Hello there, I’m currently working on a game where the main protagonist is a dog, however I’m a bit torn on how to tell the narrative. It’s based on a true story about a dog who survives growing up in a puppy mill and then has to survive in the wilderness for a few months. I could either have a narrator type deal, where his thoughts are the narration (like how Ann Martin does in the book "A Dog’s Life,) or I could rely solely on cinematics and clever direction to convey the mood of the scene (more like a “show don’t tell” approach.) So what do y’all think? What would you personally like better? And why? Or is there maybe a third option I hadn’t considered? Please let me know your thoughts.
I think it depends on how deep the story needs to be. You need to go over your concept to see if visual cues will be enough to make the average gamer understand what you are trying to tell them. How obvious do the cues need to be in order to get your point across, and do those cues interrupt (or hamper) gameplay in any way?
If the cues can be subtle enough but still tell the story in enough detail, then that’s the way to go. If those cues have the potential to not tell enough of the story, or could be interpreted incorrectly, some voice over may be necessary. That does not mean you need a constant narration, as an example you could use visual cues during gameplay and then have narration at the end of the level to summarize what occurred. That way you get the best of both worlds.
You know what comes to mind is the movie Wall-E by Pixar. Andrew Stanton directed it I think. Obviously you are dealing with dog(s), not robots. However in terms of telling a narrative, I’d say you might have some similarities on your hand. The robots merely squawked a word here and there and did not talk in full sentences. Granted, other characters did later on, but the main characters were driven through the narrative without talking. I’m assuming your dog won’t talk either. So in that sense you are faced with similar challenges. Even more I’d say.
Some things I learned from that movie that come to mind right away are:
- The animations basically revealed the emotional depth of the characters in any particular scene / moment. Consider how they positioned the shape of Wall-E’s eye throughout different scenes and in the movie in general. Also, when Wall-E was nervous he would often shuffles his fingers together between his two hands in combination with his tracks (legs) bending outward slightly.
- Andrew Stanton often used objects or points of interest in the movie to help drive the narrative. One example is the laser that appears near Wall-E. He sees it, and follows it with haste as it quickly slips away. That was a point of interest that drove the narrative in a certain “direction” (figuratively and literally). Also, he used a song from the movie “Hello Dolly”. You can almost say this is there theme song. In one scene early on in the narrative, Wall-E and Eve share a “moment” together in Wall-E’s truck when the song is playing. From that point on, when the song played, you unconsciously knew what emotions the directors were trying to imply through the scene. These emotions and intentions were all rooted to the song and that first scene mentioned earlier. So music itself can be a narrative tool. Of course, music is much harder for us indie developers to acquire unless you write your own or get rights.
So, you’re not making a narrative about robots…but what is the difference honestly? Dogs can’t speak, and have to rely on other means of engagement. By the way, dogs are ripe with emotional cues. I’m sure that is an obvious factor here. Perhaps you might find some other relative story telling concepts from this movie to help give you ideas. There is probably more to be said in terms of building a narrative from this movie, but that’s all I will say.
Oh, and one golden nugget that I’d like to throw in here now that we are talking about story telling is this; it’s far easier to develop your story if you start with the ending. That’s actually what Andrew Stanton said during the making of this movie. He started with the ending and built the story around it.
I thought of something else while I was away. The Tomb Raider series (New One) I thought did a fantastic job of narrating. To be more specific, they used series of old journals and manuscripts that Lara finds around the game world. Each journal was a piece of a sub narrative within the game. Revealing details about characters and plots as you went a long. You could also reread the journals at any point from the menu. Which I really enjoyed doing towards the end of the game where if you collected them all you could start piecing together the stories of each character.
Maybe you can do something similar…? I mean dogs can’t read so i dont know how that would make total sense. Than again, it’s your world in which to define the rules and boundaries. Hope that gives you some ideas.