“What Happened Here?” – Environmental Storytelling

After a two-year hiatus, I’m returning as a speaker to GDC 2010 – not with one, but two sessions! The first session is game design lecture on environmental storytelling that I will be giving together with Harvey Smith. I’m very excited for this talk, I feel that we assembled a very comprehensive and thought-provoking dissertation on this topic. Below is the official session description from the GDC webpage. I’ll post more information on time and date as it becomes available. Hope to see you in San Francisco!

What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling
Speaker: Harvey Smith (Game Director, Arkane Studios), Matthias Worch (Senior Level Designer, Visceral Games)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Game Design
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: All

Session Description
This lecture examines the game environment as a narrative device, with a focus on further involving the player in interpreting (or pulling) information, in opposition to traditional fictional exposition. We provide an analysis of how and why some games in particular create higher levels of immersion and consistency, and we propose ways in which dynamic game systems can be used to expand upon these techniques. The lecture presents the techniques for environmental storytelling, the key to the creation of game spaces with an inherent sense of history; game spaces that invite the player’s mind to piece together implied events and to infer additional layers of depth and meaning. In addition to commonly-used environmental storytelling tools (such as props, scripted events, texturing, lighting and scene composition), we present ideas for using game systems to convey narrative through environmental reaction. Environmental storytelling engages the player as an active participant in narrative; game systems that reflect the player’s agency can do the same. The lecture will analyze existing cases and provide a framework for dynamic environmental storytelling in games.

Intended Audience
This session is aimed at creative directors, narrative designers, level designers and level artists who want to take the environmental storytelling of their games to the next level. A good understanding of the subject matter, and game environmentalal design in general, is a bonus.

Takeaway
Attendees leave with a clear understanding of traditional environmental storytelling techniques, the current state of the art, and ideas on how to expand these concepts to new proportions using systemic environmental storytelling approaches.