the best way to write game story is to force the player to write it, every textwall is empty but to proceed the player must write a 500 page story. this has no effect on gameplay
Even better! not going to lie though, if someone was actually able to make a game with writing a story as the actual mechanic with like prompts and stuff, I would probably want to give it a try. :)
@@Artindi Have you, perchance, tried the game Storyteller? It's similar to what you said; the game gives you a title to fill out, and you have to put characters in a comic book frame to tell the story. Each character/actor has different reactions to the world around them, and motivations usually have to be established to do stuff (except for Baron and Butler), and each scene has different mechanics revolving around it. Modding community ain't half bad either.
It would be even better if "burn down an orphanage" was the good ending because of some crazy series of coincidences that are explained in the final cut scene and were not foreshadowed at all. So this options really saves the universe and the other option somehow leads to its destruction and the only small clue that this will happen is hidden somewhere in an optional quest. People love plot twists!
The nerdy elf orphan who wanted to be an artist was actually the reincarnation of Reltih Floda, the elven warlord who plunged the world into chaos 100 years ago!
To be clear, both hand crafted stories and dynamic, emergent stories can both be enjoyed, but if we are going to give the player the option to impact the story with their choices, forget the hand crafted stories.
Of course by their design-which is a lack of design-even the ideal “the player truly controls the plot and world!” game shouldn’t hold a candle to a linear story of similar competence. This is probably why Homer didn’t make multiple versions of each book of the Odyssey
@@healthy_stool Yeah, true though. I think here it's just good to remember that every medium has its strengths and weaknesses-you can't expect to do it all and give the experiences of a game, book, and movie all in one, for instance. Games can't really tell as much story in volume as a book, but it can be immersive in a unique way. Or, uh, the illusion of immersion. It's kind of impossible to give players unlimited choices to control the plot and the world, but you can make choices feel like they matter, at least, so, yeah?
Its even better to have a linear story where the entire plot can be easily derailed by the player having more common sense than the protagonist! For example, we all know that video game players are stupid and wont think to grab a clearly marked plot important bag of money that's right in front of them that's in the exact same path they need to take to save the protagonist's cat. After all, the story says that money needs to burn so that the protagonist is forced to continue with your perfect story!
yeah, it's pretty hard to keep a player on track. And even when the succeed it can just be a bunch of bs that keeps the player on track, like knee high fence. "hm... I can't go this way." :)
@@Artindi I feel like keeping players on track is much more of an issue in pen-and-paper roleplaying games than in videogames. Videogames are bound by rigid programming, so it's much easier to tell the player "[you can't/you have to] do this". There's no game-master to negotiate with. Or throw physical objects at.
You should do an episode on difficulty. It’s really fun when the game neuters the normal mode so the “hard” mode has all the fun stuff. It’s also especially great when a game makes itself hard in a completely tedious way, and calls itself inspired by dark souls or something to cover it up.
I would especially like to see a deeper look at the difference between "real" difficulty which actually challenges the player's skills, and "fake" or "artificial" difficulty which depends on factors the player has no control of, such as RNG, trial-and-error puzzles, or insane moon logic that requires the player to do something completely counter-intuitive to progress.
That would be a good subject to touch on. I'll have to see if it will fit into its own episode or if it will be part of a larger subject like balancing in general or something. Thanks for the recommendation! :)
Subsequently, neutering the hard mode by removing mechanics to make it harder is also great! (Megaman Zero 2 and… Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue (GBC)?)
@@a__ghost_ Fill the collab with skits even though that’s basically a dead trend “So let’s-“ [STATIC] “Main Guy!” “Other Guy?? What are you doing here? And why do I suddenly have an inexplicable and unquenchable thirst to b̴e̵r̵a̵t̶e̷ ̵a̸n̵d̷ ̶m̸u̵r̶d̸e̸r̶ ̸y̸o̷u̴ ̶g̴r̴u̸e̶s̴o̶m̸e̸l̸y̴?̵” “This topic is waaayy too big for one guy, and I need the advertisement for my show, so let’s do it together!” “UGHHH, fine, Dad, let’s do it tOgeTHeR”
Step one: Force your main character to enter a radioactive chamber and sacrifice themselves as the ending. Step two: Give your main character multiple companions that are immune to radiation. Step three: Eh fuck it, we already got their $60.
Step 4: add 10 different battle passes that each cost $15 and they're the only way to continue Step 5: Make one of the companions sacrifice themselves for the main cha- Step 6: fuck it we got another $150
Not gonna lie, I also noticed the similarity with TWA. This is how I got to your channel in the first place, and I totally support developing this series. The biggest difference between HTF and TWA I see is that while TWA is usually about either lazy writing or graphomany, this series covers deliberate self-sabotage.
Please note: Walls of text are acceptable in every kind of game EXCEPT text adventures. They're too wordy and you need to stand out so let's do away with all those descriptions and immersive scene-setting. Tell don't show. Your players want to play the game not imagine it.
That part about linear and non-linear storytelling. There’s something about that that really invoked critical thinking in me. My game is inspired heavily on Final Fantasy 3 from my childhood, but that doesn’t mean I have to design the story to be so straightforward point to point with only side quests. My story would actually be made worse by that due to what I am trying to convey. I could have a part of the story where they are fighting the bad guys in a dense forest. Using fire magic would basically instantly win the encounter but the whole forest burns down, upsetting the druid party member. That could create a whole new line just to gain back that respect within the party itself else she’d just straight up leave and never come back. One party member can regenerate from death but it causes them to transport into a random crystal to regrow on the planet, meaning the player can choose to sacrifice her for something important or not take that risk and lose out. Story critical NPCs could be killed. Story critical villains could be saved. I already have it so that a very common feature is the party splits up in order to take advantage of not drawing too much attention in public areas, I can explore that with tough choices changing based on if the party is full or split, allowing multiple ways players can engage one scenario from how they managed to get there. Could’ve been using rumors in town and immediately heading there or regrouping and taking a longer, harder path with all 4 party members. All of these I came up with thanks to this video. Wow. I’m very glad I found this channel.
