GDC 2012: Player Stories and Designer Stories
March 11, 2012 · Print This Article
Description: Whose story does a game tell? That of the player, the game character, or the designer? This lecture provides a comprehensive review of how games create narrative by structuring designer and player stories through level design.
Download the annotated .PDF slides (10mb).
Hi Matt,
I teach storytelling in videogames at the DePaul university in Chicago. We talked shortly about good books you could recommend.
I really enjoyed your talk at the GDC. I like how you reworked Janet Murray’s definition of “agency” to systemic, spatial and scheduling agency. Without knowing your definitions I taught my students a similar concept – but with your talk I am now able to give my lecture a better structure. Regarding books – I read Steve Ince’s “writing for video games”, Marianne Krawczyk and Jeannie Novak’s “Game Story & Charcter Development” Flinte Dille & John zuur Platten’s “The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design” but all three books didn’t really satisfy me. What could you recommend?
Cheers,
Mischa
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These talks have been fantastic to read and have been very informative towards the project I’m working on. I was wondering if you had any other suggested reading that supports these concepts of level design and character development. I’m currently in my graduate thesis work and I’m doing a lot of research on visual narrative in games and how it can support a cinematic style of game design.
The list I have at the end of the Identity Bubbles Slides is a good start, and all First/Second/Third Person book articles. I’m currently reading Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games, which discusses how games make arguments. Seems very relevant, as well.