Story-driven vs. Gameplay-driven

Metroidvanias are, and have always been, story-driven games: since the 80's classics like Metroid and Castlevania, to recent hits like Hollow Knight and Dead Cells. But what does it mean for a game to be story-driven. In my view, games are composed of two major elements: the gameplay, related to actually playing the game, and story, which is all about narrating past or present (and perhaps future) events to the player. Being story-driven or gameplay-driven relates to which of the two is more important for the game. For example, think of Minecraft (the example for everything it seems): while you might argue that there's some lore sprinkled around, it is clear that game mechanics such as mining and crafting are much more important to the game. This makes it a gameplay-driven game. Now, think of Hollow Knight: yes, there are bosses to fight, parkour challenges and whatnot, but at the end of the day, you're playing it to unravel its mysteries and stories.

What is a story?

I believe a story isn't one thing, but instead a collection of things. Think of your favourite book (or movie if you must). I'm sure you'll be able to identify some of these elements:

• an overarching plot (what is the driving force behind the unrolling of events?)
• character evolution (how did the story's events change the characters?)
• back-story (what did you find out about the characters' past?)
• world building (what did you learn about the world in which the action takes place?)

In my opinion, a good story is one which manages to combine all of these in just the right proportions. Each of these parts is a hard task in of itself, and combining them more is more than just putting them together.

How does story fit into a game?

More often than not, you can just 'put' story into a game, you have to blend it in. Firstly, it is important to make some decisions, like:

• Is the game story or gameplay-driven?
• What story do you want to tell?
• What message do you want to pass to the players?

That last one is quite important. It is not necessary to pass a message, but is something you can do, if you think it'll enhance the story. And, assuming you get some popularity, it's a very powerful way to convey something. For example, you might use the story to spark a sense of injustice in the players, encouraging them to stand up against it. Or you might present them with morally grey situations, and make them reflect about something. It's a sea of possibilities. Of course, you might tell a story for the sake of telling a story, without any message. And that's fine too, and the story can be amazing nonetheless.

So let's take a look at how each of the parts mentioned previously can fit into a game.

World building

This one can be both the easiest and the hardest. Personally, I find world building an essential part of any story (not really any, but you get the point). In a gaming context, you'll probably see it being called 'lore'. Basically, it's all the game tells you about the past of its world. In my opinion, there are two kinds of world building in games (I didn't come up with this classification myself, but I'm not sure where I first heard it), and they are soft world building and hard world building. The key difference is that soft world building is hinted at, while hard world building is thrown at the player. For example, an old parchment reading as follows would be hard world building:

By reading this, the player easily learns that there was a war at the eastern border, at which the Black Battalion fought, and that it wasn't going very well to the nation of this letter's writer. Soft world building, on the other hand, is much more subtle. It's what the game tells the player through non-textual elements, like the architecture and purpose of buildings, props in the level design, and even the connections between places. Soft world building, more than hard world building, can contribute to the immersion of the player, making it a great tool to have at your disposal.

Plot

The plot is the most important thing in a game's story. Without it, the story will seem incoherent and untied to the gameplay. Usually, it's also what defines the goal of the game, in some way or another. However, just because it's the most important, it doesn't mean it's what you should focus the most on, for three reasons. Firstly, it won't make a good story just by itself. In other words, without the other elements, plot is nothing. Secondly, game plot is usually simple, and for good reasons. Imagine this situation: you hear in a tavern that a big bad guy has been kidnapping people from town to practice dark magic, his only weakness being an amulet, guarded by ten giant beasts. You spend hours grinding upgrades and slaying beasts, but, at last, you have the amulet. You head straight to the big bad guy's not-so-secret lair only to learn from him that the kidnappings were the work of his brother, who put the blame onto him. "Wow!", you think, "What a great plot twist". He then goes on to tell you that to defeat his brother you'll need a special spell. That's when it clicks - that amulet you spent hours to attain is utterly useless. This is of course an exaggeration. but it does show that a simpler plot would have been better. So, when making the plot for a game, follow the KISS principle. That doesn't mean you should have a super simple plot, nor that it should be obvious to the player straight away, but that you should try to avoid over-complicating the plot. As a check, you can try stating your plot as a series of crucial events. If you think the series to be too long (how long is too long is a very subjective and precise decision, which you must make yourself), then you should consider simplifying.

Conclusion (kind of)

That was a lot to take in (or not if you're already a pro at this), and at first, I was going to talk about everything in just one post, but this one is already getting really long, given how information dense it is. So I'll split it up into two (maybe three) parts. One last tip I'd like to give you is take notes! You'll thank it later. Come back next time for some talk about characters, backstory and character evolution. By the way, I also want to mention that this site now has a dark-mode! Check out that new button in the top-right corner of the page. Until then, have a good time story-writing (or not, I won't force you) and goodbye!