@@Artindi Oh definitely. With how the plot works, it makes a lot of sense for me to heavily limit the content of each act so that there are an amount of branches I can actually handle instead of so many the game had 20 different endings. I got friends who can help tell me “bro too much” and bring me out of my game development trance of just adding more and more and more. Most likely for my game, I’m gonna not have any examples of killing or saving story critical npcs. For the sake of it not taking so long.
Actually, I will say, 2:40 gives me a hilarious idea for a game about solving moral dilemmas but with the satirical twist that all your choices are extreme in one direction or the other. Seems like the kind of game I'd expect to have some kind of shock factor with a social statement about extremism like many of Nicky Case's games, and the length is fitting too, it very much shouts "goofy game jam idea".
Bonus tip for extra credit: No one likes to sit through long, unskippable cutscenes. They want to interact with the game, right? So, they’ll probably just walk away if they’re bored of the cutscene, and that’s not good. You want them to stay in their seat to pay attention, but you can’t just tell the story through gameplay, because you’re bad at game storytelling, and you desperately need the player to take in whatever drivel you want to force feed them. Thankfully, a recent invention called “forced walking sections” had been created to have your cake and eat it too! During a bit of gameplay, simply and jarringly throttle their character’s speed to a walk, making them walk to a designated point. Because they’re forced to go so slow, you can make story graphics and dialogue pop up as the player goes past them, ensuring they can’t miss or skip any exposition, no matter how innane it is. The best part is, pushing the left stick foward is the closest thing to sitting there that you can get, but the interaction required is still not zero. This means forced walking sections are everything you- I mean the player loves about unskippable cutscenes, but now with that secret ingredient of having juuuuust enough interactivity to stop them from just walking away to get something real quick, because their finite time is not important.
Thank you maybe, probably. I’m a game developer in unreal engine and the 2 things I can’t do are stories and 3d modeling/animation. Thank you for teaching me how to fail!@@Artindi
I don't think having "the illusion" of your desicions mattering is always 100% a bad thing. You can have it be a thematic thing in the story and narrative, so sadly, telling people to do that isn't ALWAYS gonna make them write a bad videogame story.
You are correct. Anything that can be done in a video game can be done really well if done right. Even if it's a cliché or something that most would consider a bad choice. :)
It can also spice up linear gameplay: some real old games got extra replayability by letting you choose path, something as simple as going into forest or through the bridge in that Capcom m D&D beatemup. With games that have more involved story, you can have option to, say, follow a caravan or climb the ramparts to infiltrate the same castle AND write it as a story choice, both paths to same end but adds to the replay value.
The best game story is to lock it behind a paywall where players must pay per paragraph, but it's random loot, so you won't know which paragraph fits in the story where.
Disco Elysium on its way to just straight up be a book where you also read books (it is one of the most engaging and incredible experiences in video games ever made and is great because of its format and it couldn't actually just be a book, because it was a book, and it was good, and no one cared, until it was a game)
this was a very helpful episode to me, the game i'm brainstorming rn has a story that i really love, and gameplay that i really love... but i wasn't exactly sure how to put them together in a way that feels fluid and pleasant. i would like to be less reliant on dialogue and cutscenes and lean more toward interactivity. in turn, though, i might need to slim down the story when it comes to details.
Since my current game (FFF Voltitan Vol.3 )is a visual novel/ 3d mecha game hybrid I integrate the gameplay to the story by having the player's performance in the game have narrative consequences for example the enemy of the next level adapts to how the player defeats the previous enemy and how they defeat the enemy can fulfil a flag for a ending's condition. The narrative and gameplay also have a feel of a retro super robot anime.
I like how someone can always think of a game that represents something said in the video. Ha ha. I've never even heard of YIIK, but I'll claim the call out. :)
This reminds me so much of the Kings Question remake. At one point, you're given a choice to save either: a) A pregnant woman and one of your most loyal subjects or b) a blind old goat. And yes. This choice is 100% serious and the game will guilt you for not saving the goat.
Even better when the player's dialogue explains everything that happened in the past at perfectly convenient intervals. Player (just woken from a 1000-year cryostasis): "Huh, that's a plant I've never seen before. It must be a highly evolved Zega-Flytrap clone that was created by High Magistrate Bruno when the War of the Corps raged on planet Oswan VI in the year 3329 A.D., 952 years ago. How interesting."
