Storytelling in Video Games Essay

The above is an excerpt from Elegy for Hallownest, written by Monomon the Teacher. This cryptic poem is a lament for the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, and describes the birth and rise of the kingdom under the rule of its King. It may not surprise you that Hallownest does not exist, and neither does Monomon - or anything else the poem references - it's clearly a work of fiction. However, it is not related to a book, nor a film, but instead it was written for the sole purpose of being a player's first introduction to a video game: Hollow Knight. The vast majority of video games are a form of media quite distant from literature and art, however the lines are being blurred more than ever by indie game developers, with efforts and passion unmatched by anyone else. Video games constitute part of a new generation of artistic expression and storytelling, utilising techniques previously impossible to achieve due to the fundamental limitations of a static, non-interactive form of media.

With each new development in technology, each new form of media, comes a new era of storytelling and increasingly diverse ways of conveying information. Live television first brought us motion graphics, recorded video gave us video editing and camera movement, and video games now present us with interactivity - combining the best aspects of participatory theatre and film. Interactivity is a very effective technique at making the player feel immersed in the narrative - whether that's through inputs which directly decide the outcome of the story, or whether it's gameplay from the perspective of the protagonist which constructs a bond between the player and the character. If your actions have very real and direct consequences for the characters in the game, you are no longer merely a spectator. You are part of the story, and the emotion the game conveys is your emotion as well. I can think of no better example of this form of emotionally immersive storytelling than the challenging pixel-art precision platformer Celeste. The game tells the story of Madeline, a girl combatting mental health issues who is motivated to scale a mountain as a challenge to prove her own self-worth. The game is infamous for its difficulty and nigh-endless player skill cap, and this is a direct reflection of Madeline's experience. As with any art form, there is great finesse and detail involved in crafting a neat little bundle of expression to subtly deliver to as many players as possible, as losslessly as possible.

By the very nature of the medium, one of the most effective ways to communicate a certain feel to the player is one which the player will likely never notice. To effectively tell the story of Madeline, Extremely OK Games (the development team behind Celeste) were presented with a difficult challenge of their own to overcome. They needed to deliver a sufficiently steep difficulty gradient to the player while avoiding every game developer's worst enemy: Frustration. Ensuring that the player has to put effort into playing the game while not making the experience dull, repetitive or unfair - which will inevitably lead to frustration - is a delicate balancing act, however various developments and have been made to get this balance right. In this case, the trick up EXOK Games' digital sleeves was to subtly bias the game in the player's favour. Whether you pressed the jump key a fraction of a second too early, just barely clipped the corner of a platform, or touched the very edge of a hazard or enemy, the game pretends it didn't see any mistakes - and makes respective adjustments to hide these minute mishaps from the player. All these minute details add up, and help sell the idea to the player that it's never the game's fault when Madeline slips up and plunges off the edge of a platform - no, it's the player's fault. Though this may seem counterintuitive for reducing frustration at first, this acknowledgement of responsibility means the player feels they remain in full control of what happens, and therefore have what it takes to do it right the next time. This feeling of total control is largely unique to video games - the best you can accomplish with a film is helplessly shouting at a screen, which is so carelessly indifferent to your futile calls to the protagonist to "not open that basement door".

However, sometimes that's exactly how a game developer may intend for a player to feel. What about when you don't want the player to feel in control? What if you want them to feel helpless, struggling, their efforts rendered useless and insignificant? There are use cases for that as well, most commonly of all in the horror genre - but Celeste demonstrates an excellent and unique example of this as well. A key scene in the game involves Madeline experiencing a panic attack when a gondola she was riding stalls in mid-air. During this intense scene, there is what seems an agonisingly long period of time where she describes her terrified state of hardly being able to breathe, depicting an experience which undoubtedly many of the game's players will be able to relate to. You, as the player, are completely powerless. You are unable to help the situation in any way, with no influence other than the single button-press to advance the dialogue, a metaphor for the intense feeling of powerlessness overtaking Madeline. However, when a friendly companion in the gondola teaches Madeline a technique to help calm herself down, the scene fades into the background and the player is presented with a solitary golden feather floating on the screen. As she tries hard to follow the instructions to imagine a feather in front of her, floating up and down in the air as she breathes in and out, the player is invited to do the same. Control over the situation gradually creeps back at many levels - whether it's Madeline steadying her breathing and clearing her mind, the player slowly pressing and releasing the spacebar to keep the feather afloat, or the gondola starting up again with a sudden jolt. By toying with the idea of granting and relinquishing control, the game has interactively taught the player a genuine meditation technique for aiding with mental health in an engrossing manner. That, in itself, is something I have yet to see accomplished in any other medium.The above is an excerpt from Elegy for Hallownest, written by Monomon the Teacher. This cryptic poem is a lament for the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, and describes the birth and rise of the kingdom under the rule of its King. It may not surprise you that Hallownest does not exist, and neither does Monomon - or anything else the poem references - it's clearly a work of fiction. However, it is not related to a book, nor a film, but instead it was written for the sole purpose of being a player's first introduction to a video game: Hollow Knight. The vast majority of video games are a form of media quite distant from literature and art, however the lines are being blurred more than ever by indie game developers, with efforts and passion unmatched by anyone else. Video games constitute part of a new generation of artistic expression and storytelling, utilising techniques previously impossible to achieve due to the fundamental limitations of a static, non-interactive form of media.

