Tom Armitage recently posted an interesting article, ”Stories built around Core Mechanics“. It is worth reading not only because of it’s deserved praise of the superbly talented Steven Moffat, but also it’s central theme: that designers should strive to find stories in games that can only be told in games.
It’s not always clear what defines a story that can only be told in games but it did get me thinking about at least one example from my personal experience.
Recently I started at a new job working in a public building, one I’ve been in several times prior to my employment. During those previous visits my mental perception of the layout of the building developed into a fairly standard and unchanging pattern. Certain places were public, others were private and I had a very clear notion of the front and back of the building as defined by the entrances and exits. When I started to work there, my notion of the nature of that space began to change. I actually found myself feeling lost in a place I knew well due simply to moving in what felt like a backward direction through the environment. Because I was not following the established, normal, public route through the building this once familiar space felt strange; I was out of place. As the hours pasted on that first day, my mental image of the space and the layout of the building slowly altered, with the entire structure seeming to reverse as what was once the entrance became unimportant and the spaces I’d once considered private and thus out of bounds, gained a much greater significance.
I’m not entirely sure what form of stories these observations about the changing nature of spatial relationships might lead to but I do feel that the interactive, navigable nature of digital media make it the single most appropriate medium for the exploration of stories about space and environment.
Tags: Steven Moffat