Remember, your story and gameplay should be entirely disconnected. Just because your game lacks any fall damage doesn't mean your protag cant break his leg in a fall. You've heard the term "ludonarritive dissonance" before, so gamers are probably used to a little bit of extra suspension of disbelief. But also doing things in gameplay rather then cutscenes is also really cool. You played a game that did that once and, like, it was badass! You gotta put as many story moments into your gameplay as possible, people love that stuff, and for some reason most games don't do it much. So when you need a character to die, don't do it in a cutscene and leave the player to escape whatever danger kills them after. Instead, you should have the player carry this character on their back, slowing them down to really emphasize how they're trying to save this person at their own expense, before they're forced to leave them behind in order to not die themselves. Yeah, that sounds super cool! Oh, how do we force them to leave the character behind? Yeah, we'll just take one of those door puzzles where you need to push a crate onto a button, and remove the crate. Now they *have* to leave them behind no matter what. Of course the door can be opened by another button on the other side, ya know, makes sense, but we removed all the crates, so there's mo way to keep it open while rescuing the character! ...wait, we added a gun that swaps the player and another character? And the character is a straight shot from the player, so they could just swap places with the character, both keeping the door open and allowing the player to rescue the character? And we've had them do this multiple times before in previous puzzles? Better disable the gun's function for literally just this and only this one segment with no explanation. We can't let player agency get in the way of the story, the character needs to die so the story can play out exactly as we originally wrote it, they need to be sad he died! And the player needs to do it in gameplay to make it extra sad! Even if we have to literally disable basic game functions and turn the "gameplay" into basically just a worse cutscene, the story will clearly be good enough that players won't mind. I mean, it worked for CoD, right? Everyone knows about "Press F to pay respects"! Man, we are smart. (Yes this is about one specific game how could you tell)
I've played quite a few Pokemon ROM Hacks and fan games, but in the most part, when they made a new story or simply modified an exisiting story, I had found that story to actually be worse than the original games, which really isn't a high standard. I've seen stuff that contradicts confirmed canon facts, I've seen a lot of "important" events and characters that serve no purposes, and lot of other horrible stuff story-wise. Strangely enough, the best story I've seen from a Pokemon fan game actually comes from a game whose main selling point wasn't even the story. It's a simple idea: Pokemon Fire Red, but you play as a Rocket Grunt. What they've done with the story was actually very amazing, they made it happen parallel to the original Pokemon Fire Red story, but you get to see everything behind the scenes, everything is explained in a way that not only makes sense (such as why Team Rocket was at Mt. Moon), but also doesn't deny anything from the original game. And at the end, you also get some 4th wall-breaking storytelling, in the same way that Undertale does. This last point is actually what I absolutely love in video game story-telling. Explaining game mechanics in a way that makes sense within the story setting of the game is super cool, but making use of illogical yet extremely common game mechanics to make the story go meta about you as the player or other out-of-the-box concepts, I crave that kind of plot twists!
Just found your channel and I really like this series. I’m really wanting to work on a heavily story based game and I was wondering if an entirely linear game would be a bad design, but I guess you just have to pull it off properly.
Glad you like it, and yeah, I think most stories should ether be completely linear, or completely dynamic. So no, I think an entirely linear game is great design. assuming all other game design aspects are done right. :)
Walking dead telltale is a good example of a movie with a walking sim, but it has more interactive mechanics, like choosing what to say based on the situation
Heres an idea: - Don't explain the story or give any context to where you are and where your going. Leave it open ended so the playerbase can make up some fanfiction to feel smart. - Add an open world with no quest tracking or logs; only add NPCs that talk a little and leave it up to the player to figure it out. (NPCs should talk in some old medevil english) IMPORTANT NPCs should only say their dialogue *ONCE!* - Don't mark anything of the map. Leave it blank with some structures squiggled on and make it the same style as the terrain of the points if interest is even harder to see *Bonus points* DO NOT mark where you've been so the player will get stuck going in circles. - punish the player for minor and easily made mistakes *bonus* force the player to redo a chunk of the level when they die with all of the enemies respawned. - *DO NOT* give the player a way to beat the boss or allow the player to use strategy to exploit the weaknesses of the boss; that is what the open world is for: increaseing your power level
0:18 I love this like... I wouldn't call it a crossover, what would it be called though? 617 episodes?! so cool, and I think this was a good way to do it. thank you for the vids :D
i wasn't entirely sure how serious you were since i don't personally know the limits of such a series but it definitely reads as hyperbole as well lol, so i'm not really surprised. d(^v^d)@@Artindi
Some questions. - What about Telltale video games?... those are based only on cinematics that activate depending on the options you choose, so it's like a kind of interactive movie or cinematic? - And what about visual novels? - And does what was said in this video change anything if the player is previously announced that the video game will be more linear and therefore would not generate so many illusions/expectations that would be betrayed in the end? Of course, then I guess fewer people would probably be attracted.
Great questions. :) Interactive/visual novels can have many endings or possible outcomes, some can seem more desirable than others on a subjective level, but any ending should be just as valid as any other ending. If a certain ending became the official win condition or lose condition, the intended use of the medium would no longer be a free discovery of story, but rather an official challenge to achieve the target outcome set by the medium. A game must have a conclusive measurable outcome established by the medium, such as a win, a loss, a state a maintained condition, (such as in king of the hill) or a performance based outcome, without this there would be no defining factors setting "game" apart from any other recreative activity. Because this distinction between "interactive novel/visual novel" and "game" are definitionally opposed, they are mutually exclusive. So you could ether have a game, perhaps with a visual novel style story such as in Ace Attorney, or an interactive/visual novel, perhaps with game like elements such as in Detroit: Become Human, but it can only be one or the other with the main distinction based on the presence of an objective goal establish by the medium. However this doesn't mean that we can't still refer to certain forms of entertainment as a "game" colloquially to avoid confusion as I would do with Detroit: Become Human. Thanks for the thoughtful comment. :)
Don't forget to not have the story and gameplay converge to make the mechanics of your game feel like their part of your world, that might make the player feel like their actually experiencing the setting and take advantage of the interactive nature of the medium. In fact, just have characters act completely irrationally for the sake of gameplay even if a entre section or boss fight could be avoided if the cast would just talk to each other!
Outer Wilds : the time loop has meaning, you understand the "why" if you finish the game 12 minutes : There is a time loop. Yeah there is a time loop, this is the game that's it. If you finish the game you're in another timeloop. So spooky isn't it ?
I do take issue with the concept of nonlinearity still converging on the same ending vs a binary choice in non-linearity, because it has been done before well albeit in a somewhat niche setting. 999, Virtue's Last Reward, and Zero Time Dilemma (the Zero Escape trilogy) do a fantastic job of letting the player experience many different endings to inform the player (and NPCs kinda) about things that can progress other timelines to a final ultimate ending. I know it is niche, but the compromise can absolutely be done
"Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader" fails hard at story. Sets you in a world chock full of lore and potential. Gives you tons of dialog options. But all the endings listed in the code are based on two factors- what alignment you chose and how you responded to the big bad at the very end. Everything in between was irrelevant. It was actually jarring how poorly the story followed my actions. Rescue the navigator by killing the guy who tried to kill her and she tries getting into your pants five minutes later, fair enough. Rescue the navigator by killing the bad guy and slaughtering her entire clan in the process... and she tries getting in your pants five minutes later. Huh?