With each new development in technology, each new form of media, comes a new era of storytelling and increasingly diverse ways of conveying information. Live television first brought us motion graphics, recorded video gave us video editing and camera movement, and video games now present us with interactivity - combining the best aspects of participatory theatre and film. Interactivity is a very effective technique at making the player feel immersed in the narrative - whether that's through inputs which directly decide the outcome of the story, or whether it's gameplay from the perspective of the protagonist which constructs a bond between the player and the character. If your actions have very real and direct consequences for the characters in the game, you are no longer merely a spectator. You are part of the story, and the emotion the game conveys is your emotion as well. I can think of no better example of this form of emotionally immersive storytelling than the challenging pixel-art precision platformer Celeste. The game tells the story of Madeline, a girl combatting mental health issues who is motivated to scale a mountain as a challenge to prove her own self-worth. The game is infamous for its difficulty and nigh-endless player skill cap, and this is a direct reflection of Madeline's experience. As with any art form, there is great finesse and detail involved in crafting a neat little bundle of expression to subtly deliver to as many players as possible, as losslessly as possible.

By the very nature of the medium, one of the most effective ways to communicate a certain feel to the player is one which the player will likely never notice. To effectively tell the story of Madeline, Extremely OK Games (the development team behind Celeste) were presented with a difficult challenge of their own to overcome. They needed to deliver a sufficiently steep difficulty gradient to the player while avoiding every game developer's worst enemy: Frustration. Ensuring that the player has to put effort into playing the game while not making the experience dull, repetitive or unfair - which will inevitably lead to frustration - is a delicate balancing act, however various developments and have been made to get this balance right. In this case, the trick up EXOK Games' digital sleeves was to subtly bias the game in the player's favour. Whether you pressed the jump key a fraction of a second too early, just barely clipped the corner of a platform, or touched the very edge of a hazard or enemy, the game pretends it didn't see any mistakes - and makes respective adjustments to hide these minute mishaps from the player. All these minute details add up, and help sell the idea to the player that it's never the game's fault when Madeline slips up and plunges off the edge of a platform - no, it's the player's fault. Though this may seem counterintuitive for reducing frustration at first, this acknowledgement of responsibility means the player feels they remain in full control of what happens, and therefore have what it takes to do it right the next time. This feeling of total control is largely unique to video games - the best you can accomplish with a film is helplessly shouting at a screen, which is so carelessly indifferent to your futile calls to the protagonist to "not open that basement door".

However, sometimes that's exactly how a game developer may intend for a player to feel. What about when you don't want the player to feel in control? What if you want them to feel helpless, struggling, their efforts rendered useless and insignificant? There are use cases for that as well, most commonly of all in the horror genre - but Celeste demonstrates an excellent and unique example of this as well. A key scene in the game involves Madeline experiencing a panic attack when a gondola she was riding stalls in mid-air. During this intense scene, there is what seems an agonisingly long period of time where she describes her terrified state of hardly being able to breathe, depicting an experience which undoubtedly many of the game's players will be able to relate to. You, as the player, are completely powerless. You are unable to help the situation in any way, with no influence other than the single button-press to advance the dialogue, a metaphor for the intense feeling of powerlessness overtaking Madeline. However, when a friendly companion in the gondola teaches Madeline a technique to help calm herself down, the scene fades into the background and the player is presented with a solitary golden feather floating on the screen. As she tries hard to follow the instructions to imagine a feather in front of her, floating up and down in the air as she breathes in and out, the player is invited to do the same. Control over the situation gradually creeps back at many levels - whether it's Madeline steadying her breathing and clearing her mind, the player slowly pressing and releasing the spacebar to keep the feather afloat, or the gondola starting up again with a sudden jolt. By toying with the idea of granting and relinquishing control, the game has interactively taught the player a genuine meditation technique for aiding with mental health in an engrossing manner. That, in itself, is something I have yet to see accomplished in any other medium.

What's more, games are hardly limited to just what the eyes can experience - music and sound design is just as critical a part, and very thoroughly explores the interactive nature of games as well.

Talk about dynamic/interactive music composition, sound effects / foley, compare with film music

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