Narrative Theory Series

Designing Games & Interactive Stories

The Narrative arc is a structure that is commonly found in stories and plots. It describes the events that make up a story, and the order in which they occur. The narrative arc is also known as the “plot structure,” “story structure,” or “plot diagram.”

The concept of the narrative arc has been around for centuries, and can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his Poetics, he outlined a structure for drama that included a beginning, middle, and end. This structure, known as the “three-act structure,” is still used today and forms the basis of the narrative arc.

The narrative arc begins with the setup, which introduces the characters, setting, and conflict. The middle of the story, known as the rising action, is where the conflict and tension are developed. The climax is the turning point of the story, where the conflict reaches its peak. The resolution, or falling action, is the conclusion of the story, where the conflict is resolved.

The narrative arc is an important tool for writers, as it helps to keep the story focused and moving forward. It helps to create a sense of momentum and keeps the reader engaged. It is also a useful tool for analyzing and discussing literature, as it allows us to understand the events and themes of a story in a structured way.

The idea of a narrative arc suggests a curved continuum, but out of that smooth flow of events clear differentiated sections are typically conceptualized. The film scholar David Bordwell gave it four sections: Setup, Complication, Development, and Resolution. To summarize Bordwell’s model:

Setup: the world as normal, like Spielberg movies at the beginning. Kids riding their bikes in suburban subdivisions with sunny days and dogs barking.

Complication: aliens land and mess things up. The world is now out of balance.

Development: the kids on bikes figure out how to send the aliens away or in general defeat and/or slay them in a PG all ages family friendly way

Resolution: aliens go away, so the kids can keep biking on pleasant suburban streets, but some aliens survive to plot another day, setting up the sequel.

The five-act structure, such as Freytag’s Pyramid, is a way of organizing a story or play into five distinct sections. It is similar to the three-act structure, but with two additional acts added in the middle of the story.

The five acts of the five-act structure are:

The first act, also known as the “exposition,” introduces the setting, characters, and conflict.

The second act, also known as the “rise,” is where the conflict and tension begin to develop.

The third act, also known as the “peak,” is the turning point of the story, where the conflict reaches its climax.

The fourth act, also known as the “fall,” is the resolution of the story, where the conflict is resolved and the characters begin to deal with the aftermath.

The fifth act, also known as the “denouement,” is the final resolution of the story, where any remaining plot points are wrapped up and the characters’ fates are revealed.

The five-act structure has its origins in ancient Greek drama, and was popularized in the Renaissance by playwrights such as William Shakespeare. It is still used today in plays and other forms of storytelling, and is often taught in creative writing and literature courses.

In most narratives that we are familiar with, the Denouement (resolution) is usually the shortest section, much shorter typically compared to the Setup (beginning of the narrative). Narratives tend not to focus too much on consequences and endings of conflict, and tend to wrap the story up pretty quickly after the climactic section.

Some forms like the novel, being more intellectual, may spend more time dwelling on the Denouement, whereas with blockbuster films, you just get a few minutes after the dust clears from the big fight scene to wrap things up, and find out whether heroes obtain their love interest, get to finally kiss and so on.

Ohler’s Story Map concept adds some additional dimensions to the narrative arc. The Middle of the narrative is understood to comprise the Problem and its Solution, which might have particular usefulness for games where problem solving is often a key mechanic. The Beginning can consist of a challenge, goal, obstacle or opportunity, while the End shows how each of these elements at the Beginning are resolved or overcome.

In most of these models introduced so far, there is a strong sense of there being a single Peak to the narrative (the climax) though narratives often have multiple peaks and valleys. Longer narratives especially may have an overall arc toward one climactic moment, but that trajectory can be punctuated with multiple high and low tension moments. A model that tries to capture these multiple peaks and valleys is Lucille Breneman’s.

Breneman’s narrative model suggests that effective stories often have a structure that includes multiple peaks and valleys, or moments of high and low tension, as the narrative progresses. This structure helps to keep the audience engaged and invested in the story, as they experience both high points of excitement and low points of relaxation or reflection.

