Narrative Theory Series

Designing Games & Interactive Stories

The need to generate massive volumes of content can result from creating interactive narratives. With linear media, there is just one sequence of events, but with interactive Narrative, affording the user the option to make choices can vastly expand the amount of design work that has to be done. Thus, interactive narrative from the get-go means that you need to simultaneously be generating strategies for reducing the amount of content that might potentially be required in order to manage a workable project.

Bifurcation is a term for division. It is used in digital and other forms of interactive narrative, like Choose Your Own Adventure, to describe how the narrative splits off into different storylines when you make a choice. Once we introduce a bifurcation into our narrative — by which is meant, a place where a significant (non-trivial) choice is made– we then have to design the overall structure of those choices. Marie-Laure Ryan has developed some general structural possibilities for flow through interactive narratives, which she has illustrated in a number of node-and-edge graphs, which can easily be found in a Google Image search.

In her linear narrative model, each scene leads directly to the next, and there are no alternative paths to explore alternative narratives. In a looping or cyclical narrative, there is also one path through the story, but there are places that one can either return directly to earlier moments, or indeed back to the beginning. In annotated narrative, there is one main linear through line, but one can explore side tangents. A more complex variant of annotated narrative is vector with side branches, in which one is allowed to wander further off the main linear path of events. Parallel narratives have several linear narratives running alongside each other as different strands, and usually have crossover points where one can switch to follow the other chain of events instead. Branching narratives exponentially multiply new paths and outcomes, since with each choice a new path, and new media, has to be created which leads to another bifurcation in the narrative, and so on. Branching the narrative means a lot of thought, energy and time has to go into designing all the possibilities. These are also sometimes called tree structures. Foldback narratives feature a more limited branching structure, where choices converse on certain repeating ‘inevitable moments.’ A high degree of replayability is achieved by having alternative ways to reach the same narrative moments that may well be known in advance. This prevents the branching from increasing exponentially in complexity. Multi-linear structure (her use of this term is more specific than its general use in this book) features more variation than a parallel structure, essentially offering several strongly linear paths with routes for bypassing certain events, or ways to achieve multiple endings. A labyrinth structure has one entry point and one exit point, with lots of twists and turns along the way. A maze structure, on the other hand, is designed to intentionally lead you into dead ends. A network structure is perhaps the most open ended narrative form, since there is no overall directionality to a network, and one can literally wander node to node without ever having a sense of closure, or even beginning and middle to the story. A “sea anemone” or fractal structure allows a kind of splitting of the narrative into semi-autonomous or isolated sub-worlds, which may branch into other separate worlds, all of which may not lead back to any central place but keep branching into other separate worlds.

So as you can see, from the initial concept of a single narrative bifurcation– a junction where a significant choice has to be made– very elaborate and different kinds of overall structures may result! Whew, that is quite a long list there.

Combining Arc & Flowchart

You can combine these flowcharts and decision trees with the other structures we have discussed relating to the linear narrative arc (e.g. 3 Act structure or Bordwell’s four divisions of the narrative arc). They are by no means exclusionary of these bifurcation structures, but it does add some complexity to the process of working with these very different kinds of narrative structures.

So far we have elaborated two fundamental structural concepts for narrative. Linear media (below left, e.g. spoken stories, or films, books, music) will tend to be structured by some kind of narrative arc, whereas graph representations (edges and nodes) will better explain multilinear, interactive or generative narrative.

While these structures may look very different from each other, and might even seem to work at cross purposes to each other, actually it is rather straightforward to combine them, through simple juxtaposition or overlay. Simply divide sections of your decision tree into arc sections and label them as such. If your tree runs left to right, group the first set of nodes as Setup, the second set of nodes to their right as Complication, and so on. If your decision tree is moving top to bottom, the top set of notes would be encapsulated by a Setup premise, the next set of nodes down would be the Complication, and so on. In essence, over the entirety of your decision tree or flow chart, you would segment in a linear way node groupings that map to a narrative arc logic, so that you can impart some linear narrative sensibility throughout the variations of your interactive narrative’s playthroughs.

When mapping a narrative arc to a decision tree, one needs to keep in mind where in the arc any particular set of nodes (moments, types of events) are in the overall arc. Ultimately there is no real contradiction between the kinds of network representations (nodes and edges) of digital narratives, and the traditional concept of the narrative arc. You simply have to add a category to each event segment, or related groups of segments, in the narrative, and organize it to play some role in the overall narrative progression of events.

By the way, we haven’t touched much on generative narrative, which is a bit outside this book’s scope — or at least outside the scope of its title! In essence, in an interactive narrative, the unfolding of a story is highly player-driven, whereas in a ‘pure’ generative narrative, the narrative variations are entirely system driven. Many if not most multi-linear narratives combine interactive and generative features.

So, by interactive narrative we mean a story that is shaped by the actions or choices of the reader or player. This type of narrative allows the reader or player to influence the events of the story and its outcome through their decisions.

Generative narrative, on the other hand, refers to a story that is generated by a computer program, using algorithms and pre-written content. This type of narrative is not interactive in the sense that the reader or player does not have the ability to influence the events of the story or its outcome. Instead, the program generates a unique story based on the parameters and content that have been programmed into it.

Related Articles

Bibliography & Further Reading

• A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
• Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
• An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
• Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
• Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
• Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
• Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
• Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
• Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
• Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
• Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
• Film Art by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
• Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
• Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
• Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
• Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
• Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
• Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
• Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
• Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, by Kelly McErlean
• Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
• Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
• Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
• Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
• Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
• Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
• Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
• Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
• Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
• Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
• Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
• Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
• Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
• Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
• The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
• The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
• The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
• The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, by by Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson and Benjamin J. Robertson
• The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
• The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
• Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
• Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
• Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
• Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
• 100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN

Acknowledgement

This online courseware was co-authored with OpenAI technology in order to produce a clear, succinct writing style that will be accessible to the widest range of readers from a variety of backgrounds.

Narrative Bifurcation was originally published in Sound & Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.