How Does the inclusion of Narrative Affect the Interactivity
of Video Games?
Joe Neeves
1 Abstract This report examines the role of narratives in interactive experiences, beginning with an analysis of the compelling nature of narratives themselves. Through combining a traditional definition of narratives (Aristotle, 335BC) and a modern distinction between a game’s context, story, and narrative, (Juul, 2001; 2002) it examines how the principles of ludology and narratology, (Frasca, 2003) reflect both the immense possibilities for narrative-based interactive experiences, and the inherent flaws with combining linear stories with diverging gameplay and interactivity. Focusing on the issue of player agency, it also examines narratives in relation to emergent gameplay (Holland 1997), extending this to the exogenous narratives often seen from YouTube gaming content creators, forming their own emergent and meaningful gameplay that is centred on a video game world, but existing outside of it.
2 Contents Table of Illustrations …………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.03
Imagination ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.04
Early Game Structures ………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.05
Interactivity & A Sense of Agency ……………………………………………………………………………… p.08
Emergence & Experimentation…………………………………………………………………………………… p.17
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.21
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.22
Table of Illustrations Figure 1: Namco (1980) Pac-Man
Figure 2: Spierling, Ulrike (2005) Interactive Digital Storytelling: Towards a Hybrid
Conceptual Approach. p.8. Available from:
Figure 3: Salen, Katie and Zimmerman, Eric (2004) Rules of Play: Game Design
Fundamentals. Cambridge Mass/London England: MIT Press.
Figure 4: Dontnod Entertainment (2015) Life is Strange
Figure 5: Sega (2005) Shadow the Hedgehog
Figure 6: Rockstar Games (2011) L.A. Noire
Figure 7: Telltale Games (2012) The Walking Dead
3 Imagination The human race's enjoyment of stories is a constant in our past; going back farther than we can record, people have created narratives in imaginary worlds to share with their children, their friends, and almost anyone who would listen. This desire to create and share fictional universes is so influential that in 1795, renowned poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge not only described the ability to imagine as a “divinely-appointed attribute,” (Wolf, 2012) but that to “develop the powers of the Creator” (Coleridge, 1795) was also our “proper employment” (Coleridge, 1795) that is to say; our duty as human beings.
Wolf, interpreting the work of psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, proposed a more scientific reasoning behind our desire to imagine; that of evolution. They argue that to be able to imagine situations without acting upon them holds “great value for humans both in survival and reproduction,” (Wolf, 2012) and that humans have
“evolved special cognitive systems that enable us to participate in these fictional worlds.”
(Wolf, 2012) This evolutionary involvement with the ability to imagine would certainly explain our fascination with the fictional – our imagination is embedded firmly in our instinct.
It is not surprising then, that this instinct would give birth to the multitude of media that we now consume nigh-constantly. The fictional creations of others permeate every aspect of our daily lives; whether it be television, films, or books. Our desire for more worlds to experience led to overlaps in these media – books become television shows, television shows become films, and films become books, so hungry are we to dive into another's imagination. From this hunger, emerged narrative video games – a new aspect of game design, in a media which offered an intensity of interactivity which surpassed even the Jackson and Livingstone Fighting Fantasy adventure books of the 1980s. Certainly, video games would be a fantastic platform for new narratives to immerse ourselves in.
4 Early Game Structures Traditionally, games didn't feature explicit narratives – board games such as
Monopoly, though originally created to demonstrate the pitfalls of private monopolies, evolved into an experience where the context of real-estate competition is treated as secondary to the physical playing of the game. Juul explains that this trend continued into early video games as well, citing Taito's 1977 game Space Invaders, in which “a prehistory is suggested … An invasion presupposes a situation before the invasion. It is clear from the science fiction we know that these aliens are evil and should be chased away.” (Juul, 2001)
Thus, the stage is set for the game to begin.
