Halo 4 - Inside the Gaming Studio: Lead Writer Chris Schlerf Talks Master Chief
How to Control Story Pace in an Interactive Medium
Pacing is one of the most critical components in terms of dramatic development, regardless of the medium. Each individuals play style can be widely divergent (as someone who has probably taken, shall we say, longer than necessary to finish certain games, I have a profound appreciate for this fact). Approaching a games narrative from a structural point of view, its helped me to look at the global pacing first before worrying about the creation or timing of individual moments (where youve got the least control, obviously). How are the major beats spaced out from one to another? Will there be sufficient time/opportunity between them for the story to evolve sufficiently? Are you looking at any dead zones, where nothing is moving forward for too long? From that, you get together with your team, and work towards increasing the granularity until (hopefully) youre able to address the individual story events discreetly and weigh their placement against encounters, mechanic introductions, etc. Anyone who works in games will tell you that the story is constantly changing, and that is especially true with regards to pace, all the way up until its going out the door. But if youve spent the time to keep your narrative spacing as tied to your structural foundation as possible, it will help to keep the overall momentum more stable than if you were constantly trying to compensate solely by tweaking the moments themselves.The Maturity of the Medium
Theater evolved slowly over thousands of years. Literature less so, and film is just a hundred or so years into its development. With video games, were arguably only in our third or fourth real decade. Its a bit like giving a teenager the keys to your new Ferrari. We have all this creative horsepower at our disposal, but that doesnt necessarily mean we always know how to use it with finesse or skill. But thats also how you learn you throw yourself in the deep end and figure it out as you go. So I dont think the speed with which the industry is maturing is necessarily detrimental; if anything, it may just make the ride a little bumpier with more scrutiny paid to our successes and failures at a time when were still figuring out who and what we are as storytellers. The greatest achievement an individual game can make at this point is to say they moved the ball down the field a little for the next group of folks. Also, for as quickly as weve grown, you still have to consider who are playing games today and what theyre playing. The barrier for entry to AAA story-based games is fairly high as much as my mother may be proud of her first born, theres just not much chance that Im going to walk in on her playing Halo 4 anytime soon. But at the same time, I constantly find her playing casual games. So we certainly have these avenues for storytelling across a variety of player types, platforms, etc., but were really just starting to scratch the surface of how we make game narrative as ubiquitous in peoples lives as with other mediums like film or TV.Studying Gaming Critically
Ive found the best critical approach is to play other games, frequently and deeply. In many ways, were just entering the Golden Age of Gaming; the semantics of the art form are still being generated, release by release. Our Ken Levines(Irrational Games) and Amy Hennigs(Naughty Dog) will be the DW Griffiths and Fritz Langs for the next generation of innovators. I also feel that we have a responsibility to look outside our own medium for instruction, and outside the typical genres which influence a lot of our creators. What can we learn about single-set presentation from theater? Is there a way to adapt the spontaneity and improvisational feel of some independent films into an interactive medium? Game criticism/analysis is a field that I think is going to just blow up in the coming years. We have a medium where were still in some ways discerning the differences between technique and style, and as we start to analyze not just why some of the things we do are successful but how different approaches can achieve those same results, well hopefully start to see the same types of academic and critical interest that other art forms enjoy.