Game Story Development Task 1

Stories have been around for thousands and thousands of years. Many different ways of telling these stories have evolved as language has changed its course. Cave paintings, being one of the earliest ways of storytelling, was an important way of communication for the cave men and women of the pre-historic. Language was not developed at this time and people needed to communicate, express themselves and warn their fellow tribe of any dangers, e.g. a fearsome animal is circulating their home/tribal village, which needs to be hunted. They were also drawn to show their way of life, that they had existed once and this was their territory that we are on. As vocal language was undeveloped, these paintings were important as they were instructions on how to overcome certain circumstances, good or bad, install morals within the people following the stories, letting them interpret the way they think and pass the story on to other people who will then add finer detail to what they have seen/heard as language evolved more and more. On the right is a prime example of a famous cave painting. In this particular mural, we first see a battle of male dominance to win the female mate who is standing beside, witnessing what is unfolding before her. As women were saw as goddess type figures, men would compete for their affection by showing how masculine they can be. We then see people holding shields behind animals to represent their culture, showing what their tribe does to survive and eat, such as hunting down the animals shown and killing animals which are of danger to them. As the narrative was communicated entirely through images, there was a limit to the detail, which could be expressed through this form of storytelling. Characters could not be named and although the images were clear enough, interpretation of these stories could be misconstrued because language did not exist and there was no one to tell you whether what you believed was right or wrong. 

As soon as language began to develop and these stories were found by more evolutionary fit beings, finer detail was added to these images as they were able to express what they think is happening vocally, telling their interpretation of the story. This is otherwise known as an Oral Tradition. Oral Traditions were stories told through a type of language - fables being one of widely known forms, were a story, which had a moral at the end of it. This would teach the young minority how they should act and teaching them the difference between right and wrong. An example of a fable is The Tortoise and The Hare. In this story, the hare believes he is superior to the tortoise because of his speed and guarantees the tortoise he is a fool to believe he could win because of how slow he is. The hare as promised speeds off out of sight and looks back to see that he can no longer see the tortoise either. He has so much confidence in himself that he decides to take a nap. But as time goes on, the tortoise passes by the hare that is in a deep sleep, and crosses the finish line. The moral to this story is 'Slow and steady wins the race', which means as long as you do not give up, no matter your inabilities, you will be able to overcome or finish anything you set out to do, regardless of whether someone thinks they can do better than you because they have something to help them through. Other Oral Traditions are legends and myths. A legend is usually a story told about a particular hero or someone who has done something brave in the past, where as a myth is a fictional story, which originates from the Greeks, usually involving Gods and Goddesses worshipped by them. 

The next stage of storytelling was theatre. This was done by adding theatrical elements to normal situations (stories) by actors and actresses wearing costumes and acting out stories previously written, which could have been developed from fables, myths or legends. 

We then moved onto using text to tell each other stories. This started from the Ancient Egyptians, who used hieroglyphs (words and letters), which evolved into the language we read and write in on a daily basis. Being able to write helped many different things – such as educating, as books could be read by people to tell them about important world events and stories. This also made reading a story feel more personal to the reader as they felt like the text was being written to them. When being told a story through speech, the listener usually becomes bored and switches off, losing track of the story. Text gave the reader an option to come back to a story when they chose to, giving them freedom of choice. 

Text then developed into film, then shortly after; television. Stories which could be read through text and interpreted through images had now become even clearer to the reader, as they could see and hear exactly what it is happening on screen. This made it easier for the audience to understand what was happening in the story as it was being explained clearly. Different characters would be seen in these two forms of stories, shown by the use of costume, different locations, props and scenery which were relevant to the genre and narrative of the story.

In 2013, we are now lucky enough to have many different mediums of storytelling. Films, programs, books and scripts are just a few of the ways we tell stories today. Another exciting and popular way stories are told is through gaming. The game console, which first hit the scene by few different companies in the late 1960s to early 70s, created another way for people to be entertained by a storyline they could control themselves. There are many genres of game on the market and they all usually have an ultimate purpose - to resolve, correct or finish a story.

Taking into account games specified as Shoot em' up, two examples would be 007 Legends (based of the James Bond franchise) and Army Of Two: The Devil's Cartel, which is the third game in the AOT series. Both of these games focus mainly on shooting and ultimately destroying the antagonist(s) within the game, as the player themselves are the protagonist. The usual plot for this genre of game is as follows: the character is presented with a mission in a cut scene at the beginning of the game (before game play is in action), which usually informs the player of trouble they need to resolve. Once game play is active, the character is usually shooting in first person, meaning only the gun and arms of the character can be seen. This gives the player a more personal reality and immerses them into the game as if it was real. The player would then be expected to find and kill the people in question, which would usually then take the gamer onto the next level of the game, depending on how many levels the game has set. Usually, some sort of reward scheme is in order, such as trophies or medals that can be won by completing compulsory or even extra credit tasks throughout the game. This reassures the player that they are doing well and gives them the motivation to play on and win more.

Below is the walk through (cut scene) of 007 Legends. This is an example of how

The game represents itself before gameplay is in action.

Another popular game genre entirely different to Shoot em' up games are in the Virtual Life genre. One of the most popular virtual life games has to be The Sims series. The idea of being able to control your own person(s), make them look how you want, live where and how you want them to or even end their lives when the player chooses to do so! Similarly to The Sims, Nintendogs focuses on keeping a virtual dog a live. These two games generally work in very similar ways; by creating a character (animal or human) of your choice, feed them, wash them and keep them a live and happy, just like real life. Rewards are given in both games if player manages to fulfill life wishes, aspirations or to just create a happy and healthy life for the character. Unlike other genres of games, how the story ends for you character(s) is entirely up to you, as it is open ended and you can come back to it or re play it anytime you like. This differs from the Shoot em' up genre as the games endings are usually set and once completed you have no choice but to play over again, which would may bore the player. This could explain why Virtual Life games have become increasingly popular over the years and have failed to bore fans of both of the games mentioned.

Below is the walk through (cut scene) of 007 Legends. This is an example of how

the game represents itself before gameplay is in action:

Here is a screenshot taken from gameplay in Sims 3. Below you can see the characters interacting with each other and see what character is being directed to say what by the Acquaintance bubble in the corner: