Interactive Storytelling for Video Games

by Josiah Lebowitz, Chris Klug

What really makes a video game story interactive?
What's the best way to create an interactive story?
How much control should players be given?
Do they really want that control in the first place?
Do they even know what they want-or are their stated desires at odds with the unconscious preferences?

All of these questions and more are examined in this definitive book on interactive storytelling for video games. You'll get detailed descriptions of all major types of interactive stories, case studies of popular games (including Bioshock, Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and Metal Gear Solid), and how players interact with them, and an in-depth analysis of the results of a national survey on player storytelling preferences in games. You'll get the expert advice you need to generate compelling and original game concepts and narratives.With Interactive Storytelling for Video Games, you'

Genres: Game Design, Nonfiction, Games, Writing

332 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

Reviews

[John Chronakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is fine as an introductory analysis into the means and craft of stories in video games. There is some basic explanation of the evolution of the techniques, as video game technologies themselves evolved over time. The meat of the book is a breakdown of storytelling drives into several categories, each one holding its own position regarding the degrees of player interactivity, and how that can have an impact (or not) on the story outcome itself. There are many examples of video games, each one being given several paragraphs of analysis and highlights of its story and setting. That's a great way to underline the importance of the point being discussed; congratulations! At the very end there's even a pie chart of questionnaire results, clearly showing how the player audience are satisfied with, and ready to pay for, storytelling techniques in video gaming.

It's a great book, particularly for people trying to get into video game production and content creation, or even as reviewers. For the more academically inclined, I wish there was some more analysis or insight regarding how each storytelling technique interacts with actual psychological and neurological factors inside the human mind. That would certainly enhance the secondary point being discussed in the book, regarding how video game is faring and is going to evolve as a fine art of its own.

[Alper Yılmaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris Klug's first-hand insights and considerations are the main highlight of this book, and are a worthwhile read every time.

Maybe it has something to do with how old the book is, but the authors' tastes in games stands out as a real issue. They keep propping up mediocre and underwhelming games as case studies, or fail to address deeper-set issues with many of the games they present, resulting in the impression that they honestly believe these heavily flawed games are in fact perfectly executed.

I'm also not sold on the efficacy of the book's taxonomy of story structures, as it fails to account for edge cases (many such cases aren't even brought up in the book) and gets less and less applicable the more it progresses along the interactivity spectrum.

This book is a valiant attempt at an interactive storytelling handbook, but not much of a success in the end.

[Gaelan D'costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seems like it's a really good introductory book on writing in videogames. It's a survey of various aspects of interactive storytelling, and there are many case studies that will really help for people who have played (or will play) the specific videogames mentioned in seeing exactly what the author is talking about.

I'm impressed at the breadth of examples mentioned, ranging from computer games to console games and including games from both America and Japan (this is especially handy for game genres that are more prevalent in one region than the other.)

If one wanted to build a canon of videogame writing for whatever reason, this would provide a pretty good list based on the games I have played. The writing is clear and even for a non-academic like myself, I really liked how it broke down what storytelling entailed.

[E L K Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

It provided me with everything I was looking for and is written in a way that is easy to read. Would recommend for anyone ready to write a game story, you can always find something helpful that has not crossed your mind prior to reading.