The rise of narrative design
MOVING away from the title “writer”, an increasing number of story-based game developers are hiring narrative designers who are responsible for justifying gameplay and forming narrative bridges between scenes, ultimately creating a storyline that ties the whole game together.
Narrative design aims to integrate interactive, immersive game storylines in well-rounded virtual worlds where subtle details such as colour choices and minor character interactions are just as important to the game as dialogue or scene setting.
In Malaysia and many other places, narrative design as a singular discipline is not too popular just yet. The focus is on game design as a whole to create marketdriven games that sell over a long period.
Thus, game development companies in these places hire game designers to double up as writers. The teams behind larger video games hire designers that specialise in different areas such as user interface, game mechanics and characters.
What, then, is the narrative designer’s role if game designers are supposed to already have it covered?
Narrative designers are to games what authors are to books. They work with the whole picture and have innate understanding of the entire video game.
Each game designer (in medium to large productions) works on one or two parts of the game, and the narrative designer brings these parts together, making sure that the story remains coherent and intact after programmers’ and testers’ input.
For instance, if you have to jump in a video game, it is probably because there is an obstacle in your way that is disguising the reveal of a story element. Narrative designers determine what type of obstacle to put in your path, how overcoming the obstacle triggers your discovery of the story, and why that action is important in the grand scheme of things.
When you graduate, it is unlikely that you will find an entry-level job listing for narrative designer because it is something you need experience to do.
If you are interested in writing for games, pay attention in your scriptwriting and level design classes so that you are equipped with skills that can help you specialise in narrative design later in your career.
Video games seem to be a natural next step from movies, with one important difference – interactivity. However, there is no telling the extent of possibilities in game storytelling. Some video games such as Alan Wake and Firewatch are designed to behave like controllable movies, which were the goal of many story-heavy game developers.
This is not the limit, however, and this area requires further exploration and deeper understanding so we may fully enjoy what video games have to offer.
Early first-person shooter games barely emphasised story. They provided players with a setting, a few different scenes and some lines to explain goals.
As they grew in popularity, games of this genre started incorporating complex plots and pressed players into making decisions that challenged their morals, ethics and even philosophy, such as the lengths they would go to save a loved one.
Even though the gaming scene in Malaysia is still rather green, several of our countrymen have made a name for themselves in overseas gaming communities. One such figure is Wan Hazmer Wan Abd Halim.
Wan Hazmer is a game developer who worked at Square Enix – a Japanese video game developer that has produced big names such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy – for seven years and is the person responsible for incorporating Malaysian elements such as roti canai, teh tarik and warung-style stalls in Final Fantasy XV.
He now heads local gaming studio Metronomik that aims to develop the Malaysian gaming climate. Wan Hazmer told a local daily newspaper earlier this year that he is in talks with a few universities to conduct workshops on creative thinking in gaming.
Another local wonder in the gaming industry is mobile horror game Sara Is Missing, an interface game with a multiple-choice, multiple-ending plot, which was awarded the titles of Best Upcoming Game and Jury’s Honorable Mention at the International Mobile Gaming Awards Southeast Asia 2016 just two weeks after its launch that year.
What Wan Hazmer and the developers of Sara Is Missing have in common are their knowledge of what the industry lacked and how they used it to their advantage.
This could be a career goal for you to work towards, because a growing industry brings with it many learning and diversification opportunities.
Take a leaf out of these pioneering developers’ books and realise the local gaming industry’s potential by contributing your skills and talent to it.
Who knows, a few years down the line, you could be the one who grew the field of narrative design in Malaysia.