But in Space Invaders, just as in Monopoly, the context of the game is entirely irrelevant to the playing; “If we play Space Invaders, we find that we cannot actually restore the initial state; we cannot win since every wave of aliens is followed by another.” (Juul,
2001) The narrative is entirely static, and regardless of the outcome of the game, it will remain static forever more. In this way, it could be seen that the contexts of such games are too insufficient to be classified as narratives at all. In Poetics, Aristotle wrote that not only does a narrative require a beginning, middle and end, but also that “an end … is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it.” (Aristotle, 335BC)
Space Invaders has a beginning; that of the start of the invasion; and arguably a middle; the experience of playing the game. Yet as Juul describes, there is no end; the invasion cannot be defeated, the player doomed to endlessly repeat the process until they are finally defeated. Whilst this solemn expression of futility is certainly thought-provoking, it comes from a lack of finality programmed into the game, rather than an intentional abstraction of the game’s context. This trend carries through a large number of early games – in the original version of Namco's 1980 game Pac-Man, should the player be able
5 to complete the first 255 levels, instead of ending, the game instead malfunctions, creating an impossible 256th level, ending the game through the inability to complete it.
Figure 1: Level 256 of Pac-Man becomes impossible to complete.
Arsenault argues that Aristotle's definition is insufficient now, describing how “the term 'narrative' has acquired a number of distinctive definitions … becoming an increasingly engrossing and complex word.” (Arsenault, 2005) This is particularly true given that it wasn't made with respect to video games, or even digital media of any kind. His tenets, however, still apply so rigorously to other forms of narrative-driven media that it would seem exclusionary to not subject games to the same narrative expectations we hold of other art forms. In the case of Space Invaders and Pac-Man, it is difficult to consider what little context they provide as a narrative. The interaction allowed is minimal at best, and the games instead rely on what Holland would term emergence; a phenomenon he likens to ant colonies or the global economy, where “the behaviour of the whole is much more complex than the behaviour of its parts.” (Holland, 1997) In other words, simple rules beget complex situations. The rules of Space Invaders and Pac-Man create effortless interaction with the game's systems, but not with their narrative – or lack thereof.
The key difference that must be addressed is that of interacting with a game, and interacting with a game's narrative. More traditional emergence-based games gave way to a more modern style of progression-based game, as Juul describes: “Progression games
6 are historically new, beginning with the adventure game.” (Juul, 2002) The first games developed were little more than new versions of old, physical games. Atari's 1972 release
PONG – what most would consider the first commercially successful video game – was simply electronic table tennis. It is only in more recent decades that developers have made games centred on a narrative – some more literally that others, in the case of Bioshock, whose entire world began from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. These games, among others, make use of what Juul describes as “progression structures”; (Juul, 2002) systems – often presented in the form of a small quest – which move the player along a storyline when certain criteria are met. This evolution from emergence-based games to games with narrative elements continued, with even more recent games becoming entirely narrative- based, such as The Chinese Room's Dear Esther, or the variety of choice-driven narratives from Telltale Games. From this evolution, a new type of experience can be derived from video games – the same intellectual stimulation that we feel from reading a book, or watching a film.
7 Interactivity & A Sense of Agency A common criticism of narrative-heavy games is the lack of interactivity they provide. Dear Esther was critically acclaimed for its atmosphere and artistic direction, but many questioned its status as a game. Games journalist Tadhg Kelly wrote: “a game is not defined simply by the ability to walk, but to cause meaningful change within it.” (Kelly,
2012) He argues that a game must give the player a sense of agency, or be one- dimensional and shallow.
