when it’s time for more of the story, the computer plays that content flawlessly, every time.
However, games are not only about the experience created by the rule systems. They’re about the story also. Stories have rules as well. Just think of all the rules associated with opening the lost Ark, or using the Force? Or how someone can awaken from a dream in Inception. Players (and characters) make choices that affect outcomes, and those outcomes affect further choices the player can make. It’s a feedback loop: Rules create consequences. Consequences create feelings. Those feelings affect the player’s next actions, and those actions are again judged by the rules. And so on, tens of thousands of times per play session.
Think about the emotions you feel when you are playing a game and have to GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL. Or when you finally solve the puzzle that’s been thwarting your progress. Or when you find that one hidden item that will complete your quest. Our goal as game writers is to use those feelings to deepen the narrative experience for the player. This is the storytelling alchemy that games can possess—a combination of gameplay and narrative.
We’ll explore story further in the next chapter, but for now, let’s say that a story is a journey of emotion. If that’s true, and we feel it is, then it’s useful to think of a game as a journey of action.
A GAME IS A JOURNEY OF ACTION
What action? Everything: the action the player takes, the resulting action that the game system (or an opposing player) takes, then the resulting subsequent actions that the players take, etc.
Game mechanics are the actions that a player can take in a game. They are the “verbs” of the game. Gameplay designers are always thinking about what the players can do in a level, just as screenwriters are always thinking about what the characters are doing in a scene. What makes sense? What’s challenging? What’s too easy or too boring?
Here’s a brutally incomplete list of some common game mechanics, with some example games. Think about games that you’ve played recently, or your favorites. Which mechanics do you recognize from this list? Which are missing?
Moving
This can cover a lot, like running at a fixed speed (Temple Run, Canabalt) or accelerating and decelerating, often while steering (Pole Position, Project Gotham Racing). You might be jumping (Super Mario Bros.) and ducking (Super Mario Bros. 3) to avoid obstacles or to reach platforms. You can move to pursue or to avoid, fleeing enemies (Pac-Man) or chasing them (powered-up Pac-Man).
Exploring
This might be seeking a hidden switch in a room (Myst, The Room) or a more general exploring of a level or a world to discover its wonders (World of Warcraft). You could be collecting things (Pokémon, Lego Star Wars) or gathering resources (Minecraft). If someone is searching for you, then perhaps you should think about hiding (Metal Gear Solid).
Planning
This is a broad one, as it can include managing (SimCity, Roller Coaster Tycoon), strategizing (Civilization, Rise of Nations), or simply buying and selling (The Sims, franchise mode in Madden). You may be choosing which weapon or power-up to use (Angry Birds, Mario Kart), arranging gems or other things (Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest), or allocating cards in your deck or points to your character (Magic: The Gathering or Mass Effect).
Fighting
This can include attacking and defending in individual hand-to-hand combat (Street Fighter, Tekken), on the squad level (Final Fantasy Tactics) or as a clash of armies (StarCraft, the Total War series). Although some games feature intimate stabbing, both more secretive (Assassin’s Creed) and less (Chivalry: Medieval Warfare), by far the most popular form of combat in video games is shooting. Whether the shooting is done from a side view (R-Type), a top-down view (Asteroids), an over-the shoulder view (Gears of War), or a first-person view (Quake, Unreal, Halo and so many others), players love to point at a target, press a button, and let the simulated physics fall where they may.
Timing
This is another broad one, as it can include volleying the ball in Pong or Breakout, matching your steps or strums to the beats in Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, or swinging your club in Hot Shots Golf.
We warned you this list is brutally short. What have we missed? We’ll dig deeper into this in Chapter 07: Game Design Basics for Writers.
Remember that many games, and very many story games, tend to combine several mechanics, either simultaneously or in phases. In the Grand Theft Auto games you race sometimes, you shoot sometimes, and sometimes you shoot while racing. In Sid Meier’s Pirates! you sword fight, sail, and trade, amongst other piratey activities.
Understanding a game’s mechanics is crucial to where it is placed, both on the retail shelf and in the minds of game players, because historically, that’s how we think of game genres.
GAME GENRE VS. STORY GENRE
Stories are journeys of emotion. We tend to group movies and television—along with novels and plays—by the emotions they evoke (comedy, horror, romance, etc.).
Games are journeys of action, however. We tend to group games by their core mechanics (racing, shooting, role-playing, etc.). Players who enjoy a certain mechanic tend to look for other games with the same mechanics they enjoy, just as people who enjoy mystery novels look for more mysteries to read. That’s why retailers often put Halo and Call of Duty on the same shelf. Even though one is a space opera and the other is an urban combat simulator, they share the same core mechanic: point-and-click shooting. But just because we group games by their mechanics doesn’t mean that story isn’t important to our enjoyment of games. The story should complement the mechanics of the genre and vice versa. It all comes together during the development and production of the game. With that in mind, we want to touch on how video games are actually made.
