Blog Post #8: Video Games
After reading the Danksy piece and playing/watching The Stanley Parable, what elements of narrative game design did you observe? Were there any moments in the game that struck you as particularly engaging, and why? How did the game's storytelling design facilitate this?
When first opening the playthrough of The Stanley Parable, I realized that I recognized the game. A few years ago a close friend had purchased the game and, while we were together at a slow day at work, she had me play through a round. Watching the Let’s Play, I suddenly remembered being entirely bewildered and utterly aghast at the narrative format of the game, as it being completely different than any game I had played before.
The developers of The Stanley Parable have, undoubtedly, built a sense of immersion in the game. This became truly noticeable to me in the playthrough when I found the narrator to be directly and honestly responsive to the player’s actions – especially at about 16:15 of MetalCanyon’s Let’s Play when the narrator just bluntly quits. Interestingly however, The Stanley Parable does not necessarily involve scripted events or backstory, and simply plops the player into the game without context and expects you to figure it out as you go.
The presentation of a fluid and unspecified story – incredibly evident from the transitioning between games and the snark of the narrator – feels to me as a successful means by which to develop a story. The player themselves builds the story, and the setting’s consistent changes and developments based on your decisions as the player informs the story that you build as you go. Essentially, every single playthrough of the game will be different for every single player – which to me is an insanely engaging form of gameplay. To me, a game that entirely directs my actions without thought or decision isn’t really a game, it’s just a walkthrough of a built environment.
As a bit of a tangent from that, I find games in which the player dictates the storyline to be that much more engaging, and it ultimately lends itself well to the Let’s Play format to create content enjoyable to watch. Admittedly, as it is a good example here, a guilty pleasure I indulge far too often is watching Minecraft Let’s Play series on YouTube, specifically those of content creators playing on the HermitCraft server. On this server, the players start from scratch, and build the world together as they go, producing massive creations in-game, developing an economy between players based on resources, and creating a community-based storyline over “seasons” that last up to a full calendar year. As each player on the server produces content via Twitch or YouTube of their play on the server, the audience has over a dozen perspectives of the same sequence of events to watch. That, to me, makes for an interesting game experience in the sense of creating a storyline, as the players and audience are all invested in the continual development of the story, and not relying on what game developers chose as the sequence of events.
A favored content crator of HermitCraft is the British YouTube / Twitch streamer ZombieCleo. Her channel is one of the smallest of the creators on the server, at almost 200K subscribers, whereas others such as Grian and MumboJumbo have over 8M subscribers each and frequently top YouTube’s trending charts.
Danksy’s chapter references that game writing requires the understanding of the limitations of the medium you are working in, and the trust of your player to believe the story you are building. This, in turn, makes me appreciate The Stanley Parable that much more. Without changing perspective, and without using significant amounts of action or structured storyline, The Stanley Parable is able to present an immersive world with a plyer-directed story that stays engaging.