Whilst agency is certainly a key factor in determining one's enjoyment of a game,
Murray explains why games must explore the different aspects of gaming, and experiment with what makes the media great; “the key to [developing film making] was seizing on the unique physical properties of film … By aggressively exploring and exploiting these physical properties, filmmakers changed a mere recording technology into an expressive medium.” (Murray, 1998) Though Dear Esther didn't make use of the interactivity that games make possible, it still provided a new experience; similar to a film or audio book, yet with a unique exploratory aspect that could only occur within a game. Even in The Chinese
Room's second game, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the game had a “nihilistic, languishing, pervasive horror,” (Ellison, 2013) despite being “mainly a linear sightseeing tour.” (Croshaw,
2013)
Murray explains how this is possible; “Procedural environments are appealing to us not just because they exhibit rule-generated behaviour but because we can induce the behaviour. They are responsive to our input.” (Murray, 1998) By simply allowing the player to input commands, there is interaction, even if said interaction is only skin-deep. This argument stands in stark contrast to Costikyan's, however, who argues that “Interaction has no game value in itself. Interaction must have a purpose.” (Costikyan, 2000) A Machine for Pigs provided little more interaction than Dear Esther did before it; the linear path was spotted with the occasional puzzle or scare, but at no point could you change the course
8 of the game. It is entirely static; the puzzles have only a single solution, and until it is reached, the game is halted. By Costikyan's words, the interaction is meaningless – success or failure means nothing within the context of the game. The player either succeeds and continues, or doesn't, and the game is over for them.
The conflict of opinions between Murray and Costikyan only scratches the surface of an ongoing debate between narratologists and ludologists. Frasca summarises their points of view thusly; narratologists focus on the role of “external observers [who concern themselves with] what has happened,” (Frasca, 2003) whilst ludologists deal with “involved players [who focus on] what is going to happen.” (Frasca, 2003) It is the differences in how the subject is approached that this debate stems from, highlighting an important difference between how the two schools of thought approach games as as form of entertainment. Arsenault cites the 2002 title Splinter Cell when discussing these directions:
“The game relies on the importation of elements external to its system (in this case, a player’s expertise at aiming, and his knowledge of the room layout and of the guards’ positions) rather than the manipulation of its internal elements.” In Splinter Cell, the lack of in-game progression manufactures a scenario where success depends on the real-world skills of the player. The game is always consistent, and the entertainment is provided through real-world perseverance and the acquiring of new skills, much as a non-digital hobby, such as painting, does. If mechanical interaction can create this kind of entertainment, then surely the same can be said for the enjoyment of immersion in a narrative of a book or film.
9 When it comes to agency, Spierling discusses Crawford and Stern's argument that
“an artwork is “really interactive” only if it not merely “talks” to the audience, but also
“listens” and then “thinks” over suitable reactions.” (Spierling, 2005) In her diagram, she explains how the point at which the player is allowed to interact determines how much the main character is controlled by the game, and conversely, how much autonomy the player can exhibit whilst playing.
Figure 2: Levels of agency and it's effect on the control and autonomy of the game.
At the lowest level of agency, the player only has control over their 'Cursor
Feedback' - the most basic of interaction with the game's surface systems. Manipulating the user-interface, walking, and character customisation all fall under the umbrella of cursor feedback. In general, this kind of interaction with the game offers significant control over the places you walk to and the way you look. These are – within the realm of narrative-driven games – entirely inconsequential.
This problem demonstrates the lack of fluidity within digital game structures. Wolf describes how “Worlds, unlike stories, need not rely on narrative structures, though stories are always dependent on the worlds in which they take place.” (Wolf, 2012) In this way, it is easy to see why narrative games are often so restricting. They provide an experience in games whose interactivity cannot be rivalled in literature or cinema. Juul argues, however,
10 that in order for a narrative to be considered as such, it “must be retellable in other media.”
(Juul, 2002) Though moving a narrative from a game to a more static medium would certainly remove the interactivity the game allows for, the story itself – or at least one instance of the story, in the case of choice-based games such as Life is Strange – would easily make for an enjoyable viewing experience. This transition from game to book or film, is harder to accomplish in the opposite direction.
As Juul describes, “there is no such thing as a continuously interactive story.” (Juul,
2001) There will always be limitations to the experience; there will always come a point where the player has to be restrained. Narrative games are games of progression, not of emergence, and so “everything that happens in a branching narrative is explicitly pre- determined.” (Juul, 2002) At the edge of the game world, there will inevitably be an impassable barrier. In a conversation, there is always a limited selection of responses.
Costikyan argues that in “try[ing] to make a game more like a story by imposing arbitrary decision points, you make it less like a game.” (Costikyan, 2000) By forcing the gameplay through funnels, it constricts the amount of autonomy the player has, thereby limiting their interaction with both the game's systems and its narrative.
