Experimental narrative structures in games

A slightly more interesting (if only in theory) concept for an abstract perspective involves the reversal of time. When the player pushes forward on the analog stick, his game character walks backward. When the player presses a button to interact with an in-game object, the character “un-does” whatever was done to the object. When the character “fires” a gun, bullets are sucked back into it, and downed enemies stand up and run away from him.

The player must determine the means by which the character reached the end in order to determine how to undo all of his actions and find the beginning, and there is the added challenge of decoding the reversed story, as in the film Memento.

The reversal of time, while theoretically amusing, may translate into terrible gameplay - perfect balance between narrative structure and solid gameplay is difficult to achieve.Perhaps all of our hypothetical games would be awful,but they weremeant asextreme examples to illustrate points. Thehypothetical quality of our hypothetical gamesisn’t as important as the general idea we want to communicate, which is that perspective can be adjusted and shaped in a myriad of ways, and is far more complex than just the location of a virtual camera.

Without invalidating our argument completely, we must make one addendum: regardless of individual storytelling techniques used, the narrative art must be handled with finesse and care to be effective. Consider Assassin’s Creed – the game is told from the perspective of a man replaying “genetic memories.” The hierarchy is therefore: player > character > character’s memories. This could be considered an experimental point-of-view, but it isn’t effective because thegame feels contrived.

The brutish narrative style of the Halo series and the sentimental, archetypal elementsofFinal Fantasystories also exemplify this general reliance on solid gameplayover literary exploration. Whilecaptivating gameplay mechanics are essential to a good game,the increasingly sophisticated gaming audience will eventually reject purely archetypal storytelling as a way to suspend disbelief, andbecomehungry for more complex and compelling game narratives.