Slay the Dragon. Robert Denton Bryant
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to their massively successful game Halo for the original Xbox. I would often go over there for meetings and I noticed something: The lines between technical and creative were just not there. It was one team of about one hundred people in a huge U-shaped room who were all creative and technical, sitting next to each other and coming up with creative ideas and making them “real” with computer code. Right before my eyes I saw something amazing: The two disciplines were working closely together to create that magical world I dreamt of years before while at Syracuse.
But, it was slightly different. As this book will show you, television, films, and radio are linear storytelling. The viewer (or listener) passively sits back and watches (or listens) to the story play out at a prescribed pace and with deliberately chosen camera angles and movements. In video games, it’s completely different. The players are at the center of the action. THEY decide when and where to move, look, and take action. They can spend ten minutes in a hallway. Or ten seconds. The players can open this door, then that door, then go out this window. Or they can just go out another window. Maybe they turn around and go around the building. The pace and direction are entirely up to the players. This non-linear interactive storytelling is one of the many innovations that video games have created.
The book you are holding in your hands is for anyone who wants to learn about this new way of storytelling that really is an evolution of traditional storytelling. If you’ve written a screenplay—this book is for you. If you’ve ever played a video game and thought, “Hey, I have a great idea for a story”—this book is for you. If you want to get a better understanding of the multi-billion-dollar industry that is now a massive cultural and economic force—this book is for you.
I love video games. I love that a person playing a game can create stories and character connections with deep emotions that can be greater than movies. When I played Red Dead Redemption—an incredibly popular open-world game set in the great American West in the late 1800s—at the end I cried.
My wife walked into the room when I finished the game and she asked, “What’s wrong?” All I could muster up was the ability to point at the screen and say “It’s over. It’s finally over.”
We’ve all felt a little something at the ending of a good book or a movie, but this felt deeper. It was MY character I was controlling. I was the one that made the story go forward at my pace. I got to know the main character, John Marston, so well because I was controlling him. In many ways, I became John Marston. Especially after the countless hours of gameplay and story decisions I had made. When I got to the end it was overwhelming. (I won’t spoil it for you but if you finished the game, you probably had the same experience.)
In linear storytelling, the story and character arcs are straightforward and the ending is the same for everyone, and in video games that can often be the case. But it becomes much more personal, since in video games you actually control the character and pace of the story.
Video games often allow the player to control the direction of the narrative, and in some games the outcome is directly based on in-game choices you, the player, have made. Video games can employ some extremely sophisticated storytelling where three different people playing the same game can have three different experiences and results based on their own in-game decisions. Very powerful stuff.
This book will show you what a game is and explore story and game genre, plot, character development, and much, much more. In my years of working in the industry this is the closest thing to a bible of creative video game story creation as I have ever seen. This is an amazing industry that I am proud to be a part of where you really can make your own real life adventure. Anything can happen. I love telling my old Syracuse classmates that I came to Microsoft and I was part of a team that won not one, but THREE Emmy Awards. A real life Emmy Award for working in the video game industry. That’s how far we’ve come. (Kudos to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for recognizing the importance and power of video game technology.)
Enjoy this book. Enjoy the journey of creating your stories and characters and making them come to life in a game for players around the world to (hopefully) enjoy.
I hope we get to meet someday and you can tell me about your own wonder and successes in the industry.
All the best,
Larry Hryb
Twitter: @majornelson
Seattle, Washington
February 2015
CHAPTER 00
LOADING …
When Desmond Miles is kidnapped by a sinister corporation, they use a machine to send his consciousness back in time, where he is forced to re-live the adventures of his ancestors—a secret society of assassins. Can Desmond survive and stop the evil company’s plans to change history?
After his airplane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic, Jack discovers a man-made underwater Utopia called “Rapture.” But the city has gone mad: its gene-splicing-addicted citizens attack him, monstrous “Big Daddies” try to kill him on sight, and Rapture’s autocratic founder will stop at nothing to maintain control. Can Jack escape to the surface before he becomes an unwitting pawn in this sub-marine madhouse?
After landing on a gargantuan, ring-shaped planet, the Master Chief, a genetically enhanced super-soldier, must battle a fanatical civilization known as the Covenant. Can he stop them before they can use their super weapon to destroy all life in the galaxy?
DO THESE BLURBS sound like the plots of Hollywood’s upcoming summer blockbusters? They easily could be. Each of these story lines forms the basis of a multi-million-dollar franchise with a global audience, shelves full of licensed merchandise, legions of cosplaying fans, and side-stories in multiple media.
But these are NOT the plots of movies coming to a theater near you (not at the time of this writing, anyway, although Halo: Nightfall is a TV series). These are the story lines, worlds, and characters of blockbuster video games: Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, and Halo. They are huge franchises born from video game stories. These games are interactive narratives that take place in very rich worlds populated with involving characters that inspire players to continue to interact and explore even after they’ve “beat the game.” Video game stories and characters—their intellectual property (or “IP”)—are the next great frontier of our collective pop culture imagination. Video games have finally come of age. Great stories are being told.
We’ve only mentioned three so far, but you can probably name many more: Call of Duty, Borderlands, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, and God of War.
Does that list seem too hardcore?
Let’s not forget the billions of dollars amassed by such family-friendly game franchises as Skylanders, Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, Professor Layton, Ratchet & Clank, and Clash of Clans. That list goes on and on as well.
Where did this all start? When did games become more than games and a place where great stories might be told? Just as the movies can be traced back to the success of a lovable tramp, we think the first “box-office star” … the Charlie Chaplin of the arcades … was a plumber who helped to launch a thousand quarters, quests, multiple sub-franchises and a billion dollar industry: MARIO!
W00T! A.K.A. WOW, LOOT!
Consumers in North America spent over $21 billion on games at retail last year,1 and that’s just on traditional “games-in-a-box” played with game consoles and personal computers. Worldwide and across all platforms, including mobile and tablet games, the number has been estimated at $93 billion.2 (We’re not great with big numbers, but here’s a comparison: for the same period, worldwide theatrical box office revenue was $35.9 billion.3) Even though thousands of “free to play” games are available nowadays, passionate players are still willing to spend big on games that engage them.
Furthermore, everyone plays video games