This is as much a technological restriction as it is a developmental one – as
Arsenault describes; “it is impossible for a game designer to write and implement a storyline with enough branching narratives to suit every possible unfolding of a player’s experience.” (Arsenault, 2005) Unlike a real-life role-playing game such as Dungeons and
Dragons, in video games, there are no Dungeon Masters that can use their imagination to improvise a suitable response to anything the players say or do. Video games are not infinite worlds in and of themselves, and so at some point, when telling a story, the game must set the player back on the course the story requires them to be on. Until technology evolves to develop games that can “listen and then think over suitable reactions,”
(Spierling, 2005) true interaction cannot take place.
11 Compounding this effect is the way in which the player interacts with the game itself, regardless of the existence or non-existence of a narrative. In order for a player to feel connected to a playable character, they must be able to act entirely as they wish.
Often, this is achieved through a first-person camera, and a silent or quiet protagonist. In a
2003 study, Brand and Knight discovered that, of the games studied, “only 41% of the lead characters spoke and only 10% spoke frequently,” (Brand & Knight, 2003) leaving 59% of protagonists studied completely silent, so as to not contradict the player's role play of the character. Despite this, the limitations of a forced narrative often eventually separate the protagonist and the player, usually when the story continues in a direction that the player could have avoided, if the game allowed for it.
New technologies also suffer from this issue; in the teaser for Abductions: The Hum
– a virtual reality game which sees your baby kidnapped by aliens – you see a mother, rushing to her baby's room because of a bright light and loud noise. Her voice is distressed and her breathing ragged, but the player, unable to open the door, simply stands back, as the mother continues to shout. Instead of trying to force the door open, the player stands still, creating a disconnect between the character and the player. Arsenault describes this type of disconnect in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, in which, after effortlessly dealing with half of the boss' health, he “then had to watch a confusing cut-scene in which
[his] allies were saying things like 'Unnnh….he’s too strong…..' 'Don’t… give up…we can…do it…'“ (Arsenault, 2005) He summarises the issue by arguing that “an emergent game-play system can not be used with a pre-written storyline without resulting in a “system shock”, or discrepancy, between the two.” (Arsenault, 2005)
This is not to say that games cannot provide any meaningful interaction or emergent gameplay whilst also featuring a narrative. Though true, unlimited interaction might be impossible, current technology can create an illusion of interaction instead. Salen and Zimmerman explain the concept of interactive narratives in video games as the ability
12 to both follow the story and shape the narrative you experience. If you can choose which parts of the story you experience and which you avoid, you have enormous power over the game's narrative, even if the choices you're given and their outcomes are all pre- determined.
Figure 3: Diagram showing multiple paths through a single narrative.
Murrey discusses how Joseph Weizenbaum's 1966 conversation simulator, ELIZA, was so persuasive and coherent that even those “who knew very well that they were conversing with a machine soon forgot that fact, just as theatregoers, in the grip of suspended disbelief, soon forget that the action they are witnessing is not 'real'.” (Murray,
1998) Of course, in 1966 few people had a concrete grasp on the power of the computer, and so it was much easier to fool the user into forgetting what they were talking to. The concept of suspended disbelief, however, very much still has a place in video games, particularly choice-driven narrative experiences such as the aforementioned Life is Strange, or the many title from Telltale Games.
13
Figure 4: Life is Strange is driven almost entirely
by the player's choices during conversations.
This kind of interaction, though not emergent, does sit highly on Spierling's 'Level of
Agency' diagram – second only to God Games, where every aspect of the game world is editable. These games bear the most resemblance to Jackson and Livingstone’s Fighting
Fantasy game books in their style – they are almost entirely narrative driven, where the main interaction with the game comes from frequent dialogue options, or a choice of paths. The choices the player makes determine how the story plays out, and which characters are amiable towards them.
