The following figure shows the underlying mechanics of how a game tells a story:

The preceding figure has the following three important parts:

A game is not a novel or a play, so the story is not the most important part of it. But the game idea or synopsis is. Your game should have clear and obvious principles that can be described in a few words. This is the keystone of your game; it must be solid and constant.

Try to start with something simple; you are not a big studio about to produce a new AAA title. Be modest. Use simple rules, graphics, and media.

It is important to remember that a game idea is not always unique. There are tons of games with identical principles and rules: to match-three elements in a row, to save a princess, to defend a base, to shoot enemies, and to win a race (the only exceptions are unique titles with revolutionary new principles of gameplay, but such games appear once in a blue moon as it is very hard to think a new type of reliable and addictive gameplay). To stand out from the crowd, the game needs a plot (or semantic ornamentation ). The volume of information it conveys can differ; games with a complex gameplay (packed with adventure and RPG components) feature screenplays made of hundreds of pages and thousands of lines of text. This includes the main storyline, various side quests, alternative variants of the same events, subplots, and so on. There is an interesting list on gaming at http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_longest_video_game_scripts, showing descriptions of some of the longest scripts for modern video games; for instance, Fallout 3 from Bethesda Game Studios has a screenplay made up of 40, 000 lines. But some visual novel games have scripts with more than 1,00,000 lines. This is more than in the movie industry (a traditional film screenplay has about 120 pages (one page per minute) and around 50 to 55 lines of text per page, since the overall number of lines is something close to 6,500). This is not only because the games are longer, but also because they are non-linear. At the same time, simple games, which are reasonable to begin a game developer career with, may have very short plots, barely longer than the synopsis. For instance, it can describe a game setting and some minor notations: an underwater bubble match-three game with a few unique bonus elements. Such type of plot is perfect for small puzzle games because the game's mechanics are clear enough that you only need to describe its graphics—the look and feel.

Stronger efforts on the plot are needed when the figure of the protagonist (the main character) is introduced. In this case, some classic dramatic principles are turned on. The player needs to know something about the character: his motivation, goals, and strong and weak points. Maybe the character's past is unclear (this is a good way to create intrigue), but he should have a recognizable pattern of behavior and some principles and characteristics; in other words, he should have some spirit. In this case, the player would feel as if he/she is with the protagonist. A well-written character needs an appropriate framework in the form of a good story that should be interesting to follow. It is important to note that any genre can have a deep and exciting plot. One of the wonderful examples of great storytelling is a critically acclaimed indie game, Braid (http://braid-game.com/), designed by Jonathan Blow. It features an interesting plot, gameplay and story-driven design as a platformer game with puzzle elements.

It is good to demonstrate the evolution of narrative species in the game. The very first level must start with the synopsis, that is, it should demonstrate the keystone rule of the game: the player should make a single and simple action in one step. Then he/she should be able to see some plot elements, for instance, some bonuses or should meet somebody. And after that, he/she should face the story: game shows him/her the next level.

There is an interesting indie-game project called Storyteller (http://www.storyteller-game.com). It is a puzzle game with a unique main concept: a player needs to create a specific story. He has some plot elements—characters, situations, secrets, and state of mind—and the player's objective is to combine generating dramatic conflicts and climaxes and creating the story. An amazing idea, isn't it? The plot of the game is to create a plot:

Your main enemy is monotony—players don't like routine repetition of identical elements over and over again. Therefore, there must be progress of game elements, either evolutional or revolutionary. For example, the game should become faster, puzzles should become harder, opponents should get more strength, and so on. This is an extensive way to solve the problem. But the more intensive it becomes, the more attractive it is.

The game should be changed more widely, by introducing new settings, props, characters, enemies, and obstacles. The main goal is to not let the player get bored. If he gets the hang of a specific tool, tactic, or weapon, turning the game process into a mechanical routine, the game should change the conditions a little bit to force the player to find some new ways. You should explore the range of abilities your game elements have and use them creatively, surprising the player very often. What will happen if we begin to use the element of the puzzle a bit differently? What will happen if gravity were suddenly turned off? Will the weapon be effective under water? How will element A interact with element B? It is great when a game item has more than one scope. The story becomes more flexible and pleasantly unexpected. People like to be pleasantly surprised.

But try to avoid bad examples of the unexpected things: various forms of deus ex machina. Each twist in the story should be natural and slightly predictable in various premises in the plot. Look at the movies; directors always show a specific object in advance before it is used in a corresponding scene. For example, in the Alfred Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest (1959), the main character played by brilliant Cary Grant first sees an airplane far afield, and then he almost forgets about it. Suddenly, the airplane begins to attack. So, the scheme is simple: drop a hint and only after that initiate some action. It is very important to convince players that a game world is solid, every tiny detail matters, and links between elements are well thought out and designed. A good game is a complex organization of dozens of components working together. They don't create a single event, but a sequence of well-connected situations letting players experience some specific emotions. This is an attempt to create a model of life rather than a calculator with few binary triggers. As it is very important to try to think globally while working with a script, there should be an evolution of events and obvious logical connections between the stages of a story.

