Writing History Research

History of Writing
For this section of my research, I plan to look into various games from different times to see what the characters (and their development) and narratives structures are like and whether there has been a noticeable difference compared to the games of today.

Pong (1971/2)

Arcade game/home console game (Magnavox Odyssey).
Each player is represented in the game as a (ping pong) paddle.
Game incentive is winning against the opponent.
Narrative - Win against your opponent in the ping pong match.

Space Wars (1977)

Based on an even older game being Spacewars!(1962)
Arcade game / home console game (Vectrex).
Characters of the game represented by two different space ships.
Introduction of gameplay options.
Game incentive is winning against the opponent.
Narrative point - You could argue that the narrative is to not allow the enemy to destroy your spaceship, otherwise you will die within the game (therefore losing). Though there isn't really a set narrative, which therefore leaves the gameplay up to the players imagination.

Donkey Kong (1981)

Arcade game / home console game (Game & Watch / Atari).
Included three major characters (Mario/Player, Donkey Kong/Antagonist, Pauline/Damsel in distress), as well as minor enemies.
Game took place over the course of 4 different levels / stages.
Game incentive being to get the highest possible score, while clearing all of the levels / stages.
Narrative point - Love interest, Pauline, of player character, Mario, has been kidnapped by the antagonist, Donkey Kong. Antagonist attacks Hero with barrel to stop his attempt at saving damsel.

Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

Home console (Sega Genesis).
Included a number of different stages, each with 1-2 levels (6 different stages with 2 levels), with the additional special stages to obtain the 'chaos emeralds'.
Game incentive is getting a high score and getting the good ending of the game after beating the final boss (as there are different endings).
Linear Narrative as the game starts with the problem arising, with the player / protagonist travelling through the stages to stop the antagonists evil plans.
However it could be argued that that game also makes use of an open ended narrative, due to the game having two different endings.

Narrative point - The game follows the player character, Sonic, as he travels throughout the world (the different stages) in an attempt to stop the antagonist, Dr. Robotnik (Dr. Eggman) from stealing the chaos emeralds and using their power with evil intent. This is shown during the story as the player frees the animals (when defeating the enemies / opening the cases), and collects the emeralds themselves.
The emeralds also have a link with how the game ends.
Additionally, this narrative is explained to the player solely by gameplay and the few cut scenes, since there's no text within the game that explains this plot to the player.
Two different game endings. If player collects all chaos emeralds, a little cut scene is played where Sonic and all the animals that Sonic saved are back in the Green Hill Zone. If the player fails to collect all of the emeralds, the game ends the with the antagonist juggling the remaining emeralds and laughing at the player.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1991)

Longer and much deeper story / narrative, and gameplay time.
The game world is introduced via character dialogue. This dialogue is followed by a cut scene that introduces the protagonist, the antagonist, and some other important characters (Navi, Deku Tree, Zelda, Sheik).
The conflict of the story in introduced in a conversation between the Deku Tree and Navi.

Visible story (simplified) - The game follows a young boy, the protagonist, named Link (the player) as he learns that it is his quest to stop the king of the Gerudo, Ganondorf (the antagonist), from obtaining a sacred relic known as the triforce. To do this Link is required to travel back and forth through time, as to defeat Ganondorf he needs to power of the master sword, but only the grown up Link seven years from when the story starts is capable of wielding the sword. Upon travelling forward in time, Link must find and save the seven sages, and acquire their help to infiltrate Ganondorfs castle, and then defeat him. Once Ganon is defeated Link is sent back to his time, retaining his knowledge of the impending doom that Hyrule will face. The young princess Zelda is informed of this, allowing the crisis to be averted, and allowing Hyrule to be saved.
Complex narrative
Non Linear narrative - As the game starts with Link having a nightmare. This nightmare is of an event that occurs not too far into the game.
Comparable to the heroes journey narrative theory
Character development is visible. You could argue that the protagonist develops due to the fact that he's give such an important task, but also because it is apparent that throughout the game that Link is becoming much stronger. This links with the players progress throughout the game since the further into the story the player gets, the more items and skill they acquire. This progression of gameplay reflects Links progression as a character.

Pokémon Black/White (2010)

Begins the game with a cut scene of the player characters home town / the starting town of the game. This also goes on to introduce the protagonists friends / rivals.
Dialogue heavily used throughout the game, with every character that can be interacted with talking to the player, or

doing a particular action. Although just like all the Pokémon games, the player character never speaks (Though it could be argued they do since sometimes the player is given options to reply to certain characters, but this has no effect on the story whatsoever).

