What why and how of environmental storytelling

I continue exploring theory of good narrative design, and few days ago I’ve read ‘What happened here’ by Harvey Smith and Matthias Worch

It is originally a talk at GDC which I consumed it in form of slides, that explains ways to tell the interactive story using environment, and how to do it beautifully. I would explain environmental storytelling as spacial non-verbal and static communication - and I emphasize on static because it doesnt involve sounds, music, and other variables that work together in scene definition. It includes physical scene and action limits, communication points, player identity shapers and reinforcement and the narrative context.

First 2 concepts belong more to Mechanics and Dynamics if we look at it from the MDA framework perspective, so its understandable why authors arent focused much on them. Reinforcing players identity is where it becomes interesting, because here aestetics- who player is - directly influences mechanics - what player should be able and shouldnt be able to do, and this connection is bi-directional. In a game where player adopts the identity of an assasin, stealth behavior is both present and rewarding, whereas in exploration puzzle, it's unlikely having any meaning.

The main focus of a talk is however the narrative context, and that is exactly what it sounds - the enviromental presentation of everything surrounding the story - events that lead to story, the inhabitants and function of place, expectations and mood.

Idea of telling the story in narrative context is in not telling the story. Wait what, did we just find the Hemingway’s Iceberg here?

Indeed. Harvey and Matthias even emphasize that goal of environmental storytelling is to allow the player to connect the dots and interpret the meaning themselves. It integrates player’s perception and problem solving skills, that in its turn creates better involvement, and I would dare to add, probably immersion too. It is important remark that I loved in the follow-up, interpretation may not be identical to what game creators envisioned, and here again the iceberg comes to mind - its crucial to give enough context to direct, and little enough to trust in player’s interpretation. For important singular interpretations games have ‘Telegraphing’ design element that by environmental signs allows player to guess what is there to expect. We’ve all seen those blood trails or danger signs.

Why it works? The answer is also there, and it all boils down to human psychology. Shame to admit, before I focused on gaming from development point of view, despite being a gamer for many years, I never realized how much of psychology is in the foundation of every part of a game, and probably entertainment world in general.

Active interpretation creates better involvement, and its very understandable, in a good game it feels like I am as a player also participating in creating the meaning, and by doing so, increase the involvement. Besides that by limiting information, game designers allow player to create a bigger mental world - when our brain sees parts of something familiar and finishes the picture, we add to the game what actually doesnt exist, parts of our real world.

And in last part we go one layer below and discover that narrative context isnt only about expanding story by echoes and deepening the world, but also about helping with dynamic story making.

The echoes that are mentioned in the article, should be placed carefully, not overlap with active actions of player, and not to create unexpected behaviour.

Dynamic story artefacts are various: breakables that leave memory of the battle the user had here.. empty packaging after loot.. change in NPC behaviour or audial expressions that reflects player’s actions.. circular stories with places player can visit - all of these create player’s footprint in the world and add to immersion and believability of their actions.

Those design desicions are technically costly, and authors recognize it, but quoting Raphael Colantonio, stating that the design decision increases value of player by persisting their presence in the world, and also should be allocated resources to.

Yes, unfortunately even in magical world of trust in human context knowledge and unique identities, the resource allocation plays role, and its important to decide what footprints and empty boxes we want to leave. Im heading towards leaving some footprints in my next game to analyze.