Survey of 21st Century Storytelling - scottgarner/workshops GitHub Wiki
My Background
- BFA in Motion Design
- Animation and Time-based media.
- MPS in Interactive Telecommunications
- Creative technology and Interactive media.
Workshop Introduction
Goals
- Understanding of agency in storytelling.
- Seeds of inquiry for further exploration.
- Exposure to the state of the medium.
Problems
- Short window of time.
- Often for long-form experiences.
- Main issue: Agency is the whole point!
20th Century Media
- I still consider film and television to be 20th century media.
- By extension, I consider them antiquated.
Defining Traits
- Primarily passive.
- By appointment.
- Often limited options.
Film
- Evolution of existing performing arts.
- Early pioneer: Georges Méliès
- Primarily out of the home.
- Inversion: Primarily not live.
Radio/Television
- Evolution of serialized/journalistic media.
- News of the day.
- Serialized stories: The Shadow
- Primarily consumed in the home.
- Inversion: Often live performances.
21st Century Media
Defining Traits
- Origins in late 20th century.
- More opportunities for non-passive experiences.
- Broad range of on-demand content.
- Democratized through online platforms.
- More of a focus on wider representation.
Overview of Interactive Media
Narrative Content
- Early disconnect between story/gameplay.
- First story: Donkey Kong (1981)
- Realtime gameplay with rendered cutscenes.
- Ludonarrative Dissonance remains an issue.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
- Disconnect or friction between the overall narrative and the narrative aspects of gameplay.
- Poster child is the Uncharted Series.
Barriers to Consuming
- Mechanical barriers and required skills.
- Social stigma.
- Time commitment.
- Specialized hardware.
Agency
- Narrative moments are more impactful when driven by the actions of the player.
- Narrative agency is still often relatively limited with one critical path.
- Tentative categories follow below.
Branching Agency
- Branching narrative points that offer different trajectories for different players.
- Detroit: Become Human (2018)
Moral Agency
- Opportunities to make "good" or "bad" decisions.
- Implications can broad or limited.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Open World Agency
- The player has the opportunity to pick up different narrative threads in a wide-open world.
- Individual threads can be quite linear or feel trivial compared to the main storyline.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)
Mechanical Agency
- Gameplay systems play a role in the story.
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013)
- Moss (2018)
Meta Agency
- When aspects of the game usually considered peripheral become part of the game or narrative, or when aspects of the game display a kind of self-awareness.
- NieR: Automata (2017)
Existential Agency
- When the narrative itself is entwined with aspects of player agency.
- BioShock (2007)
- Stanley Parable (2013)
Discovery or Exploration-Based Agency
- This covers narratives that unfold through player exploration, potentially in a non-linear way.
- Can feel disconnected when simply dropped into a wider game.
- What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
Sandboxed/Emergent Agency
- Narrative setups that offer an extremely wide range of player behaviors to advance.
- In the broadest sense, almost the entire narrative can emerge from player behavior.
- Hitman 2 (2018)
- Subnautica (2018) Cinematic
- Subnautica (2018) Gameplay
Social/Interpersonal Agency
- Narrative frameworks that depend on multiple participants working together or against one another.
- A Way Out (2017)
- Destiny 2 (2017)
Getting Started
Visual Novel Tools can make it easy to prototype a branching, non-linear narrative with simple art assets.