The model suggests that the overall arc of a story should include a series of ups and downs, with the highest peak occurring at the climax of the story and the lowest valley occurring at the resolution or denouement. The peaks and valleys of the narrative should be balanced in a way that keeps the audience interested and invested in the story, without becoming overly predictable or monotonous. Ultimately, the goal of this structure is to create a sense of momentum and progression within the story, which helps to keep the audience engaged and invested in the characters and events.

This more ‘bumpy’ model of narrative also fits better the format of story ‘episodes’ whether from television or online ‘webisodes’ or even Netflix series designed for binge watching. A season may have its own arc that develops over many episodes, while within each episode there will be peaks and valleys nested within it.

Robert McKee is a well-known creative writing instructor who has written and lectured widely on narrative mostly from the perspective of Hollywood practices. For McKee, there conflicts play out along both conscious and unconscious dimensions, and a character’s psyche can be in conflict with inner and inter-personal crises while also engaged with issues in the larger world.

For McKee, a story should be structured around a central quest, which is the main goal or objective of the protagonist. The inciting incident is the event that sets the story in motion and sets the protagonist on their quest. The story’s spine is defined by the conscious and unconscious desires of the protagonist, which drive the plot forward and create conflict.

Additionally, McKee’s model suggests that the plot of a story should be structured around a series of obstacles or challenges that the protagonist must overcome in order to achieve their quest. These challenges should escalate in intensity as the story progresses, leading up to the climax of the story, where the protagonist ultimately confronts the biggest obstacle and either succeeds or fails in achieving their quest.

One of most commonly implemented (in popular culture at least) narrative models is Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which is another pattern used for shaping narrative conflict based on the comparative analysis of thousands of the worlds’ myths and folk stories, modeled by Joseph Campbell. The Hero’s Journey is probably the most used model of narrative outside of Aristotle, who has the benefit of having written over two thousand years ago and so has had influence over a much longer period.

Of course, a core concept of the Hero’s Journey is that it’s a universal model that is very ancient and part of the deep wisdom of humanity, so it is not so much Campbell’s own personal model (i.e. his invention) but more of a discovery of patterns implicit across thousands of narratives produced over millennia of human history.

Today the Hero’s Journey is even more explicit than it used to be. While it was the model for shaping the original Star Wars stories, today’s trend of superhero movies just makes what used to be implicit in narrative structure more overt. On most lists of top grossing films, the vast majority are hero’s journeys in structure, and many are literally superhero movies.

Campbell’s hero’s journey suggests that there is a common pattern that many stories follow, in which a hero embarks on a journey, faces a series of challenges and trials, and ultimately returns home transformed. According to Campbell, the hero’s journey typically consists of several key stages, including:

The Call to Adventure: The hero is called to leave their ordinary world and embark on a journey.

The Road of Trials: The hero faces a series of challenges and obstacles on their journey.

The Meeting with the Mentor: The hero receives guidance or help from a mentor figure.

The Crossing of the Threshold: The hero leaves their ordinary world and enters a new, unfamiliar world.

The Innermost Cave: The hero confronts their greatest challenge or fear.

The Return: The hero returns home, often transformed or enlightened by their journey.

This structure can be seen in many myths, stories, and films, and is often used as a tool for understanding and analyzing these works.

Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet is a framework for structuring stories that was developed for use in film and television, but it can also be adapted for use in other mediums such as video games. Examples of key beats include: the opening image, the setup, the inciting incident, the lock in, the midpoint, the bad guys close in, all is lost, the break into three, the finale and the final image.

Some ways that video game designers might adapt Snyder’s Beat Sheet concept include:

Identify the main character and their main goal: The protagonist and their quest should be the driving force of the game’s story.

Break the story down into key plot points: Snyder’s Beat Sheet includes specific plot points. These plot points can be adapted and incorporated into the game’s story.

Develop the game’s levels or stages around the plot points: Each level or stage of the game can correspond to a specific plot point, with gameplay and story elements that reflect the events of that plot point.

Use cutscenes or other storytelling elements to connect the gameplay and plot points: Cutscenes or other in-game storytelling elements can be used to advance the plot and connect the gameplay to the overall story.

Consider the player’s actions and choices: In a video game, the player’s actions and choices can affect the outcome of the story. Designers can incorporate this element into the game’s story by including branching storylines or multiple endings.