A vital issue is realism in games. There is a lot of debate about this by now, mainly because power capacities of CPUs and video chips have increased, and as a result, many more variables and factors can be introduced in gameplay. The question is not only about the graphics, rather about other components of virtual worlds. For instance, 3D objects might have not only an external shell but some naturalistic structure inside; by breaking them into pieces, players might expose some new features of internal materials.

Another example is NPCs, whose psychology and behavior can be more realistic or a player's avatar which has all the features of a human body including weaknesses. The truth is simple; a portion of realism is needed only if it helps to improve gameplay, if it can create some interesting situations, and add some specific experience. In other cases, it may turn a game into a series of boring procedures and events players run away from in real life. In casual and arcade games, an action should not become more complex only because it would become more realistic (simulators are another case).

Video games are more about entertainment than documentary. Since the degree of realism is under the control of game designers, they decide what proportion to choose for better playability. Such a characteristic is not unique for video games only; most of the arts manage reality very freely. Painting, sculpture, music, literature, and movies are not realistic, even if they pretend to be; it is always an interpretation whose main objective is better expression of some authors' intents. Elements of reality are always being changed (within reasonable limits) if it would help to describe or display some things better. Such practice is known as artistic license (also known as poetic license, dramatic license, and so forth). Moreover, the audience is already familiar with and prepared for such tricks, as if they are watching the performance of a magician. Everybody knows that all his actions are tricks and he is not a real mage; they simply want to see a show. Ignoring some simplification and distortion of realistic rules in favor of more attractive quality of a piece of art is known as willing suspension of disbelief or in short, suspension of disbelief . Because of it, players overlook a lot of roughness on screen menu, such as avatars who are capable of carrying tons of weapons in their pockets, cars with infinite fuel supply, indestructible walls, and so on. The only point to note is that the suspension of disbelief is a matter of a delicate concern; any simplification must be compensated with something vivid, or a disappointed audience will be very critical. The following is an example of the plot squares chart.

There is an interesting way to explore the plot and to invent some original situations. I call it plot squares chart . It is based on illustration (or text description) of the basic plot element. For example, it includes the character and its weapon. Then a list of different circumstances should be composed—the more unusual and abstract they are, the better—rotation, showing half of the square, absence of gravity, strong wind, legs instead of arms, entropy, and so forth. There can be dozens of them in the list. After that, you need to put the plot square in each circumstance, fixing what could happen with the character.

There are only a few circumstances shown in the following figure but their list can be longer:

How would he adapt to a new condition? It will let you invent some new details for the story.

More complex plots must be explained in a proper way. Normally, players don't like to read a lot of text in the video games, they don't like long introductions and cut-screens, so it is better to use contextual narration—telling the story while the player is playing the game. The storyline should be cut into small pieces scattered on the game levels. It should not be textual; all the game elements must tell their stories: gameplay mood, character's design, backgrounds, and props. For example, you can display a large portion of text about a spaceship crashed on a planet, or just show an image of the crash at the game background, displaying all the aspects graphically. Not words but the behavior and image of a character can show the fact that it is a negative character. Some cracks on the surface of game object can drop a hint that the object is breakable. Design is an important part of a narrative system.

Dialogues are a good part of the storyline, especially for games with some RPG elements or for adventure quests. They must be short and clear. A small portion of humor can increase their attractiveness. The main problem with dialogues is the necessity of a voiceover; the game needs professionally recorded and mixed voices to sound cogent enough. This problem can be solved by introducing graphic speech bubbles with some text instead of real voices. This can make localization easier too. A sound effect with some balderdash and indecipherable syllables can be added, and sometimes that approach can be very funny. The dialogue system will be expressed better in Chapter 7, Adventure, of this book dedicated to adventure games.

Game development is a knotty process, so you have to accept the fact that the plot, and particularly the story, will be in a state of constant transformation. Some ideas will be dropped for a variety of reasons (for example, they can be unrealizable from a technical point of view or test players will not like them) or your experiments with the game will reward you with new ideas. It is important to know that the gameplay is usually more important than the story; bad game mechanics can ruin a perfect story, so don't worry about some ideas if they do not work well. Try to find new ones instead.

The funny part of the storytelling is the inside jokes or Easter eggs. Sometimes, this is a way to resolve tiny problems with the story. For instance, there is a bunker in the game that needs a name written on a wall. The name can be constructed from your name or it can be an allusion on your favorite movie (remember the Lost TV series, for example), popular Internet memes (recall the famous phrase, a phrase in broken English, "All your base are belong to us"), and so on. Not only can small text be a tribute to something but also level compositions, a character's name or look, and even a sound design.

There is a very popular in-joke in the movie and video game industry; when a character dies screaming, a special sound effect is used known as the Wilhelm scream . Few people know this, but the same scream is used in more than 200 movies. Don't forget that it is always pleasant to make hidden references to other game projects you've done before, for instance, characters from previous games can be turned into props as toys or posters.