5 essential things to keep in mind when writing a game story

by Mahreen Ghafoor

“Have you ever wondered how some of your favorite video games also have the most riveting, and engrossing storylines?” When we think of a video game, our mind initially shifts towards the technical side of it; the graphics, the resolution, and the effects. The development of a game itself sounds such a daunting and complex task that it’s even more difficult to envision the thought process behind the story for the game.

All of the world-famous games have had really strong, compelling stories. It’s extremely significant for any game to have a well-developed plot that blends in with the theme of the game. It makes it more effortless for the players to be able to relate to the characters and thus plays a role in enhancing the gameplay. But while many people might be skillful in the development part, they fail to bring out their creativity and idiosynchronicity while writing the game story.

Here is a breakdown of the five things one needs to keep in mind while writing a game story.

1) Designate a genre for the game

Before deciding on anything else, it’s important to reflect upon the type of game that you want. This forms the initial structure for your final story. It’s up to you whether you decide to go for a lighter tone, an action thriller theme, or something dark, and ghastly.

Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind the kind of audience you plan to cater to while making that decision. If the game is primarily designed for kids, the content would not be too violent or explicit. If the target audience lies in the adult age range, you can surely have more space to play around with.

For our game “Explottens”, although it was merely based upon vengeance, we kept the theme light as we wanted our content to appeal to people from all age groups and categories. We added humorous comic comebacks that kept the art colorful and cute. Also highlighted the heroic part of choosing good over evil.

2) Build a world for the game

Once the genre of the game has been decided upon, it becomes much more convenient to build a world for the game. You will know the elements and features that you will want to integrate into your world according to the theme of the game. The world needs to be an attractive, yet fascinating feature of the game. The player needs to feel lost in the world and at the same time should be able to make complete sense out of it.

From a player’s perspective, the focal point in the game will be the world you have created, you need to carve an elaborate path for the characters through it. It should not only be visually attractive, and enchanting but should be used as a metaphor to portray the methodologies, fantasies, and beliefs incorporated in the game.

We also need to make sure that the writer, the developer, and the artist are in the same boat because it’s important to keep in mind that when the writer is in the process of creating the world, he needs to have a clear picture of what can actually be executed in the final product. For example, for our game “Lost twins”, we designed an illusory, fantasy world that was discussed and mutually decided on by our developer and the artist. For Explottens we designed a whole cat world taking inspiration from Swat Kats.

3) Work on the characterization

As a player needs to visualize himself as the characters crafted for the game, you need to make sure that they are appealing as well as relatable. A “hero”, for example, needs to have valorous, and saintly qualities that make the audience root for him. On the other hand, the character of a “villain” needs to be vile, and treacherous.

For all the characters in the game, you need to establish their background story, what brings them to this certain part of the game, and how their independent skills affect the gameplay. The characters need to linearly grow throughout the story of the game. You need to scrupulously delineate how certain incidents and twists in the story shape up these characters for better or for worse.

Simultaneously, work on the physical appearance of all the characters. In this way, relating each character to its individual story becomes much simpler, and facile. For our characters in “Lost twins”, we tried keeping the characters non-binary, and non-racial and didn't let such factors define them. Other than that we tried playing around with certain ideologies as we embodied the yin yang theory into our main characters, “Abi”, and “Ben”.

4) Fabricate a storyline

A storyline is the strongest base for any game story. Having worked on the world, and the characters, you need to add life to everything through the storyline. You need to create a history, and why we have ended up at this certain part of the story. You need to build a connection between the characters; the friendships and the nemesis. Tell the audience about the main character and how the story is revolving around him. Focus on the adventures the main character might have, the clashes he might face, and how he eventually overcomes them.

Think of minor details about the characters, the world, or the theme of the game that can be included to make the plot more captivating and enthralling. Without a doubt, the backbone of any storyline is the climax you present them with. Try to keep it as unpredictable and distinctive as possible. The players do not want to keep playing an old, similar story with different characters. Living in a world today that is constantly modernizing, we have had a trail of original plots and ideas over the years. It’s not always possible to come up with an original storyline but always try to take inspiration from good work and conceptualize it differently by adding your own flavor.

Taking our game “Run Sheeda Run” as an example, we have created an entirely original storyline for it. We have developed a world known as “Ajeebabad”, for our main character “Sheeda”. Our storyline is a magnificent, unpredictable ride with twists and turns for all the characters along the way. Our motive was to let our audience have an uplifting and amusing gameplay experience through our storyline.

5) Make a funnel

Now that you have a complete and thorough idea of what your game story is going to be about, it’s vital to note everything down. In order to keep a track of all the information that you have mainly brain-stormed, you can make a funnel. Whenever a new idea is pitched, you have millions of thoughts related to necessary details, further extensions of original plans, the changes you can make, or the varieties you can have.

While it’s necessary to enlist every possible option that you can prognosticate, with time there will be a vast accumulation of data. Therefore we require a funnel to filter out all the additional data that has been piling up and has not been short-listed for the final stages. Make different stages for the funnel ranking them in order of priority. In this manner, in the end, you are left with the actual information that is requisite for the final execution.

Now that you are familiar with the five essential things to keep in mind when writing a game story, you are now well-informed and enlightened. It’s now time to put this knowledge into practice and come up with your own game story.

About Us
WRP Studios is a game development and animation studio making our own games and providing game development services around the world. Our latest ego boost is when Explottens got published by Apple Arcade. It was one of the launch titles to go LIVE in 2019.

Website: https://werplay.com/
Jobs: careers@werplay.com
Try our latest game “Explottens”: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/explottens/id965816162