Adapting Snyder’s Beat Sheet for use in video game design requires considering how the specific elements of the framework can be incorporated into the gameplay and story of the game, while also taking into account the interactive nature of video games.

There are several narrative models that are not based on arcs, or the idea of a linear progression from beginning to end. Some examples of these models include:

Cyclical narratives: These narratives follow a pattern that repeats itself, often with minor variations or deviations. For example, a story might follow the same characters through a series of events that repeat in a similar fashion, or it might involve a character reliving the same events over and over again.

Cumulative narratives: These narratives build their effect from repetition. Doctor Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham are a good example of this kind of story structure:

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM.

THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM!

DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM.

I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE?

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.

I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE?

WOULD YOU LIKE THEN WITH A MOUSE?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.

I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

Chain Tale: A chain tale is a type of story that is told in a collaborative fashion, with each person adding a new element or twist to the story. The story is passed from one person to the next, with each person building on what has come before. Chain tales can be told in person, through writing, or even online, and they often involve a group of people working together to create a story. One of the key features of a chain tale is that it is open-ended, with no predetermined ending, allowing for a wide range of possibilities and creative freedom. Chain tales can be a fun and interactive way to tell stories and can be used in a variety of settings, from classrooms to social gatherings.

Multistrand narratives: These narratives follow multiple storylines or perspectives, often intersecting or intertwining in complex ways such as in Love Actually.

Nonlinear stories: These stories do not follow a traditional chronological order, and may involve flashbacks, multiple time periods, time travel, jump cutting or other nonlinear elements.

Episodic narratives: These narratives are structured as a series of standalone episodes, each with its own story or plot.

Open-ended: An open-ended narrative structure does not have a predetermined ending or resolution. Instead, the story is left open and ongoing, with no clear conclusion in sight. Soap operas are a common example of open-ended narratives, as they often do not have a fixed end point and are designed to continue indefinitely. Other examples of open-ended narratives might include serialized television shows, ongoing comic book series, or even some video games that have ongoing storylines that are updated and expanded upon over time. Open-ended narratives can be challenging to write and structure, as they require the writer to continuously come up with new plot twists and developments to keep the story interesting and engaging. They also require a strong foundation and well-developed characters, as the story may continue for an extended period of time. Open-ended narratives allow for a sense of ongoing exploration and discovery for both the characters and the audience.

Character & Narrative Progression

Think of some actual person that you know, and make a list of the character traits that define them. But what is a defining trait?

The most compelling traits are ones that relate to the inner life of the characters — their motivations, goals, dreams, desires, fears, anxieties, insecurities. Let’s call these character traits. We will distinguish character traits from what we can call revealing traits. For our purposes, let’s say that a revealing trait is some external aspect of character, such as:

Their evident social class (rich, poor, or rich but dresses poor rebelliously)

Their age (or apparent age, signs of plastic surgery, older people dyeing their hair, or not)

Their physical appearance (freckly, chubby, hairy, muscular, hair color)

Their social communication codes (how stylish they are, or aren’t — clothing sometimes, though not always, can say a lot)

Their gestures (slouchy, animated, wall flower– body language in general)

Their tastes (music they like, food they hate)

Their possessions (wearing lots of bling, the car they drive, or lack of possessions)

For this exercise, a character trait is not one of these revealing traits or appearance-based traits, but rather we want to focus on the personality and psychology of the characters. Get into what makes them tick and avoid superficial aspects like ethnicity, possessions, height or clothing. So take a moment and write down your list of character traits of some actual person you know.

… … …

Now I will assume you have your list of traits and then ask you, why do you say that this person has these traits? It’s a trick question because there’s only one answer. Conflicts cause people to act, which then shows us who they are (what character ‘stuff’ they are made of!). When conflict occurs, what do people do? What do they say? That gives us insight into their traits.

As a narrative creator (or generally, ‘author’ which doesn’t mean just someone who writes books but can be applied to any medium), you know what your characters are made of, but then you have to design their actions, so that the audience can find out what you already know! The audience would be bored if you just gave them a list of your characters’ traits. Instead, they want to see characters act, so they can find out their inner character.

In a nutshell, creators know their characters’ traits, and have to show them through their actions, while audiences are clueless as to what characters’ traits are until they act, which then allows audiences to infer them.

