“People can’t just give up a story… you can’t just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in.”

- Alan Lomax, Ishmael

While I am not a game designer by trade, I have worked on many different types of games and am intensely interested in the ideas of narrative and storytelling within gaming.  Most of the developers that I have worked for have really wanted their players to become immersed in the atmosphere and continue living within the framework of the game, fostering a strong sense of connection and (to some degree) escapism.

I’m really interested in what enables that escapism and what allows some games to achieve that and others to fail in its pursuit.  One idea that I’d like to explore in this series of articles is my own belief that it is character and/or role that allow us to suspend our own life and become immersed in another.  In a more complicated explanation, we can also escape into a story with the interaction between great characters, such as RPGs or RTS-style games (or, to be fair, other styles too).

Any great story is made up of great characters – let’s explore this.

Part 1 of this series focuses on individual characters and how we engage in the game through their eyes, arguing that escapism is largely due to the contextual relationship between the player, the character and the environment.

Individual Characters in Film and Literature

Sometimes, it is a single, individual character that captures our attention and steals the stage from all others.  One book that deals greatly with this ideal (and quite well, I may add) is the “Fictional 100” by Lucy Pollard-Gott, Ph.D, which lists the 100 most influential, colourful, historical, well-known and/or those with the greatest impact on the history of literature.  There are heroes, villains, side-characters, lovers, fighters… you name it.  The official website for the book is http://www.fictional100.com/ and I recommend checking it out… (though, in fairness, I am also a huge sucker for Top-Anything lists, so take it with a grain of salt!)

Some such characters include the pensive, maniacal Hamlet, the clever Sherlock Holmes or the crafty Odysseus – the story hovers around characters.  We don’t even have to limit this to literature: We can explore Heath Ledger’s legendary portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, Howard Beale (acted by Peter Finch) in 1976’s Network or any of the James Bonds – and this is just film alone! What happens when we apply this concept to gaming…?

Individual Characters in Video Games

Not every video game has a central character: Tetris, Bejeweled, Sim City… but outside of some of casual games and puzzle games, almost every game EVER has some degree of centralized character.  IGN’s ” Top 100 Games of All-Time” (a pretty serious title) is one juggernaut of a list, and about 95%-of-games or over have central characters.

Outside of being vehicles of storytelling, central characters are also an excellent means of branding for the company: Mario, Sonic, Samus Aran, Pikachu, Kratos, Cloud, Rayman, Luke Skywalker, an enormous MechWarrior, Solid Snake, Bionic Commando, Little Mac, Manny Calavera, Tony Hawk, Leon Kennedy, Master Chief, Pac-Man, Simon Belmont, Alucard, Link… you see where I’m going with this

The above characters are a BRILLIANT form of marketing because playing the games enables us to assume the role of the character.  This sounds obvious, but it’s an absolutely crucial point: I loved Mario, but when I was a kid, I enjoyed playing Mario with my friends… like, in real-life, not on the console.  I was always Toad, that was my thing.

But isn’t that how the whole thing works? By playing the game, you become the character.  This is different than film or literature, where one is observing the unraveling of the story via its setting and characters, but one actively furthers the story through their actions.

This is where I think that the immersion and escapism piece comes in: While Tetris is addictive, it’s only addictive if you’re playing to compete; if you’re playing to further a story, you need someone to be.  This is where the Ishmael quote comes in: “People can’t just give up a story… you can’t just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in.”

Sometimes we play video games for recreation, just to kill time… but for most gamers, I would argue against that.  I think that for more people who play games in a more serious way (which is a growing number), their goal is seeing the completion of the story, existing in the space/atmosphere, being engaged in the relationships of the characters and, of course, having fun.  By assuming the role of the protagonist, the player immediately has a context within the game, a foot in the door to the game’s universe and, perhaps most importantly, a job to do.  When you assume the role of Master Chief, you have a rank, a placement in the game and you can interact with the other allies/enemies in a meaningful, contextual way.  For instance, when the characters are speaking to you, they aren’t speaking to you; rather, they’re speaking to Master Chief, but Master Chief happens to be you.

Someone to be... like Samus?

Now, imagine that you weren’t Master Chief, how would that affect your job in the game? How would that affect your immersion in the title?

You could play the role of “The Stranger,” as in games like Myst or Shivers, where you just happen to be present at the game’s beginning.  If we were taking the Halo example further, you could be a Private or low-ranking soldier that exists in the context of the game’s world.  That would be okay, but it’s because you’re still assuming a character, it’s just that the character is you.

Let’s take this one step further: Assume that you are 2010, Earth-bound human, living in your apartment on 32nd Avenue (or wherever it is that you live) in your blue jeans and Led Zeppelin T-shirt, how would that affect your immersion in the game? Hard to say – you wouldn’t exist contextually in the world, at least at the beginning, but it would be the Alice in Wonderland syndrome, where you are an outsider, but having no choice except to exist in the game’s environment.

The more that I think about this, the more that I really believe that if a game has a story, the player has no choice but to be involved as a character.  BUT, this does present one problem: What if there is more than one character?

That is a question for Part 2, which will deal with Ensemble Casts and the interrelationship between the player, the game and the multiple characters between them.

Feel free to dialogue about this on the post, I’m always excited to hear the thoughts of others!

Kenley