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[THREAD] I'll gather thoughts around narrative design on this thread. Opinions are my own and I want you to know indie tabletop roleplaying games (the Forge) have had a huge impact on my practice.
First I'll double on my previous post : Putting a real-time navigation in your HUD makes your player focus on her destination instead of the journey. It also makes your environment art less valuable.
In France at least, we kinda struggle defining narrative design, sometimes considering it's neither scenario or dialog. However, narrative design might be best defined as "the craft of stories using any relevant tool." I coined the paraphrase "emotion alchemist" in this purpose.
Speaking of using relevant tools: empathy maps are a nice way to work on player experience. Every chapter / mission / space alters at least part of them, thus you can use it to test emotions.
For those interested, I'm preparing a document about Player-Character Empathy Maps. 
Narrative density (or the stories/game space ratio) is a nice way of telling things to your player. On an easy level : more stories = lively environment, think of a city in Skyrim. But Journey goes further by designing in contrast : environment is scarce to foster player-stories.
Even though I'm casually complaining about Aristotle > Propp > Campbell > Vogler's impact on video games narratives, I know these theories don't come from nowhere. If the first act is often conveyed by tutorials, the second is built through gameplay. 1/
And that leaves little to no room for the third act, except a ridiculous boss fight, a final cutscene and credit rolls.
Good narrative design should empower the player by giving him the actual 'Way back home' during which her favourite characters would be there for her. 2/
Good narrative design should empower the player by giving him the actual 'Way back home' during which her favourite characters would be there for her. 2/
Greeting her, thanking her for what she just made when no one else did. Even a final gratification in the form of a friendship / love interest reward would be great. Weren't you frustrated when you beat the Indigo League and just woke up in your gorram bed ? 3/
Today's rule of thumb : ALWAYS give a name to NPCs. Whether you're playing tabletop or on devices, naming participates in empathy, as not giving a name to somebody deprives them of their essence / humanity.
1) I am currently going through @6EyesStudioLLC 's Fell Seal. While they follow this "rule" to some extent ( congrats :) ), the game Injury systems creates the need for new recruits.
Those don't have any skills and, more often than not, will only be there for a battle or two.
Those don't have any skills and, more often than not, will only be there for a battle or two.
2) The battles get harder, when those new recruits are part of your team, because of this. This overall system makes battles last longer, as you don't want to have a character injured to prevent playing with such reliabilities.
3) Furthermore, benched characters earn a lot less AP than played ones, pushing the gap even further.
Doing so makes them disposable resources for the main cast, which gain special classes as the game goes on, to push further.
Doing so makes them disposable resources for the main cast, which gain special classes as the game goes on, to push further.
4) And at the same time, makes you want to keep your main cast alive at all cost.
I don't know to what extent this have been though of. But Fell Seal is among my favourite games this year and I can't put the joypad down.
I don't know to what extent this have been though of. But Fell Seal is among my favourite games this year and I can't put the joypad down.
5) Thanks @6EyesStudioLLC for filling my FFTA's nostalgia void. <3