It would not be very effective, in a Star Wars novel (who reads these anyway??) to write:

Darth Vader was a very bad guy. Because he was bad he wore black. Everyone was scared of him even though black was still considered to be a very fashionable color in a galaxy far far away a long long time ago.

Traits aren’t very powerful or interesting when they are just directly stated, but are more compelling when illustrated by actions:

Darth Vader removed his helmet and set it next to the bathroom sink. While flicking the button of his electric toothbrush, which reminded him of his lightsaber, he thought of those Death Star officers elsewhere on the base whose black boots weren’t shined properly.

As he angled the humming electric wand toward the back of his Sith molars, making sure to massage his gums properly, he began to feel enraged that he could spare time to brush his teeth, but the Imperial Officers could not find time to polish their boots.

Just by thinking these thoughts, he would find out later on his Facebook page that those very officers he had been thinking about had swallowed their own electric toothbrushes that morning, due to the power of the Force’s dark side working at unconscious levels.

We get the clear picture here that Darth is a bad Sith dude, even when he is doing something as innocuous as brushing his teeth, because his actions are evil even when they are just random thoughts that occur to him while performing bodily hygiene. Actions show these traits to the reader, whereas I, as the author, know that Darth is such a bad guy, which sets me the task of designing his actions to illustrate this point to the audience.

Character Interactions

Another way to think about what drives narrative progression is that it takes two to tango. That’s a cliché, sorry, but what is meant is that a single character is like an inert substance, where not much happens, but if you add another substance, a reaction occurs (ok, I said it was inert, but now it’s reactive, I’m mixing the metaphor) because another character has shown up on the scene! Now that you have two characters, stuff can happen.

Imagine a tree, just there in the grass. Pretty boring. Now, add a boy to the tree, and you get The Giving Tree, a timeless classic on all the various ways a boy can totally use up all the parts of a tree.

Note that the title defines a character trait, referring to the generosity trait of main character #1 (the tree). The story could also be called The Needy Boy or the Selfish Kid or even The Non-Reciprocating Male (main character #2) but then it would be a mean kind of story and it wouldn’t make us feel good. Usually we don’t want narratives to make us feel bad, so here we shift the narratorial focus to the nice pleasing positive giving-ness of a totally self-sacrificing plant.

This ‘two to tango’ structure is everywhere in narrative, if you know how to look for it. Bilbo in the Shire is a lazy hobbit living a boring easy life. It takes a Gandalf to show up to send him on his adventure, and catalyze something narrative-worthy out of his inert Shire substance.

Earth orbiting the Sun in a void is pretty boring, but gets excitingly conflictual if aliens show up to invade it.

The chemistry metaphor of catalyzing works pretty well actually, to describe how you can spark a chain reaction of events, once you have character + character (and theoretically, you can always split one person into multiple personalities to get similar results).

This is why you sometimes see scientific paradigms, like cybernetics and systems theory, used to describe narrative structure, such as with Todorov’s equilibrium theory of narrative. For a systems thinker like Todorov, narrative works in a very similar fashion as the thermostat in your home! (or, your body temperature, etc.). Narratives start out in homeostasis (often literally at home! hence the italics in the first part of the word), which gets disturbed, and the goal is then to return to homeostasis.

According to Todorov, all stories begin in a state of equilibrium, which is a balance or stability between opposing forces or elements. This equilibrium is then disrupted by an event, called the “anomaly,” which introduces a new element or conflict into the story. The story then follows the characters as they try to resolve the conflict and restore equilibrium. The resolution of the conflict and the restoration of equilibrium is called the “recognition,” and it marks the end of the story.

Todorov’s theory suggests that stories are driven by the tension between equilibrium and anomaly, and that the resolution of this tension is what gives a story its meaning. The theory also emphasizes the importance of character development and the role of the characters in driving the plot and resolving the conflict.

Of course, very often the ‘chemistry’ in a narrative is more obviously illustrated with love interests, which definitely transforms inert substances into chain reactions of events. Because of the importance of action (which drives causal chains of events), characters are often more like narrative functions than people. For example, in Skyfall, Love Interest #1 gets killed, which frees up a narrative opening for Love Interest #2, because the love interest is a general narrative function and integral to plot templates of this kind.

