Bring a little story to your game

Abstract

Many of our favorite games are story-driven, so that as we advance in the game we also participate in a story. Even when they are not story-driven, games can also use stories to frame the progress of the player. Storytelling in games, however, seems to require many resources, particularly with the expensive cinematics of commercial games.

In order to bring together games and stories, we need to think in terms of storybuilding. Storybuilding means creating a story in fragments, so that it is up to the player to piece it together. Creating stories in this manner makes it easier for smaller development teams and student games to incorporate stories without the need of extra resources. The concept of storybuilding will be illustrated by a series of examples from various videogames, as a way to provide a practical guide to students to bring a little story to their games.