Figure 5: Diagram showing the potential choices in Shadow the Hedgehog. These were shown to the player at the start of every level. 14 In Shadow the Hedgehog, the player's route through the level and their play style determines which level they progress to next. In order to achieve a specific ending, the player must play a certain way. This aspect of the game was freely visible to the player at any point – the choice also being displayed at the start and end of every level. In recent releases, narrative-driven games have increasingly made use of an easily approachable choice-tree system; a system which not only grants the player clear control over the course of the narrative, but also gives immediate and obvious feedback on how the player's choice might affect the events to come. The reactions of suspects in L.A. Noire's highly expressive, almost caricatured faces made up a large portion of the game's experience, and though more subtle than Telltale Games' signature “[character] will remember that” pop- ups, carried the same implications of agency.
Figure 6: L.A. Noire used motion capture technology to get realistically moving faces, though they were often exaggerated.
Figure 7: In The Walking Dead, characters often remember choices the player makes.
These games are built entirely on the illusion of player agency – none of the gameplay is emergent. Juul argues that “The progression structure is in many ways less interesting than emergence” (Juul, 2002); to him, much of the gameplay is meaningless. In terms of real-world impact, Juul is correct – the choices of an individual player in a single game has no meaning outside of the game world. Costikyan describes this meaning as endogenous; “A game’s structure creates its own meanings. The meaning grows out of the
15 structure; it is caused by the structure; it is endogenous to the structure.” (Costikyan, 1994)
This type of endogenous meaning is featured in all forms of media. If a character dies in a television program, that death only has relevance inside the magic circle of suspended disbelief. That actor went home at the end of the day, and continued their life.
But to viewers, the death of that character will likely mean the end of their appearance in the show. The enjoyment gained from their actions comes to an end, and by the simple fact that their albeit fictional existence created entertainment, it is, in itself, meaningful.
In this way, the distinction between true agency and the illusion of agency is not as serious an issue for narrative experiences as could be expected. Provided the player is immersed enough to suspend their disbelief of the game's fictional world, illusions of agency carry the same narratological power as true agency. So long as the player's agency
– or their belief in it – remains, the player exists in a state of unquestioning immersion, where their knowledge of the game as fictional is replaced by their enjoyment of the experience.
16 Emergence & Experimentation Emergence is a concept which is difficult to achieve in narrative-central experiences.
Juul describes emergence as “somewhere between a designer completely specifying what can happen, and leaving everything to the user,” (Juul, 2001) which makes it difficult to generate consistently. In gameplay-central experiences, emergence is much easier to implement, so long as the game provides a platform for the unexpected to occur. Salen and Zimmerman describe how The Sims creates a “pre-generated, embedded narrative frame” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) which “contextualizes all of the emergent events that happen during play.” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) This type of emergence mimics the emergence of traditional board games, where the game itself almost becomes secondary to the interaction between the other players. Except in video games, the other player is the computer.
In many ways, ELIZA was one of the original forms of emergence that attempted to evolve beyond that seen in board games. Through a combination of procedural generation, as well as ELIZA's limited form of artificial intelligence, Wizenbaum created a system which combined the roles of the game's systems and the other players. As technology evolved further, games began to be able to react with more precision and coherence than any computer before could. Through the interaction between the player and the game, alongside modern technology and online culture, a whole new level of interactivity was born – that seen in YouTube gaming content creators and in blogs such as
Burkinshaw's Alice and Kev. Costikyan critiques this style of game, arguing that “SimCity is, in a way, no game at all, a mere software toy.” (Costikyan, 1994) He explains that despite these games having no win-state, or explicit goals to be achieved, they are “susceptible to so many goal-directed behaviours,” (Costikyan, 1994) that they are still enjoyable. Juul describes these games as experiences which “spawn narratives that a player can use to tell others of what went on in a game session.” (Juul, 2001) The narrative framework laid out by
17 games such as The Sims or Cities: Skylines allows for exogenous narratives to be formed – a spontaneous interaction which exists outside of the game world, between the player and their spectators, but is still inherently entwined with the game's systems.
These narratives play out like interactive fan fiction; Burkinshaw describes that in making Alice and Kev, “a surprising amount of the interesting things … were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.”