So-called Bollywood cinema has an interesting variation of the love triangle concept by making a love quadrangle out of the general situation. It’s a common plot structure that a Man wants a Woman, but to get her, he has to Defeat the Villain in order to win the Woman’s Father’s Approval. So, it’s a bit harder to be a Bollywood hero, since on top of this added chemistry complication they have to sing and dance a lot, which maybe explains the long length of some of these film narratives?

So the love interest character type is also a general narrative function guaranteeing a bit more chemistry in the propulsion of narrative action. These types are not just characters, but plot drivers, engines to move actions along arc coordinates.

Script vs Spreadsheet

Sometimes game mechanics like problem solving make their way into films, a good example being the indie film Circle, in which characters suddenly wake up in a gamified alien murder trap and have to work together to solve challenges such as: who gets killed next? How do I survive? Who should survive? Who put us here?

In interactive narratives, the story is not presented to the audience in a linear fashion as it is in traditional forms of storytelling. Instead, the audience has the ability to make choices that affect the course of the story. This requires a different approach to writing and organizing the story, as the writer must anticipate the different paths that the story could take depending on the choices made by the audience.

One way to manage this complexity is to create a branching narrative, where the story is divided into smaller sections or “nodes,” each with its own set of possible choices. The nodes are connected to one another through a series of branching paths, creating a “tree” structure that represents all of the different paths the story could take.

To create a branching narrative, writers often use a spreadsheet or table to organize the nodes and branching paths. The table typically includes columns for the node number, the node text (the text that will be displayed to the audience), and the choices available at each node. Each choice is linked to a specific node, allowing the writer to specify the path that the story will take depending on the choice made by the audience.

Using a spreadsheet or table to organize a branching narrative can be helpful because it allows the writer to see the structure of the story at a glance, and to easily make changes or add new nodes and choices as needed. It is also a useful tool for the interaction designer, who can use the table to create the necessary code to implement the branching narrative in the final product. It’s easier to envision how a narrative can become interactive when it is broken down into table and list formats.

Re-Sequencing the Narrative Arc

While a narrative is said to have a Beginning, a Middle and an End (because Aristotle said it, and ancient Greek philosophers tend to get repeated a lot over the years), these sections do not necessarily have to unfold in this way. Watch Mogwai’s music video below, Hunted by a Freak. As you do so, try to answer these questions:

Where does the narrative begin?
Where does it end?
What path is traced throughout?
Why is the animation structured this way?

There’s a lot going in in this video that we can explore with some narrative theory. However, let’s make a slight detour into music theory and audio representation. Music, like many time-based media (film, theater, novels) progress through calmer and more intense moments, building or releasing tension.

A waveform representation is similar to the idea & structure of a narrative arc, because time is plotted on the Y axis, while intensity (loudness or acoustic energy) is plotted on the X axis (with narrative arcs, vertical intensity is not loudness but emotional energy).

This gives us a clue for narrative re-sequencing of events in the music video, because the peaks and valleys (or loud and quiet parts) of the song are intermittent, rather than building up toward the end. So, the music’s logic of intensity shapes the narrative flow of information, so that the more dramatic moments are concentrated around the musical peaks, while the less intense events occur around the quieter sections.

This relationship of time and intensity helps with understanding the structure of the narrative as presented in the music video. We have two stark contrasts in personality in the video, the character we can call ‘Freak’ (from the title of the music) and the cute little colorful animals who are mistreated. While you may not think it at first, Mogwai’s music video is very Aristotelian, because Aristotle wrote about two emotional poles that characters in dramas can have:

Pity: our being drawn emotionally towards a character (empathy, sympathy)

Fear: our being repulsed by a character (reprehension, emotional distance)

These words “pity” and “fear” are translations of the original Greek words, but the idea they capture is that we can either be drawn sympathetically towards characters in a narrative, or we can be made to become more emotionally distant from them. The Mogwai video applies Aristotle’s concepts very directly, giving us a clearly negative character whom we do not like, and for whom we probably have little sympathy, while giving us opposing characters that are colorful, cute, and vehicles of pure pity for our emotional attachment.

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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.

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