Oh, keep in mind - make sure to make your story overly cryptic, confusing, and not make any logical sense! Then tell your fans it's just "complex lore" - surely MatPat will make a video on it one of these days, right?
@@Artindiif you’re still thinking of doing this, I think instead of just following all the advice you give and making a game out of it, just crank all of your tips to 11 in a funny way so it’s actually enjoyable (like for example maybe have storytelling “choice” sections where after you pick what you’re going to do and you see what’s going to happen next, the game “glitches” and puts you back in the same spot, so when you pick the other option, the same thing happens)
If you can't think of a cool story, just make it a zombie game where people were about to develop a cure, but died :( Now you are the last survivors in an endless apocalypse...and that's it!
I'd say stay away from multiple choice branching narrative games. They take too much effort and very rarely work out. >Endingtron 3000 where you choose one of ~4 choices to decide the ending of a linear game, which results in reloading hte last save to see the alternate endings. >David Cage-esk CYOA games which has minute choices which but has to constrain to pragmatic case of no choice having any real meaning. >Good vs evil routes where 9/10 times the evil route is the just bad ending. Getting the middle route is also kind of bland as well.
I love Kingdom Hearts, but Nomura is basically making up stuff as he goes along and retroactivelly making it seem like there was foreshadowing the whole time.
@@thatperson1009 Each story self-contained is great. The problem is that the connections between games are either forced, vague, or shoehorned in later.
The best way to fail at writing a story is to not have one and convince the player that the game has deep lore and the let ye story develop from their theories.
Don't forget to add important pieces of your deep and intricate lore in obscure places that nobody fucking looks at, and ONLY in those places. And remember to be extra flowery and vague when you do. If the players don't get the story at all because of that, then it just goes to show how amazing it is, of course!
the best way to write game story is to force the player to write it, every textwall is empty but to proceed the player must write a 500 page story. this has no effect on gameplay
Even better! not going to lie though, if someone was actually able to make a game with writing a story as the actual mechanic with like prompts and stuff, I would probably want to give it a try. :)
@@Artindi Have you, perchance, tried the game Storyteller? It's similar to what you said; the game gives you a title to fill out, and you have to put characters in a comic book frame to tell the story. Each character/actor has different reactions to the world around them, and motivations usually have to be established to do stuff (except for Baron and Butler), and each scene has different mechanics revolving around it. Modding community ain't half bad either.
@@notsodogninja35 That sounds honestly pretty sick. Do you know if it's on Steam?
It is. 15$ for a smallish puzzle game with pretty good modding capabilities, if you know where to look@@trouslinabone
Also free on mobile if you have a Netflix account but it's not the latest update so some puzzles won't make as much sense@@trouslinabone
It would be even better if "burn down an orphanage" was the good ending because of some crazy series of coincidences that are explained in the final cut scene and were not foreshadowed at all. So this options really saves the universe and the other option somehow leads to its destruction and the only small clue that this will happen is hidden somewhere in an optional quest. People love plot twists!
That sounds about right. :)
The nerdy elf orphan who wanted to be an artist was actually the reincarnation of Reltih Floda, the elven warlord who plunged the world into chaos 100 years ago!
It's not that but Everhood's ending has you doing something terrible but ends up well for the universe, honestly quite incredible
@@EdKolis This story sounds a little familiar, but I can't put my finger on it. I think it had something to do with some failed austrian painter?
Man, I thought "Burn down the orphanage" was the good ending 🗣
I never said which one was the good ending. 0.0
just use the military's playbook and say there were terrorists inside.
Saving those innocent orphans from having to live in this hellish world 😉
@@EdKolis Average Villain Speech
To be clear, both hand crafted stories and dynamic, emergent stories can both be enjoyed, but if we are going to give the player the option to impact the story with their choices, forget the hand crafted stories.
Of course by their design-which is a lack of design-even the ideal “the player truly controls the plot and world!” game shouldn’t hold a candle to a linear story of similar competence. This is probably why Homer didn’t make multiple versions of each book of the Odyssey
@@healthy_stool Yeah, true though. I think here it's just good to remember that every medium has its strengths and weaknesses-you can't expect to do it all and give the experiences of a game, book, and movie all in one, for instance. Games can't really tell as much story in volume as a book, but it can be immersive in a unique way. Or, uh, the illusion of immersion. It's kind of impossible to give players unlimited choices to control the plot and the world, but you can make choices feel like they matter, at least, so, yeah?
Out of curiosity is the next video gonna be level design because I really need advice on how not to fail at that.
@@rushalias8511 proly.
Its even better to have a linear story where the entire plot can be easily derailed by the player having more common sense than the protagonist! For example, we all know that video game players are stupid and wont think to grab a clearly marked plot important bag of money that's right in front of them that's in the exact same path they need to take to save the protagonist's cat. After all, the story says that money needs to burn so that the protagonist is forced to continue with your perfect story!
yeah, it's pretty hard to keep a player on track. And even when the succeed it can just be a bunch of bs that keeps the player on track, like knee high fence. "hm... I can't go this way." :)
Wow if only there was a game like that!
@@Artindi I feel like keeping players on track is much more of an issue in pen-and-paper roleplaying games than in videogames. Videogames are bound by rigid programming, so it's much easier to tell the player "[you can't/you have to] do this". There's no game-master to negotiate with. Or throw physical objects at.
Gotta love Forespoken, truly the game of all time.
@@generalrubbish9513 ah yes harassing your friend into giving you a gun in a medieval world.... classic
You should do an episode on difficulty. It’s really fun when the game neuters the normal mode so the “hard” mode has all the fun stuff. It’s also especially great when a game makes itself hard in a completely tedious way, and calls itself inspired by dark souls or something to cover it up.