HOW DO THEY MAKE GAMES? WHO’S THE DIRECTOR?
Movies have directors. They’re the ultimate boss on a film set; they are responsible for managing all the creative and technical departments so that the hundreds of people who work on the film are executing toward bringing the director’s coherent creative vision to the movie.
The movie-making process developed in Europe and America over a century ago, and its customs and practices—its industry culture—is very deeply rooted. It would be hard to imagine a film without a director, and we have a long tradition of genius-level auteurs (Welles, Hitchcock, Bergman, Fellini, Kubrick, …).
Games do not have directors, per se. They sometimes have creative directors, or design directors, or occasionally you’ll see a “directed by” or “game director” credit on large projects or some Japanese games, but the term is rare. There may be a person (say, the “Director of Game Design”) who owns the creative vision of the game, but he is always working with the producer (responsible for the schedule and budget) and the technical director (or lead programmer, responsible for the coding), as well as the other department heads (art, audio, marketing, live team, testing, community managers, etc.) to balance their creative vision against the other resources (Time! Money!) that are running short on the project.
The process of making computer games emerged four decades ago in Japan, America, and Europe, and each region’s game development culture is a little different. In America, the game development process still often reflects the well-established process of “grown-up” software development—banking, medicine, aviation—that arose in the 1960s and ’70s. There, the clients (represented by marketing) often dictated their needs or creative vision, which was mediated by a project manager, who then “managed” teams of programmers, who wrote the software. (If it seems “Dilbert”-y, it is.)
Fortunately, game development can be a lot more democratic, in the sense that managing the entire team (which is done by producers or project managers, not a director) relies a lot more on consensus building—and horse trading—than orders dictated through a megaphone by an auteur in a canvas chair. There is often a “blue sky” period very early on in the conception phase. No good (or bad) idea goes unexpressed.
Blue sky is the honeymoon period of creativity. Anything is possible. Creators meet, brainstorm, spitball. They might be producers, designers, and writers who work from this mantra: If we can have anything in the world in our game, what might it be? Blue sky starts the collaborative process and differs greatly from the screenplay-driven, authorial process of Hollywood. Sure, the creative producer of the game will reject most ideas—but the ideas will be heard.
There are, of course, a few video game auteurs who work like, and have fans like, film directors: Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), Sid Meier (Civilization), Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims), Tim Schafer (Grim Fandango), and Ken Levine (BioShock), among a few others. But they remain the exception rather than the rule.
WHERE DO GAME IDEAS COME FROM?
When Bob was working as a game tester at Mattel, he thought he had a great idea for a game: Mattel should resurrect its then moribund “Masters of the Universe” IP and make a hardcore action game aimed at the then 20- and 30-year-olds who grew up playing with He-Man and Skeletor. Because it was aimed at a mature audience, Bob envisioned the game as a gritty, noir take on He-Man. Skeletor had years ago conquered Castle Greyskull. He-Man had been stripped of his Sword of Power and had been banished to hard labor in a forgotten astro-mine. Bob pulled together an ad hoc group of artists and producers (who often doubled as gameplay designers) from the studio and pitched them his idea over lunch.
“We open up with three of He-Man’s buddies huddled around a campfire. They’re leaderless, oppressed, and homeless. One starts to sing …” and then Bob launched into a song he’d written that would cover the action in the first cut scene.
“Wait a minute,” a producer said. “Is this a game you’re pitching? What do I get to do?”
“Well, fight your way out of the mines and re-take Castle Greyskull.”
“Fine, that’s the story—but what do I get to do?”
Bob had figured that details like gameplay could be sorted later. He was wrong.
His experience was typical for screen and fiction writers who move into game writing. It’s a very sobering realization that you, the writer(s), are never the prime creator of a game. Fledgling game writers get told almost daily, “we can’t do that,” by producers or programmers. A simple idea like “let’s make our hero swim!” can have a huge impact on the schedule and budget of a game, because implementing that suggestion would require the time and money involved to create entirely unanticipated models, textures, and animation trees. The sad irony is that for an interactive medium, it is often very difficult in video game development to adapt on the fly in the middle of a project.
That’s the bad news. And it is also looking in the rear-view mirror. The good news is that more than ever, developers at every level need good writers to compete in the marketplace as the medium—and the audience—grows more sophisticated and discriminating. We are just beginning to unlock the potential of video games as a form of artistic self-expression.
Although game concepts traditionally have been driven by technology and game mechanics, this is changing. The idea for The Last of Us did not come from the mechanics. It came from the mind of the writer/co-director Neil Druckmann. He wanted to develop a game version of the iconic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead. Unable to get the rights, he came up with his own—a mash-up of Night of the Living Dead and the classic PlayStation 2 game Ico.16 Druckmann made the idea his own, blending story and game mechanics in a way that resulted in a game-changing game.
