Game Storytelling: The Elements of a Compelling Story

Introduction

The addition of the storytelling to a game allows the speaker to link the players to the game emotionally. This adds meaning to the experience, and increase a lasting assignation of the players to the game. Some elements need to be incorporated into a competition to develop the game into an adventure. They comprise designing the plot of the game, precisely identifying the conflict, choosing quality characters and learning the point in the game where one needs to break the rules. The combinations of these elements in a storytelling game design offers an experience to the participants and increase motivation to the audience. As a result, this paper focuses on the compelling storytelling in compliance with the speeches on the game design by the professional game designers.

The Plot

Plot forms the chief mechanic of the storytelling. Mechanic refers to the art used in the narration that depicts what the characters do in the game. Such activities allow the characters to acquire the interest and lasting experience in the game. The plot of a story in a game illustrated by the characters, music, theme and the graphics give the story strength. According to Brenda Laurel, our chosen game design professional, present computer-based games as form of a theatre story. Typically, the game design professional articulates that the shaping of the expressive involvement is critical to the advancement of the dramatic experiences either in an auditorium or through computer-mediated interaction (Koenitz, 2018).

As presented by the selected game professional, Brenda Laurel, a story should have a resolution to the conflicts the characters present in a story and this should emanate from the character’s views, the world and the surrounding environment. Therefore, a story that lacks the change to accommodate the steadfastness feels flat, and the players’ impressions are little to no accomplishments. The compelling storytelling should also have a well and precisely stated conflict which serves as a drive to the realization of the central teachings of the story. The conflict helps to introduce the audience to a video game by attracting them to the storytelling game (Koenitz, 2018). In this context, the selected game professional, articulates that any game and story should offer a precise and straightforward introduction which prevents the disengagement of the audience (Sims, 2014). Honestly, the chances that the audience may wait to realize the theme of the game or storytelling session at the end are rare.

Therefore, our game design professional suggests that designers of a game or story should ensure that the listeners know the purpose of the game as soon as it is introduced. Typically, when Brenda Laurel starts her game, she begins by asking the listeners a question whose answer is the objective of the play. Subsequently, as the audience tries to extract the response from the course of the game, they keep embarking on the theme and remain to anticipate the answer.

Characters and Their Qualities

Brenda Laurel expounds that computer-based game designers should put into consideration the relationship between characters they choose to participate in the storytelling. Indeed, this consideration helps the actors to offer a sound incentive to one another and embrace the need for superiority. Additionally, the selected professional reveals the concern among the characters evident in a game, allows for protection against abuse received from the guardians. A good game should be interactive, show how the players experience the story, mechanics and the environment of the game. Referencing from other game designer such as Kirkman, the author of the walking dead, it is imperative to underline how zombie's exhibit antagonism with healthy human beings and how they always want to bite and infect them with viruses (Canavan, 2010). Typically, the writer of the story introduces the audience to the origin of the virus and the massive deaths it caused.

On the course, the participants experience the taste of the story and offer a resolution to the existing conflict with the zombies. The two groups in the story are significant in that their interactivity makes the plot, the participants and the environment more tangible. Notably, Brenda Laurel ascertains that games in a story do offer not only good interactivity of the story but also present the strength and the effectiveness.

The Central Theme

A good story should have the topics and the subtopics condensed to offer a brief objective that is clearly understood by the readers & listeners. If the account has sub-stories branching from the main story, every story should be derived from the central theme (Hofacker et al. 2016). Such stories should be central to the main topic and thus should have their key messages linked to their subordinate ideas that supposedly support the main message. However, the writer should structure the participants in the same story to ensure that their role and behaviors such as the exhibition of the antagonism are geared to direct the audience to the objective. The story should not be so complex that the audience gets the main message with difficulties.

Instead, every simple task carried by a character should have its conclusion conformed within the objective of the theme. Brenda Laurel precisely presents the theme of the ‘Computer as a Theatre’ within one’s state, and then branches up to the whole content, without straying far from the objective and later narrows the contents to the objective as the story ends. The main character in the story moves around the theme and controls the main character with conformity to the objective. For instance, in stories such as the Wizard of Oz and The Road, characters overgrow many challenges and goals as they focus on meeting their targets (Reilly, 2018). Once the writer creates a central theme; the author can come up with a premise for which the audience draws the concern, offering a privilege for the readers to invest more into the experience they acquire from the tale. Similarly, the writer should be able to break the rule in the game or story to impact the listeners memorably. The responsibility of knowing when and where to break the rule is garnered from the experience the writer acquires from reading other stories. For breaking the rule to apply, the writer should know why the antagonist does not appear in the story and should be able to give the precise explanation.

Conclusion

In the game design, and especially in the storytelling, the writer should be concerned with capturing the elements of a compelling story. Also, the writer should be interested in ensuring that the audience is motivated by the presentations of the story, providing an introduction that defines the objective of the tale. Additionally, the characters and the activities they partake within a tale should be purposed to reach the target without any complexity. The presentation of the antagonism is significant for the audience whom they keenly attend to the cause and eagerly expect a resolution. It is paramount to have an element focused on the association of the plot, theme, characters and break rule mechanism to comprehensively address the story in a way that is always interesting for the readers & audience since such components result in the simplicity of the story.