I would especially like to see a deeper look at the difference between "real" difficulty which actually challenges the player's skills, and "fake" or "artificial" difficulty which depends on factors the player has no control of, such as RNG, trial-and-error puzzles, or insane moon logic that requires the player to do something completely counter-intuitive to progress.
That would be a good subject to touch on. I'll have to see if it will fit into its own episode or if it will be part of a larger subject like balancing in general or something. Thanks for the recommendation! :)
Uncharted. And first Halo.
Subsequently, neutering the hard mode by removing mechanics to make it harder is also great! (Megaman Zero 2 and… Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue (GBC)?)
Just multiply enemy's health pool
Imagine this guy making a collab with Terrible Writing Advice on artist collaboration
That would be pretty cool, and an appropriate subject too. :)
@@a__ghost_ Fill the collab with skits even though that’s basically a dead trend
“So let’s-“ [STATIC] “Main Guy!” “Other Guy?? What are you doing here? And why do I suddenly have an inexplicable and unquenchable thirst to b̴e̵r̵a̵t̶e̷ ̵a̸n̵d̷ ̶m̸u̵r̶d̸e̸r̶ ̸y̸o̷u̴ ̶g̴r̴u̸e̶s̴o̶m̸e̸l̸y̴?̵” “This topic is waaayy too big for one guy, and I need the advertisement for my show, so let’s do it together!” “UGHHH, fine, Dad, let’s do it tOgeTHeR”
Step one: Force your main character to enter a radioactive chamber and sacrifice themselves as the ending.
Step two: Give your main character multiple companions that are immune to radiation.
Step three: Eh fuck it, we already got their $60.
Later add dlc
Step 4: add 10 different battle passes that each cost $15 and they're the only way to continue
Step 5: Make one of the companions sacrifice themselves for the main cha-
Step 6: fuck it we got another $150
Fallout 3 would be more than awsome if
SPOILERS AHEAD
1-> Joinable Enclave
2-> Better Ending
3-> Better Gunplay and Power Armor models
2:20 this shit killed me cause a stupid amount of games do this
Telltale Games do feel like this sometimes. Like choices affect side characters that don’t change the outcome of destiny.
this video could be considered a puzzle game
0.0 Your right! :)
Not gonna lie, I also noticed the similarity with TWA. This is how I got to your channel in the first place, and I totally support developing this series.
The biggest difference between HTF and TWA I see is that while TWA is usually about either lazy writing or graphomany, this series covers deliberate self-sabotage.
Thanks! And I also support developing this series. :)
All that is left is an overarching narrative in the sponsor segments (if you have any)
Please note: Walls of text are acceptable in every kind of game EXCEPT text adventures. They're too wordy and you need to stand out so let's do away with all those descriptions and immersive scene-setting. Tell don't show. Your players want to play the game not imagine it.
Or if you want to show, then show, rather than let the player play.
Trials in tainted space is text based but it's 18+
YOU'RE STILL DOING THESE? this makes me happy.
this series is funny AND useful..
When Im ready to make the worst game ever, I'll rewatch this series.
Sounds good! Can't wait to play your horrible game. ;)
thank you, i was just about to succeed at this one
Glad I could help.... I think....
"It's only a game. Why put effort into the story?.....So anyway, I'm thinking of adding loads of cutscenes and audio logs"
That part about linear and non-linear storytelling. There’s something about that that really invoked critical thinking in me.
My game is inspired heavily on Final Fantasy 3 from my childhood, but that doesn’t mean I have to design the story to be so straightforward point to point with only side quests. My story would actually be made worse by that due to what I am trying to convey.
I could have a part of the story where they are fighting the bad guys in a dense forest. Using fire magic would basically instantly win the encounter but the whole forest burns down, upsetting the druid party member. That could create a whole new line just to gain back that respect within the party itself else she’d just straight up leave and never come back.
One party member can regenerate from death but it causes them to transport into a random crystal to regrow on the planet, meaning the player can choose to sacrifice her for something important or not take that risk and lose out.
Story critical NPCs could be killed. Story critical villains could be saved. I already have it so that a very common feature is the party splits up in order to take advantage of not drawing too much attention in public areas, I can explore that with tough choices changing based on if the party is full or split, allowing multiple ways players can engage one scenario from how they managed to get there. Could’ve been using rumors in town and immediately heading there or regrouping and taking a longer, harder path with all 4 party members.
All of these I came up with thanks to this video. Wow.
I’m very glad I found this channel.
Sounds interesting, watch out for scope creep though, ether way. Glad I could help. :)
@@Artindi Oh definitely. With how the plot works, it makes a lot of sense for me to heavily limit the content of each act so that there are an amount of branches I can actually handle instead of so many the game had 20 different endings.
I got friends who can help tell me “bro too much” and bring me out of my game development trance of just adding more and more and more.
Most likely for my game, I’m gonna not have any examples of killing or saving story critical npcs. For the sake of it not taking so long.
Your game is never gonna be released (jk best of luck
Actually, I will say, 2:40 gives me a hilarious idea for a game about solving moral dilemmas but with the satirical twist that all your choices are extreme in one direction or the other. Seems like the kind of game I'd expect to have some kind of shock factor with a social statement about extremism like many of Nicky Case's games, and the length is fitting too, it very much shouts "goofy game jam idea".
YEAHHH. i already binged the entire series.
Edit: i love that you finnaly mentioned TWA, i love that guy
There were enough people pointing out the similarities, so yeah, it was about time. But mostly it fit for the subject matter. :)
Bonus tip for extra credit: No one likes to sit through long, unskippable cutscenes. They want to interact with the game, right? So, they’ll probably just walk away if they’re bored of the cutscene, and that’s not good. You want them to stay in their seat to pay attention, but you can’t just tell the story through gameplay, because you’re bad at game storytelling, and you desperately need the player to take in whatever drivel you want to force feed them.
