James Wallis uses genre as the fulcrum for balancing game rules and narrative structure in story-telling games, which he differentiates from RPGs through their emphasis on the creation of narrative over character development.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by James Wallis.
"In the ongoing debates about storytelling and narrative in games, the various commentators often overlook a key point: even in the most cutting-edge examples of the state of the art, it is not the players who tell the story, it is the game. Whether computer games with a narrative element, board games, card games, or face-to-face role-playing games, the essential plot and structure of the narrative is predetermined before the game begins, and cannot be altered."
"Human beings like stories. Our brains have a natural affinity not only for enjoying narratives and learning from them, but also for creating them. In the same way that your mind sees an abstract pattern and resolves it into a face, your imagination sees a pattern of events and resolves it into a story."
"the game's mechanics must take into consideration the rules of the genre that it is trying to create: not just the relevant icons and tropes, but the nature of a story from that genre. A fairy tale has a very different structure and set of requirements than a horror story or a soap opera, and a game must work to replicate that. "
"In most games, the structure is simply the way the game is played. In story-making games, it is also the principal way that the narrative shape of the story is formed (...)."
"Structure is not the same thing as rules. (...) That's how the game plays. It's not how the game works."
"The key to a successful story-making game, at least in the ones that have been released so far, is simplicity of design. (...) it does mean that rules have to be integrated with structure and genre to form a coherent package. I am a self-confessed proponent of "elegance through simplicity" in game design, and I realize that this doesn't fit every taste, or every style of game. "
All quotes were directly pulled out of the essay.
A new installation for the Arts Festival for the 2017 Electronic Literature Organization conference that speaks to the translation of player story into a visual narrative in a tangible artifact. The installation “Loominary” invites the reader to interact with a text-based Twine game through a digitally augmented physical tabletop loom. “Loominary” was created as a reaction to the impermanent nature of player’s choices in games. Player choice is the basis for interaction and the decisions made are the building blocks for stories players retell about their experience with the game. These player narratives are frequently more interesting and important to the player than the story created by the designers. While players create their own narratives, their choices are rarely captured by the game in a form that exists beyond the end of play, and instead rely on the player to memorize or capture the details of their choices. With “Loominary”, each choice in the game is color-coded and the player makes their choices by weaving with the appropriate color on the loom. Throughout play, the player’s choices are translated into a visual and tangible narrative artifact that can be worn as a scarf when the game is completed. Every scarf is unique to each player’s set of choices, and can be used as a way to visualize and remember their decisions within the game.
Presentation format: The setup includes a Raspberry Pi, a monitor, and a 13” wide x 18.5” long loom and base for stability. Optimal format would be the loom in front of a large desktop monitor. Ideally the monitor should be large enough to read from a small distance given the loom’s size. Alternatively, the loom to the side of the monitor could also work. Materials and Equipment: Request an HDMI-capable monitor. Technical notes: The user interacts with the work by weaving on the loom. Tools for weaving, yarn, and all electronics will be provided, except for the monitor.
(Source: ELO 2017: Book of Abstracts and Catalogs)
