Enlarging story with game mechanics

• A practical way to use Tension Maps
• Practicality: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ •
• Theoretical: ♥ ♥ ♥ • •

Story and gameplay is a much discussed topic in the field of game design and it will probably continue to be one for a considerable amount of time. There simply doesn’t appear to be a “correct way” of mixing the two. There are several ways to approach it and translating narrative to game play mechanics seems to be a holy-grail approach that hasn’t been done properly.

So, one approach that I think works really well is to support the emotional state that the player *can* experience through gameplay, by analyzing the story and analyzing the gameplay through an emotional lens, instead of looking at the two and finding literal translations. By doing so, the gameplay tries to enlarge the emotional response induced by the story.

The most basic way to look at story is through – what I like to call – a tension-map. Below is a piece of a tension map that I created for the Fairytale Fights DLC “Ice Queen” levels. The tension rises and falls, between exciting and predictable, with parts in between that create anticipation and relief. The story was told through in-game cinematic cutscenes. The map laid out key areas (with screen shots and descriptions) in a linear fashion and the story was placed beneath it. This overview allowed us to create tension through gameplay by using elements such as: battle pockets, enemy introductions, exciting platforming parts, raising and lowering difficulty, reward positions and so forth. By matching the exciting parts in the story with the exciting parts in the gameplay, these levels became way better and the story became more enjoyable.

With Blue Giraffe’s Heart’s Medicine games, story is mostly told before and after each level. For these levels I also created a tension-map to help me design and develop in-game events and challenges. Challenges and events additional objectives that the player can try to complete and by selecting a particular style of gameplay and deciding the difficulty of it, I hope to enlarge the emotional tone of the story.

The tension-map above for the latest and yet to be released Heart’s Medicine game is mostly aimed at the story at the start of the level. I’m aiming to keep the player in the same emotional state that the story at the start of a level induces so when the story continues at the end of a level the player didn’t feel that the gameplay “interrupted” the flow of the story.

So, when the story is lighthearted and upbeat, I keep the challenge simply, with a lowered difficulty, easy to accomplish and fun. But when the story darker and more pressing, I’ll crank up the difficulty or create a challenge that requires more thought or more precision. When the protagonist is bored, I’ll repeat a challenge, or ask the player to do the same thing over and over so the player will feel the same. This way, gameplay supports the narrative and enlarges the emotions that the story tries to induce.

One of my favorite examples of using gameplay as supporting narrative is from Delicious – Emily’s Wonder Wedding. In this game we follow protagonist restaurateur Emily in her preparations for her wedding. In the second level of the game we see Emily who’s being nervous about meeting her mother in law Brigid for the first time. When the gameplay ends we’ll get to meet Brigid, who is very dismissive of Emily and she doesn’t seem to like Emily one bit.

So, to emphasize the disappointment Emily feels when meeting Brigid, we decided to let Emily prepare for the arrival of Brigid in a big way. There would be cleaning to do and we place a huge banner saying “Welcome Mom!”. We made the challenge more difficult than what we would normally ask of a player in level 2 so to make sure that the challenge felt as “work” to the player. This level required extra effort from the player. When the level ended, Brigid came in and would make dismissive remarks not only about Emily, but also about the banner, in a way also being dismissive of the player and its effort. Gameplay supporting narrative and narrative commenting of gameplay, all to emphasize the emotions induced by the story.