Thankfully, a recent invention called “forced walking sections” had been created to have your cake and eat it too! During a bit of gameplay, simply and jarringly throttle their character’s speed to a walk, making them walk to a designated point. Because they’re forced to go so slow, you can make story graphics and dialogue pop up as the player goes past them, ensuring they can’t miss or skip any exposition, no matter how innane it is. The best part is, pushing the left stick foward is the closest thing to sitting there that you can get, but the interaction required is still not zero. This means forced walking sections are everything you- I mean the player loves about unskippable cutscenes, but now with that secret ingredient of having juuuuust enough interactivity to stop them from just walking away to get something real quick, because their finite time is not important.
Thank you for making one on making a story. This will help me become a failure in game development
Happy I could help..... probably? I'm confused now. ;)
Thank you maybe, probably. I’m a game developer in unreal engine and the 2 things I can’t do are stories and 3d modeling/animation. Thank you for teaching me how to fail!@@Artindi
I don't think having "the illusion" of your desicions mattering is always 100% a bad thing. You can have it be a thematic thing in the story and narrative, so sadly, telling people to do that isn't ALWAYS gonna make them write a bad videogame story.
You are correct. Anything that can be done in a video game can be done really well if done right. Even if it's a cliché or something that most would consider a bad choice. :)
It can also spice up linear gameplay: some real old games got extra replayability by letting you choose path, something as simple as going into forest or through the bridge in that Capcom m D&D beatemup. With games that have more involved story, you can have option to, say, follow a caravan or climb the ramparts to infiltrate the same castle AND write it as a story choice, both paths to same end but adds to the replay value.
The best game story is to lock it behind a paywall where players must pay per paragraph, but it's random loot, so you won't know which paragraph fits in the story where.
2:07 side eyes telltale games...
Disco Elysium on its way to just straight up be a book where you also read books (it is one of the most engaging and incredible experiences in video games ever made and is great because of its format and it couldn't actually just be a book, because it was a book, and it was good, and no one cared, until it was a game)
Disco Elysium has over a million words. That's harry-potter-sized, all 7 books
@@zaidlacksalastname4905 It, in no way, shape, or form, has over a million words.
It wouldn't even scratch a tenth of that.
this was a very helpful episode to me, the game i'm brainstorming rn has a story that i really love, and gameplay that i really love... but i wasn't exactly sure how to put them together in a way that feels fluid and pleasant. i would like to be less reliant on dialogue and cutscenes and lean more toward interactivity. in turn, though, i might need to slim down the story when it comes to details.
Glad I could help! :)
Honestly this is way more helpful than serious tutorials, thanks
Since my current game (FFF Voltitan Vol.3 )is a visual novel/ 3d mecha game hybrid I integrate the gameplay to the story by having the player's performance in the game have narrative consequences for example the enemy of the next level adapts to how the player defeats the previous enemy and how they defeat the enemy can fulfil a flag for a ending's condition. The narrative and gameplay also have a feel of a retro super robot anime.
you've done it again david cage!
Who dat?
Oh wait. I figured it out. Lol
i wanted to compare this to terrible writing advice, but i now see that it has already been done.
Love these, please do more if you have any ideas
Oh. I got more. :)
You love to hear it
2:52 the "else" statement may lead to partial success 'cause two's better than one, therefore, use the "if" alone.
"A really long movie occasionally interrupted by a walking simulator" Man really gotta call out YIIK like that huh?
I like how someone can always think of a game that represents something said in the video. Ha ha. I've never even heard of YIIK, but I'll claim the call out. :)
This reminds me so much of the Kings Question remake. At one point, you're given a choice to save either: a) A pregnant woman and one of your most loyal subjects or b) a blind old goat.
And yes. This choice is 100% serious and the game will guilt you for not saving the goat.
the YIIK dev took this to heart
found these videos on accident and binged most of them to see this video came out 4 hours ago, real
This man makes me feel called out for things I never thought of
Can you please make "How to fail making a fighting game"? I'm curious about what you come up with.
I guess that depends on what kind of fighting game? Your probably talking about a Mortal Combat style game?
@@Artindi Yeah!
@@Artindi Yeah, or Street Fighter
Great episode as usual. Really excited to find out how to fail at level design!
I'm excited to find out too! ;)
It's out
Literally Starfield and Skyrim.
Even better when the player's dialogue explains everything that happened in the past at perfectly convenient intervals.
Player (just woken from a 1000-year cryostasis): "Huh, that's a plant I've never seen before. It must be a highly evolved Zega-Flytrap clone that was created by High Magistrate Bruno when the War of the Corps raged on planet Oswan VI in the year 3329 A.D., 952 years ago. How interesting."
Remember, your story and gameplay should be entirely disconnected. Just because your game lacks any fall damage doesn't mean your protag cant break his leg in a fall. You've heard the term "ludonarritive dissonance" before, so gamers are probably used to a little bit of extra suspension of disbelief.
But also doing things in gameplay rather then cutscenes is also really cool. You played a game that did that once and, like, it was badass! You gotta put as many story moments into your gameplay as possible, people love that stuff, and for some reason most games don't do it much.
So when you need a character to die, don't do it in a cutscene and leave the player to escape whatever danger kills them after. Instead, you should have the player carry this character on their back, slowing them down to really emphasize how they're trying to save this person at their own expense, before they're forced to leave them behind in order to not die themselves. Yeah, that sounds super cool!
Oh, how do we force them to leave the character behind? Yeah, we'll just take one of those door puzzles where you need to push a crate onto a button, and remove the crate. Now they *have* to leave them behind no matter what. Of course the door can be opened by another button on the other side, ya know, makes sense, but we removed all the crates, so there's mo way to keep it open while rescuing the character!
...wait, we added a gun that swaps the player and another character? And the character is a straight shot from the player, so they could just swap places with the character, both keeping the door open and allowing the player to rescue the character? And we've had them do this multiple times before in previous puzzles?