Continues with the trend of the previous Pokémon game in following a linear narrative (this trend still being visible in the current games).
Visible story (Simplified) - The game, like almost all of the Pokémon games, focuses on the player travelling around the region battling the 8 gym leaders to earn their respective gym badges. Upon collecting all of the 8 badges, the next challenge is to battle the Elite Four, to then earn the right to battle to strongest trainer of the region, the Champion (Lance).
Most Pokémon games introduce a new villainous team. This games new team is Team Plasma. This team is lead by a character name N, who states his intentions are to become idolised as a hero, and spread the word that Pokémon should be released from their trainers as they should be used as tools.These intentions don't seem as bad/evil as other villainous team leaders. However upon defeating N, we find that he was being used by the true leader of Team Plasma, Ghetsis, who aimed to be the last person to have Pokémon, which would allow assert his power over the world.

Character development - Throughout the game it could be argued that the player character develops. This development is shown by the reflection of the players progression throughout the game, as the more the player progresses through the game, the stronger their team get (Pokémon levels increase and Pokémon evolve).
Additionally other characters, such as the protagonists rivals, also have this development, as well as personality development. An example of this being N, who comes to realise his wrong doings throughout the story, and also has a change in his own views. (In the squeals of these games (Black 2/White 2) the rivals of this game appear, but have new roles. Cheren appearing as a new gym leader, and Bianca appearing as the professors assistant.)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

Introductory cut scene - Protagonist waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection. This hints to a rather major plot point of the game (Links death 100 years prior), but also begins the story and narrative of the game.

Dialogue plays a large part in the games story, with major plot points being shown and described by other characters.
Non-linear since the player can fight the final boss after completing the 'tutorial' section of the game (more specifically once the player obtains the glider). Although this makes the final fight extremely difficult, but means that almost all of the games story, and interaction with the different characters / areas is skipped.
Open world and open ended narrative - With the exception of having to complete the shrines on the Great Plateau at the beginning of the game, what the player does and when is entirely up to the individual player. Each time I have played the game, I took a different route the the previous time playing the game.This is mainly due the the fact that the bosses of the game and the story segments that pair with them don't need to be viewed by the player in a particular order. Additionally, there are a number of 'memories' that can be found throughout the world. If all of them are found and recollected, the player will be rewarded with the games 'true' ending (as some would call it).This shows longer cut scene, as well as an additional cut scene, where the spirits of the king and the champions can finally rest, and then where Link and Zelda are both together disguising about restoring Hyrule.
Going back to the main bosses of the game, they can be fought in any particular order, since they have no relation, in terms of story, that require the player to complete another before moving on to the next boss.
(e.g. boss 2 could be encountered before boss 1 because it has it's own section of story for it).
Heroes Journey - Unlike the last games, this isn't as apparent, as the game begins after Link died and spend the last 100 year resurrecting / healing. Additionally, since the story can be skipped by the player, and the final boss can the first major boss to be encountered if the player wishes to do this, this narrative doesn't really apply to the story. Although if the story is completely carried out, there are signs of this narrative structure within various aspects of the game.
Character development - Throughout the game Link (the player character) must face what he once fell to, 100 years prior to the game taking place. Additionally, the story played by the character in the game is the story of how Link successfully manages to defeat Calamity Ganon (if the player beats the final boss).Additionally Links development can also be shown once the player tries to obtain the Master Sword. In the game it is stated that the sword can only be obtained if Link is worthy enough, and that Link will die if he isn't (which will happen if the player doesn't have enough hearts). In reality, we find out that this links to the number of hearts we have obtained while playing (total number of hearts). I still count this as development, as it shows that by the players progression, Link has become worthy enough to wield one of the most iconic weapons all of the heroes of Hyrule (Well, all the Links) have wielded.

How Do The Narratives and Character Vary between games?

The first video games had a clear difference to the games of today's age. Early games, the arcade original games such as Pong and Space Wars, lacked narrative and characters.
However, this isn't to say that all arcade games didn't have characters or narratives. Games such as Donkey Kong included characters and a noticeable narrative. Although these character and narrative were extremely basic. However, both of these aspects had a noticeable improvement throughout the next 10 years.

10 years after Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog released on the Sega Genesis. This game made use of various aspects that the arcade games didn't include.
This game made use of a linear narrative, with hints of open ended branching narrative. This is because the game implemented the feature of having more than one ending.
Although there were only two different endings, this still changed how the game would end for different players.
Additionally there was actually a plot to the game. Much like Donkey Kong, the story was shown to the player rather than told. As a player, we could tell that the man encasing cute animals into violent machines, and trying to kill you, probably isn't a good guy, and therefore that's who the player has to beat throughout the story.