THE NARRATIVE DESIGNER
The process of video game production suffers when a writer is brought in late to the project to assemble all the assets and make something that is cohesive. A narrative designer might be brought into the project early. On his blog The Narrative Design Explorer, “transmedia story designer and interactive design evangelist” Stephen Dinehart17 put together one of the best job descriptions we’ve seen of the role and responsibilities of a narrative designer. He wrote that:
The Narrative Designer will focus on ensuring that the key elements of the player experience associated with story and storytelling devices, script and speech are dynamic, exciting and compelling.
A job title has emerged recently that’s often junior to narrative designer: content designer. But whatever it’s called, we hope that you will one day soon be working for (running, perhaps?) the game developer of your choice.
But let’s learn to crawl before we fly. Let’s break things down all the way to their fundamentals.
Let’s talk about story. See you in the next chapter.
DRAGON EXERCISES 01
Making A Game
1 WRITE YOUR OWN GAME
In this exercise, gameplay will be locked, and it’s up to you to make the game as interesting as possible using only the tools of storytelling. The game is a simple dice race:
1. Two players
2. One six-sided die
3. Both players start on the same space (#1). Taking turns, each player rolls the die and moves their token one to six spaces around the board.
4. The first player to reach the end space (#32) wins!
As you’ve already figured out, this is the most boring gameplay possible. It’s up to you and your imagination to bring the game to life by deciding what world the game takes place in, who the two players are, and what happens in each “scene” (space) as the players move toward the end of the game (and the story).
Don’t leave any space blank!
The simplest method is to complete a matrix like this one:
| SPACE | STORY CONTENT |
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. | |
| 4. | |
| etc. |
We have done this in class many times. We want storytellers to begin to use board games as a way of telling their stories. One student did an “extreme sports survival” game about a trip to climb Mount Everest. Five players climbed a mountain with gear and rations and were caught in a snowstorm and trapped. Will they make it? Play the game and find out. Each space brought you deeper into the world. The language and tone immersed the player in the world of extreme mountain climbing. It was complex but simple. You want to have a clear goal.
Remember, don’t change the rules, or redesign the game board. You’re writing on top of a game that has already been designed (professional game writers have to do this all the time). Save your urge to design gameplay for the next exercise.
2 TURN YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE INTO A BOARD GAME
This exercise is the opposite of the first one. Now you will focus on creating gameplay to reflect an existing story. Try it with your favorite classic movie. Why classic? Because chances are that your favorite recent movie is already a board game (and no fair turning Battleship or Clue back into board games).
Choose a classic film that falls outside the action/adventure genre: Citizen Kane, Silence of the Lambs, When Harry Met Sally, Animal House, Dr. Strangelove, Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club … How would you make such a movie into a board game? You can make it any type of game you want, but the simpler the better. We are not looking for you to make 3D printed character pieces with an elaborately designed game board.
DESIGN THE GAME BOARD
1. Create a simple board game using a game template. You can use the board game above or do an Internet search for “Board Game Templates” if you want more examples.
2. Choose a board. You now begin to see a structure. Do all this in pencil. Very rudimentary.
3. Write down your ideas. How do you see the game being played out? What is the objective of the game?
4. What are the mechanics? Dice? How many? Are there cards that need to be created and drawn?
5. How many players can play at one time? Is the game competitive or cooperative?
THE STORY OF THE GAME
1. How do the beats (plot points, story events) in the movie lead to the end of the game? Think of the pivotal scenes in the movie you have chosen. How can they be represented on the game board?
2. Do you need cards or branching paths to represent turning points in the story? How can you represent progress and setbacks? Does a setback put you back three spaces? Six? It’s up to you.
3. Who are your characters? Let’s say it’s a hero vs. villain game. Will you have the good guy start in one direction around the board while the bad guy starts moving in the other direction? If they land on the same space, will they fight? How do they fight? Do they roll dice? What are the results of that fight?
TEST THE GAME
1. Write down the rules.
2. Play the game. Test it. Have friends play it and watch them play. Record your observations in your Game Journal
3. Rewrite the rules.
4. Have more friends play it. Record more observations.
REFINE THE GAME
1. Redo and refine the artwork.
2. Rewrite the game rules and add a story introduction.
3. Rewrite the cards. Do they stay in a character’s voice?
Think about how you can keep the spirit and the tone of the original movie. Does the voice you use on the cards match the voice of the movie? For example, if the game is Silence of the Lambs, do the cards read as if they were written by Hannibal Lecter? By Agent Clarice Starling? By Buffalo Bill?
14 Juul, Jesper. 2005. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Ebook. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, loc 400.
15 Anthropy, Anna. 2012. Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Ebook. 1st ed. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press., Loc. 939.
16 The Making of “The Last of Us” - Part 1: A Cop, A Mute Girl and Mankind, http://youtu.be/Fbpvzq-pfjc, retrieved January 20, 2015.