Better disable the gun's function for literally just this and only this one segment with no explanation. We can't let player agency get in the way of the story, the character needs to die so the story can play out exactly as we originally wrote it, they need to be sad he died! And the player needs to do it in gameplay to make it extra sad! Even if we have to literally disable basic game functions and turn the "gameplay" into basically just a worse cutscene, the story will clearly be good enough that players won't mind.
I mean, it worked for CoD, right? Everyone knows about "Press F to pay respects"!
Man, we are smart.
(Yes this is about one specific game how could you tell)
Damn, it's like Emil Pagliarulo saw this video, and didn't realize it was sarcasm!
I've played quite a few Pokemon ROM Hacks and fan games, but in the most part, when they made a new story or simply modified an exisiting story, I had found that story to actually be worse than the original games, which really isn't a high standard. I've seen stuff that contradicts confirmed canon facts, I've seen a lot of "important" events and characters that serve no purposes, and lot of other horrible stuff story-wise.
Strangely enough, the best story I've seen from a Pokemon fan game actually comes from a game whose main selling point wasn't even the story. It's a simple idea: Pokemon Fire Red, but you play as a Rocket Grunt. What they've done with the story was actually very amazing, they made it happen parallel to the original Pokemon Fire Red story, but you get to see everything behind the scenes, everything is explained in a way that not only makes sense (such as why Team Rocket was at Mt. Moon), but also doesn't deny anything from the original game. And at the end, you also get some 4th wall-breaking storytelling, in the same way that Undertale does.
This last point is actually what I absolutely love in video game story-telling. Explaining game mechanics in a way that makes sense within the story setting of the game is super cool, but making use of illogical yet extremely common game mechanics to make the story go meta about you as the player or other out-of-the-box concepts, I crave that kind of plot twists!
These videos really have sapped my will to create video games. Thanks!
You should totally make one of these "fail" videos on metroidvanias
awesome always look out for these videos
Just found your channel and I really like this series. I’m really wanting to work on a heavily story based game and I was wondering if an entirely linear game would be a bad design, but I guess you just have to pull it off properly.
Glad you like it, and yeah, I think most stories should ether be completely linear, or completely dynamic. So no, I think an entirely linear game is great design. assuming all other game design aspects are done right. :)
Walking dead telltale is a good example of a movie with a walking sim, but it has more interactive mechanics, like choosing what to say based on the situation
No way, Terrible Writing Advice but games?!!!
well, i got called out in like 20 seconds, fair play
thanks again for the vidya
Holy cow a bejeweled reference
Heres an idea:
- Don't explain the story or give any context to where you are and where your going. Leave it open ended so the playerbase can make up some fanfiction to feel smart.
- Add an open world with no quest tracking or logs; only add NPCs that talk a little and leave it up to the player to figure it out. (NPCs should talk in some old medevil english)
IMPORTANT NPCs should only say their dialogue *ONCE!*
- Don't mark anything of the map. Leave it blank with some structures squiggled on and make it the same style as the terrain of the points if interest is even harder to see
*Bonus points* DO NOT mark where you've been so the player will get stuck going in circles.
- punish the player for minor and easily made mistakes *bonus* force the player to redo a chunk of the level when they die with all of the enemies respawned.
- *DO NOT* give the player a way to beat the boss or allow the player to use strategy to exploit the weaknesses of the boss; that is what the open world is for: increaseing your power level
2:13 *cough* Life is Strange *cough*
0:18 I love this like... I wouldn't call it a crossover, what would it be called though?
617 episodes?! so cool, and I think this was a good way to do it. thank you for the vids :D
To be clear I was joking about 617 episode. But I can't tell if you are playing along. :)
i wasn't entirely sure how serious you were since i don't personally know the limits of such a series but it definitely reads as hyperbole as well lol, so i'm not really surprised. d(^v^d)@@Artindi
You are on fire lol.
Can't wait for the roast of live service
2:22 when you accidentally give a fire game idea:
Some questions.
- What about Telltale video games?... those are based only on cinematics that activate depending on the options you choose, so it's like a kind of interactive movie or cinematic?
- And what about visual novels?
- And does what was said in this video change anything if the player is previously announced that the video game will be more linear and therefore would not generate so many illusions/expectations that would be betrayed in the end? Of course, then I guess fewer people would probably be attracted.
Great questions. :)
Interactive/visual novels can have many endings or possible outcomes, some can seem more desirable than others on a subjective level, but any ending should be just as valid as any other ending. If a certain ending became the official win condition or lose condition, the intended use of the medium would no longer be a free discovery of story, but rather an official challenge to achieve the target outcome set by the medium.
A game must have a conclusive measurable outcome established by the medium, such as a win, a loss, a state a maintained condition, (such as in king of the hill) or a performance based outcome, without this there would be no defining factors setting "game" apart from any other recreative activity.
Because this distinction between "interactive novel/visual novel" and "game" are definitionally opposed, they are mutually exclusive.
So you could ether have a game, perhaps with a visual novel style story such as in Ace Attorney, or an interactive/visual novel, perhaps with game like elements such as in Detroit: Become Human, but it can only be one or the other with the main distinction based on the presence of an objective goal establish by the medium.
However this doesn't mean that we can't still refer to certain forms of entertainment as a "game" colloquially to avoid confusion as I would do with Detroit: Become Human.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. :)
@@Artindi “Turns out, it’s easy to fail at making a game when what you make is not a game.”
0:54 to 1:18 is just explaining the current state of Five Nights at Freddys.
Don't forget to not have the story and gameplay converge to make the mechanics of your game feel like their part of your world, that might make the player feel like their actually experiencing the setting and take advantage of the interactive nature of the medium. In fact, just have characters act completely irrationally for the sake of gameplay even if a entre section or boss fight could be avoided if the cast would just talk to each other!
scungle
dofrustie
darksouls devs taking notes
Instructions unclear, proceeds to create lore rich game
I don't care what anyone says. The literal 'Wall of Text' was the funniest joke in the Neverhood and yes, I read all of it AND I enjoyed it.
