A Likely Story
When developing a game story, you will find you have three different types of people in your audience:
- Players who are into your story as it happens
- Players who want to get into your story in depth
- Players who don’t care what the story is at all4
Making your story appealing to all three types of players can be a challenge. The best rule of thumb is to always make the story be in service of the gameplay and not the other way around. Here are some tips on involving story into the game:
- To satisfy players who are looking for a deeper experience, provide details but make sure they don’t get in the way of the story. For example, BioShock and Batman: Arkham Asylum both have non-mandatory collectable audiotapes that reveal deeper story details to players without intruding on the main story.
- Because players who are just along for the ride will indiscriminately press the “A” button to get through audio cues and cutscenes that reveal story points, make...