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January 27, 2006
"Storytelling and Games in the Digital Age"
Today a friend of mine graciously invited me to sit in the final group presentations in an MIT class entitled "Storytelling and Games in the Digital Age." The week-long workshop "focuses on the theoretical, historical, cultural, social, and aesthetic elements of interactive narrative and game structures," with the time divided between lectures that "explore linear and non-linear storytelling across media, audio-visual elements, game theory, and techniques to increase the depth of interactive console games and enhance storytelling," and group work time devoted to creating a game concept and assembling a game pitch for Friday, which are the presentations I watched today.
All four groups were charged with choosing a media product and, in creating their game concept, taking a transmedia approach to narrative gaming. Telling the story in and of the game was just as important as the game mechanic (rules defining how the game is played), environment, graphics, sound, cost of production and marketing, and even the showmanship displayed in giving the presentation.
Much to my surprise, three out of the four groups that presented based their games on print media, including the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events series of books, the novel The Lord of the Flies, and National Geographic magazine. The group that chose not to base their game on a print work chose the Akira Kurosawa classic film Yojimbo.
The Lemony Snicket game places the player in the role of Count Olaf, as you follow him through many missions based on stories in the series of books. Your job as Count Olaf is to be a master of disguise to act out your diabolical plots, using disguises from your base inventory and the costume items you acquire along the way in the missions. This game mechanic takes you through the stories from Count Olaf's perspective, and the more creative your disguise and diabolical your plot, the more attention you get from the newspapers. As you complete each mission, the newspaper clippings about your evil exploits collect in your scrapbook, and you may find that as you acquire more disguise tools, you may want to go back and play out a plot again using a different tactic.
The Lord of the Flies game played on the idea of rational versus primal survival from the book. You are a boy trapped on the jungle island with your classmates, and you decide whether you want to approach your survival from the rational, civilized approach of thought and reason, or the more primal, uncivilized approach which includes the notion of a monster in the jungle that may strike at any moment, and self-preservation by any means necessary. If you play it rational, your view of the environment is brightly colored and lit, filled with the pleasant sounds of the jungle, and your small resource map shows you very useful things a rational person would think about, like where the local camps and fires are. However, if you play it primal, the environment is dark and red-tinged, the sound of your heavy breathing and drums is loud in your ears, and your small resource map only focuses on a 10ft radius, just the immediate radius that a more animal-thinking boy would make his focus. Depending on how you play will determine whether or not you're more likely to hurt or help another boy in the game.
Yojimbo is about a ronin (samurai without a lord) who visits a village and pits the two samurai gangs against each other in order to save the village from gang tyranny. In the game, you can choose to serve one of the two gang bosses, or to pit them against each other. The game not only tells the story of the movie itself, but also through the use of a contained social hierarchy of a typical Japanese village of the period, makes real the samurai code in action, and the impact of interactions between different social classes. As with any good samurai game, there will be sword combat, but the combat only serves the story; combat with no purpose costs you points.
If you've ever wanted to be a world-traveling photographer, the National Geographic game would be for you. In the game, you travel the world taking photographs of interesting animals and places for the magazine, taking your chances at unpredictable animal behavior (which can cause you visible damage) in lush environments complete with indigenous sounds to get the best shots possible. Your bag inventory includes a basic set of camera equipment, clothing, and treats to lure animals, and as you progress in the game, you can acquire better camera equipment and other useful items. An online component, theoretically partnered with both the magazine and Kodak, would allow you to participate in a community where you can post your photos and others could rate them, and you can discuss your travels to different location missions.
Throughout each presentation, storytelling was very clearly the main purpose, while the game play and design served that specific purpose.
This entire exciting class concept can be scaled up or down as, say, a library workshop or series of workshops based on game design, or even modified to a "choose your own adventure" storytelling design. Imagine being able to bring teens of all ages -- especially the ever-elusive teenage boy set -- into the library with the idea of creating a game that tells a story, based on a popular manga, a book, a popular magazine chosen from the library collection. If there happens to be a game design company near your town, you could invite them to be involved in the judging, teaching of small workshops, or even in donating a prize for the competition.
If you're interested in seeing a soup-to-nuts view of this class, check out The Education Arcade mini site about this class. The mini site includes how-to articles in running this workshop on your own (even if you don't have any game design experience), as well as the final presentations of the January 2004 class members.
January 27, 2006 8:09 PM