Writing Song Lyrics

This post is inspired by a surprising talk I’ve heard at the Digital Dragons Conference in Kraków.

Dialogues

With this post we start a mini-series focusing on in-game conversations.

Curiosity

They say that curiosity kills cats. However, it can also make great stories.

The Beginning

Some say that the first hour of the game is crucial for the player's engagement. In my experience, the window we have to get the player to care for our story is closer to 10 minutes. Anyway, beginnings seem quite important...

Midpoint

The first and the third dramatic acts are usually quite short. One asks the dramatic question, the other provides the definitive answer. But the actual story happens in between those two points...

Endings

Research suggests that one third to half of players who picked up your game will never finish it—yet the way the ending is designed and executed can make or break the experience.

The Dramatic Question

The dramatic tension in a story comes from uncertainty. We ask ourselves a question and wonder what the answer will be. It is the job of a narrative designer to make sure that the players know and understand the main dramatic question.

Building blocks

So far, we’ve discussed the big picture: goals, conflicts, protagonists, story structures, and nonlinearity. We know how a story looks from afar, we can hopefully recognize a story in the wild. Time to zoom in...

Non-linear Structures

Branching, nonlinear stories are the bread and butter of narrative design, but while we have an abundance of sources on traditional story structures, structuring the nonlinear stories still seems like uncharted waters.