Later in the 20th century there was another noticeable improvement in games. In 1998 the latest Legend of Zelda game (at the time), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, was released to the world. This game, to this day, still remains one of my favorite games due the the story and characters that were included.
The game made use of a reasonably long and complex story with a number of characters that were important to the story. Additionally these characters, and the many other NPC characters of the game had dialogue. The game was also somewhat open world, and allowed the player to do various tasks in the order they wanted (to an extent), without this affecting the story. Additionally, the story of this one game created a branching timeline for the other games.

Then came the games of the 21st century. However, just because time was moving on and technology was advancing, it didn't mean that all of the games had a complete change.
In 2010, Pokémon Black and Pokémon White were released, being the 5th generation of Pokémon games and the 20th and 21st main series games to be released.
However these games still had the same narrative structure as the previous games, being linear, but still remained to appeal to the audience.
There were aspect of the game that changed, such as the story, and character development. All main series Pokémon games made use of a villainous, evil team that the play was required to stop, and each team leader had motives to the goals they were trying to reach. This, once again, was apparent in this game, but was unique to the previous games, as they made use of a plot reveals at peak points of the story (such as finding out the villainous leader was actually being manipulated by the true leader, and now we as the players need to battle him).

In 2017 the latest (to this day) Zelda game was released, being The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I have decided to talk about this game in particular since it can be compared to the games in the same series that were released many years prior (such as Ocarina of Time, and the many other Zelda games).
This game shows the advancement of video games throughout time for a number of areas. The game made use of a deep and engaging story. However, a large aspect of the story needed to be earned by the player, by finding and interacting with specific area of the map. These areas allowed the player character, Link, to recover lost memories of his past. This allowed us as the players to learn of the events that lead up to the game, and also allowed us to gain a better understanding of various characters, such as Zelda and the Champions. This also acted as areas where characters could be developed.

One problem that most of the games of this series suffered was that the player character, Link, struggled to portray character development as he is, for the most part, a silent protagonist. However, this game made use of other characters to develop the protagonist. In Hyrule castle, Zeldas room can be located. In her room, her diary can be found and read. Upon reading this we learn more about the very character we are playing that we wouldn't have found any other way. The most interesting section from the book, for me anyway, is the page where Zelda explains why Link is silent. This page states:
"Bit by bit, I've gotten Link to open up to me. It turns out he's quite a glutton. He can't resist a delicious meal! When I finally got around to asking why he's so quiet all the time, I could tell it was difficult for him to say. But he did. With so much at stake, and so many eyes upon him, he feels it necessary to stay strong and to silently bear any burden. A feeling I know all too well... For him, it has caused him to stop outwardly expressing his thoughts and feelings. I always believed him to be simply a gifted person who had never faced a day of hardship. How wrong I was... Everyone has struggles that go unseen by the world... I was so absorbed with my own problems, I failed to see his. I wish to talk with him more and to see what lies beneath those calm waters, to hear him speak freely and openly... And perhaps I, too, will be able to bare my soul to him and share the demons that have plagued me all these years." (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, 2017)
This page in particular portrays Links development extremely well, as it tells us something about our protagonist that we have never known before.

The narrative of the game is non-linear and also makes use of an open ended narrative. This is something unique as it allows the player to have a choice as to how they play the game, and allows the player to have a different gameplay experience each time the game is player (replayability).

Text Adventure Games - Narrative Structure

The Dreamhold
The Dreamhold is an interactive fiction video game that is mostly aimed at those who are experiencing interactive fiction for the first time.

Story = Cliche - mentioned in the game since the story involves the character suffering from amnesia (not knowing where they are or why). However this doe work well, since everything is not only new to the stories character, but also the players / readers.

Much of the story is just surrounding descriptions, however, much of the surroundings can be interacted with (e.g. "Examine desk") for a further description, or in some cases an additional piece of information that acts as a hint for the player (where to go next), or even an item that the player can take, which can be used at a later point (e.g. key to open door), or an item that is to do with the game's objective.

The player / reader can go where they want and in the order they want, with few exceptions. Upon entering a room the text will state the possible directions that can be followed to progress with the game. However, the exceptions being that sometime door are locked, so the player / reader must backtrack and find a key for the door (or find / follow another route completely).

Due to the fact that the player can go where they want, many areas of the 'map/world' will be missed. But there will still be those few players (like myself for the section I played) who will try to go in as many rooms/follow as many routes as possible.

Multiple endings?

Makes use of collectables throughout the story/game. These collectables have an impact on one of the story routes.

CR

Charlie Roberts
IMG Year 2 Portfolio

Writing History Research