(Burkinshaw, 2009) This suggests that the exogenous narratives these games prompt aren't entirely exogenous. The story reacts and can be influenced by the game's systems; mimicking the relationship between a Dungeon Master and a player in a game of
Dungeons and Dragons. Through games which provide a narrative framework, the player can compensate for the game's inability to improvise by taking the majority of the narrative away from the computer.
This kind of exogenous emergence isn't solely limited to sandbox-style games, or games which are lacking story. Toby Fox's Undertale addressed the transient nature of an individual's interactions with a game's narrative. The player has the ability to 'reset' the world, as they do in many games, by either restarting the game entirely, or going back to a previous save file. But the game addresses it – at the end of one route, a character talks about how, should they wish to, the player could reset the whole world, and that nobody would remember it. They could go back and change something they did wrong, in an attempt to get the perfect result they wanted.
Juul argues that “narratives are basically interpretative, whereas games are formal”,
(Juul, 2001) but in Undertale, the game is interpretive as well. The game can be enjoyed as a single experience, telling the story of a child that falls into a ravine and tries to find their way home. But the game is much denser than a single play through will reveal, verging on the size and complexity of transmedia franchises, which “can often be difficult to see in
18 their totality.” (Wolf, 2009) Just as other games come complete with maps, books, or other paraphernalia, Undertale hides its secrets in its game files, and through community collaboration and theory crafting, fans have been able to unravel the mysteries the game sets up.
On top of this, the existence of the game after the player is finished with it is also interpretive. As Lees describes, despite being able to choose the type of person the character is, “the only choice you really have in Undertale is the choice to start this loop over … otherwise this thing just exists infinitely.” (Lees, 2015) The uncertainty that the game creates about the state of the world led to a fascinating real-world narrative that hasn't been seen before with such force – players don't want to experience the game again after they have their ending. They actively refuse to play the game again, regardless of how much they enjoyed it, because they don't want to invalidate the narrative that they created in their most recent save file.
This kind of real-world consequence isn't unique to Undertale. Games, along with films, books, and all other types of media, have titles which approach real-world topics in an attempt to start discussion. As Alexander describes, “Games are often one of the best places to play with ecosystems, rules, and cause and effect,” (Alexander, 2014) and so are great platforms to use exogenous narratives to provoke discussion. Tim Wicksteed, the creator of Big Pharma – a game about developing and producing drugs – described how
“you'll likely start to have increasingly unsettling thoughts such as ‘I won't bother removing that side-effect as it'll make me less money’.” (Rad, 2015) The questionable decisions the player has to make are entirely emergent though, and despite the game being designed to put the player under financial pressure to help the player reach that conclusion, the way they approach it, and the meaning they take away from it, is entirely up to them.
19 Unlike books and films, this kind of emergent meaning is something which can only exist in games. The issues that Big Pharma present aren't issues which are unknown to huge swathes of people – but until the game pushes the player to the point where they choose to take a morally questionable action, it's difficult to understand the issue. By experiencing the lead-up to the situation that caused the decision first-hand, the player understands the issue much more intimately than if they had read a book, or watched a programme about it.
20 Conclusion Just as emergence-based games originated from traditional board games thanks to technological advances, so too did narrative-centric games evolve from classic video games. The inclusion of narratives in video games poses serious problems for the interactivity of said games, not least of all the current limitations on artificial intelligence.
By limiting the player to a linear, or only slightly branching narrative, the game restricts the possibilities for unique and unexpected moments to occur. Whilst current technology does not allow for a game to truly react and innovate a response for every stimuli, through a combination of player agency and branching narratives, games can certainly allow for interaction with both their mechanics and their narratives in ways other media cannot. This interaction allows for games to influence a person's opinions and preconceptions about a topic on a much more personal level, creating not only a more finely tuned experience for each player, but also allowing these games to make a significant change to the awareness of issues it presents. As the genre evolves, new methods of creating and fostering both endogenous and exogenous narratives will certainly appear, and through continued experimentation and celebration of that which pushes technology to its limits, new gameplay experiences will emerge to further satisfy the demand for interactive fictional experiences in new and exciting ways.
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