Narrative or Gameplay?

 VS

                 For all those people who think that Game Design is all about story and narrative while creating characters and their personalities, then please hit yourself on the head and wake up. That is not it at all Game Designing is about. Narrative is an important part of being a Game Designer, but the most important part is the gameplay, specifically the mechanics of a game.

                This is a discussion that has been talked about for some time in the game industry. What is more important and what should we focus on more? Most people say that gameplay is a more important issue to deal with and I happen to agree. However, we shouldn’t ignore the aspects of narrative either. After all, every game tells a story like any other media and while it may not be like Hollywood or novel like, story telling is still something that should be looked up to more. But before you make any story really work, you need to focus on the Gameplay aspects of the game first. After all, unlike movies and books, games are an interactive experience. The player must be doing something to progress the game forward so it can continue to the end. Even games that focus heavily on narrative have some aspect of interaction. You may have a great story, but that won’t matter if the player doesn’t find the game interesting through its mechanics. 

                Take a game like Call of Duty. You run around shooting people. Core mechanic is that and it does it well. Aiming, reloading, picking up weapons, how far the bullets go, damage, the perks, attachments, and more all change the experience of the players actions and the experience they feel playing the game. Story wise it’s like a regular commando movie about stopping terrorism from destroying America, boring. But because of its gameplay, Call of Duty is the most popular first person shooter game around. Then you take a game like Heavy Rain where the only main mechanics are motion control, quick time events, and a few puzzles. Most of the game is story based, but it was a successful game because it was done so well. Visual Novels, which are like choose your own adventure games, only have a story and clicking a choice. That’s it. Yet thousands of these are all over Japan. Granted the majority of them having hentai scenes may play a part of it, but the fact that these games are so popular in Japan, as well with a certain audience in America, is amazing.

                  The reason why we need gameplay more than narrative is simple. If we have no interaction with the game…then it’s not a game. Any game you can think of features you doing something from moving a joy stick to clicking buttons in a certain order. Even board games have you doing stuff like moving pawns or rolling dice. It’s this interactivity that makes games enjoyable and special. Be it casting a spell or slicing a demon in half or ordering a squad of troops to take out an enemy tank; this is what we as Game Designers need to focus on the most in order to draw our audiences in.

                So while some games do focus more on story, it’s important to remember that gameplay is always needed and, in most cases, is the most important aspect. Without gameplay, the game doesn’t exist. That is not to say that gameplay and narrative can’t blend. Look at Deux Ex and Mass Effect. These games have blended both pretty well and are looked at by many Game Designers for inspiration to blend both of them. So while we still are trying to find the perfect way to combine both, we must remember that for our games we need to make our games interactive.

We are Gamers and  we are Legion!

Later