Nice. I was pretty proud of that. :)
2:19
Fire Emblem three houses in a nutshell
How?
Most of the post time skip sections are incredibly different from each other
2:26 literally every roblox camping game ever
Outer Wilds : the time loop has meaning, you understand the "why" if you finish the game
12 minutes : There is a time loop. Yeah there is a time loop, this is the game that's it. If you finish the game you're in another timeloop. So spooky isn't it ?
I do take issue with the concept of nonlinearity still converging on the same ending vs a binary choice in non-linearity, because it has been done before well albeit in a somewhat niche setting. 999, Virtue's Last Reward, and Zero Time Dilemma (the Zero Escape trilogy) do a fantastic job of letting the player experience many different endings to inform the player (and NPCs kinda) about things that can progress other timelines to a final ultimate ending. I know it is niche, but the compromise can absolutely be done
I never expected to see TWA here 😭😭
"Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader" fails hard at story. Sets you in a world chock full of lore and potential. Gives you tons of dialog options. But all the endings listed in the code are based on two factors- what alignment you chose and how you responded to the big bad at the very end. Everything in between was irrelevant. It was actually jarring how poorly the story followed my actions. Rescue the navigator by killing the guy who tried to kill her and she tries getting into your pants five minutes later, fair enough. Rescue the navigator by killing the bad guy and slaughtering her entire clan in the process... and she tries getting in your pants five minutes later. Huh?
Oh, keep in mind - make sure to make your story overly cryptic, confusing, and not make any logical sense! Then tell your fans it's just "complex lore" - surely MatPat will make a video on it one of these days, right?
Creators of the switch pokemon games are really coming back to this video often huh
Instruction unclear. Followed them exactly but made Metal Gear Solid 4
Ah I see… so it’s basically your average Telltale and David Cage games?💀
How to fail at multiplayer games? (the lethal company hype... maybe)
Maybe. It's on the list. But I don't know if I'm going to catch the hype train. :/
high quality content here!
high quality comment here!
I hope someone makes a game using this full tutorial.
I've been thinking about doing that. The only thing holding me back is how awful the game would be. :)
@@Artindi Just put an actual book someone else wrote in there to take care of the story. Minimal effort is a good way to fail.
@@Artindiif you’re still thinking of doing this, I think instead of just following all the advice you give and making a game out of it, just crank all of your tips to 11 in a funny way so it’s actually enjoyable (like for example maybe have storytelling “choice” sections where after you pick what you’re going to do and you see what’s going to happen next, the game “glitches” and puts you back in the same spot, so when you pick the other option, the same thing happens)
Genshin Impact. You're welcome.
@@HighronGee Doesn't seem that bad...
i make story non linear but the stages linear
Toby Fox did not follow this tutorial when making Undertale.
If you can't think of a cool story, just make it a zombie game where people were about to develop a cure, but died :(
Now you are the last survivors in an endless apocalypse...and that's it!
this reminds me of yiik
I'd say stay away from multiple choice branching narrative games. They take too much effort and very rarely work out.
>Endingtron 3000 where you choose one of ~4 choices to decide the ending of a linear game, which results in reloading hte last save to see the alternate endings.
>David Cage-esk CYOA games which has minute choices which but has to constrain to pragmatic case of no choice having any real meaning.
>Good vs evil routes where 9/10 times the evil route is the just bad ending. Getting the middle route is also kind of bland as well.
So fallout 3 and all the dlc
I have a story to tell you... or not.
will you do a how to fail at game music?
I already did. 0.0
@@Artindioh I didn't notice it, but what about a how to fail in a shooter game?
What about visual novels? They present the plot in well, cutscenes after all.
I made a whole episode dedicated to visual novels. It's very thorough and comprehensive if you want to check it out. :)
@@Artindi Oh, thanks for letting me know, I'm gonna watch it right away!
@@Relivino don't get your hopes up too high. :)
Do you ACTUALLY have 617 videos on back log???
Maaaaaybe..... (ya no. No I don't. But don't tell anyone.) ;)
god of war reference
Why don’t you just play a Kingdom Hearts game and use that? Less effort for more confusion!
I actually haven't ever played Kingdom Hearts, but... I've heard the legends... 0.0
I love Kingdom Hearts, but Nomura is basically making up stuff as he goes along and retroactivelly making it seem like there was foreshadowing the whole time.
Kingdom hearts does actually have some good story, sometimes...
@@thatperson1009 Each story self-contained is great. The problem is that the connections between games are either forced, vague, or shoehorned in later.
@@SoulHero7 like from 1 until BBS-ish it’s pretty good but after that it kinda goes off the rails.
After 1 hour persona 5 still haven’t gotten to the gameplay. The Witcher 3 is also slow to start.
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time 💀
thanks
i am going to NOT follow your advice and try to succeed at game story! >:3
How dare you! ....actually, that's probably a good idea.
The best way to fail at writing a story is to not have one and convince the player that the game has deep lore and the let ye story develop from their theories.
Dark souls kinda does that. Like there is stuff there. But they reveal so little people spend crazy amounts of time trying to figure it out.
Don't forget to add important pieces of your deep and intricate lore in obscure places that nobody fucking looks at, and ONLY in those places. And remember to be extra flowery and vague when you do. If the players don't get the story at all because of that, then it just goes to show how amazing it is, of course!
Gaster in Undertale followed this advice.
to write a good game story, play red dead redemption 2
PLAY BIOSHOCK
Haha i am definitely the 9,000th comment
yes... you are... *backs away slowly*
;)
so does that mean im the 9002nd comment?
Vegita, what does the scouter say on the amount of comments?
Vegita: ITS OVER 9000
90% of aaa games
what is this, a FromSoft exposed video?
How dare you say mean things about JP
What's JP?
E
H