Thoughts on "Living Narratives" in Video Games

You may know by now that my background is in writing, and my path to video game design has not exactly been what you might call normal. I played video games as a kid, sure, but my whole life, I wanted to write books. My life has been a series of intersecting stories and characters both fictional and real, and I was intoxicated with the idea of creating my own stories, my own conflicts and characters and world. This fascination unsurprisingly carried over as my focus gradually shifted from writing to designing video games (I still write, by the way), and I find myself just beginning to figure out game design at a time which has been referenced by many as "the narrative moment" in video game history. Coincidence? I think not. Opportunity to do some really cool stuff with video games and narrative? Definitely.

The thing is, a lot of times, we are victims to our own beginnings. Maybe this is the narrative moment for video games, but so long as we hold to old ideas of storytelling, character, and conflict, we'll keep pumping out the same uninspired plots, the same hackneyed personae, the same lifeless simulacra that seem to dominate the game industry these days. If we are to access the full potential of video games, we have to complicate the narrative and take full advantage of the affordances of the medium. Well, so what does that really mean? Certainly, it means having good graphics and great sound and all that, but more so, at least for narrative games, it means non-linear narratives, complex characters, even more complex character interaction algorithms, and simulated intelligence. Obviously that's a lot to tackle, but my thought is that even if we don't figure it out all at once (or ever), we're a lot more likely to get a lot farther, a lot faster, if we start now and fail fast. We need writers in the game industry; we need game design concepts in the literary world. We need connection and collaboration and courage to keep trying, and I'm afraid nothing else will do.

Out of Khaios

I was thinking today, what if every twenty dollar bill that you found in that old pair of jeans was really put there by someone else, just to make you happy? I think I want to do that for my kids some day.

I've been thinking a bit about a novel premise that I've been mulling over for a year or so now, and I've decided it's time to quit sitting around thinking about what could happen and instead work to get something out, whatever the form. So, here we go.

[1st person] Not everyone can be a hero. What to do when you are too afraid to do the things that you know you should do?

[3rd person] Main character, Jonah, is drafted into the Salamander Legion, an elite military corps responsible for maintaining the security of the megalopolis Khaios, the only remaining city of the four ancient capitals. On a night raid of a nearby village--purported to be a safe haven for rebel Seekers, or users of ancient technology that has been denounced as heretical by Khaios's prelates--Jonah is tasked with razing a group of huts, and Mara, a young woman from the village, arrives just in time to see her home go up in flames as the soldiers fade into the darkness of the jungle all about them.

It's afternoon of the next day, and Jonah receives a court summons to stand trial before a military tribunal for the crimes he committed the previous evening. Jonah wants to think it all over and write everything down before worrying about the trial, but his mother, fearing for his life, hires men from the ciity's Outer Rim to smuggle Jonah out of the city by night. Three men arrive in dark clothes, their faces masked, and they set off into the darkness despite curfew enforcement. [Ronan and Simeon are among them: "Surely you can't have forgotten that dark night in Khaios just months ago." Simeon looks upon his face as if in recognition when they later meet outside Khaios]. They proceed through the Market District, which is abandoned except for scattered patrols of mercs, the city's hired peacekeeping force. They stumble into a guard, who sounds the alarm, and the mercs give chase through the market, weaving through the narrow rows and crashing past stalls that would be bustling early the next morning [Jonah later remembers this as he is chasing [Scout] through the market later on]. One of the smugglers is shot, but they keep going. Another falls to a concussion sphere and is left behind. Jonah and the two remaining smugglers reach the outer wall--the Founders' Wall--and as the taller of the two smugglers places his palm to the wall, one of the engraved Founders' marks erupts into blue-green light. "You use the [Onim]?" / "Well, you didn't think we were going to throw you over the Founders' Wall, did you?" The glyph shattered as the man's hand fell to his side once more, and the blue-green light flowed into the cracks on the wall, outlining the shape of a door on the white stone. . .