The Owl, The Globe, and When You Should Call The Narrative Designer
Most likely, you're already late (but it's ok).
Let's just state the obvious: a lot of game designers from studios of any scale believe that narrative design is something that is added later in the development process, as a kind of "wrapper" for the mechanics. Not blaming them: our discipline is still very new, its impact is difficult to measure in solid numbers, and there's a lot of education needed to pierce our storytellers' bubble so its contents would end up sprinkling our more tech-minded colleagues with rainbows and smiles.
In Russian, we have this expression "to stretch the owl over the globe": it means fitting a square peg in a round hole. It describes perfectly what happens when a narrative designer is involved in a game development at a later stage — and by “later” I mean, not from the start.
The ideal case of a spherical owl in a vacuum be like:
You, a game designer, have an idea for your game, and yes, the next moment you call a narrative designer to start working together. You integrate the story with the mechanics, and they complement each other, no matter if your game is story-driven or not. You pick the right tools (that can inform the narrative design for the better and also help optimise the development process) or amend your own engine to make the narrative scripting an integral part of it; and it’s all baked in your pipeline, smooth as a baby dolphin’s skin.
Real life cases:
The mechanics are more or less ready, as well as key levels, and art, and now's the time to add some "lore"!
Or, you have a narrative (most likely, created by the game design and art teams; worst case, by ChatGPT), but it's not working as intended for some reason. The budget's already tight, so you call in someone to "polish" your story.
Or, you have an actual story, and cool cutscenes to tell it, detailed backstories for characters, and maybe some flavour text in-game, but the players don't get it apart from that. They expect more and can't see it in the gameplay.
This is all rather obvious to my colleagues from the industry's leading studios, but not necessarily to small indie developers or mid-size studios. I’ve seen it more than once: someone making their first “serious” game relying only on mechanics and art, despite wanting it to have a narrative. The game would shape up to be beautiful, and probably engaging at first, but it had no answer why and wasn’t looking appealing in the long term.
And yes, there’s Balatro as the latest case of a hugely successful and addictive pure mechanics-driven game. If you manage to come up with mechanics like that, godspeed, but there’s probably a reason we don’t get a Balatro every month. And, you’re not going to believe it, but Balatro has narrative! It exists as a backdrop, and ties everything together, creating a vector for the player’s fantasy. By the way, we’re analysing that case in the book, stay tuned — we’re approaching the finish line with the draft.
Now’s the part to forward to your game designer friends and potential clients:
Yes, we can “justify everything”, as Jill Murray (Assassin Creed: Liberation, Subnautica: Below Zero) said in her interview with us.
However, narrative design is about the interaction between story and mechanics. The earlier you involve a narrative designer, the more compelling the story will be and the stronger the emotional connection players will have with it. And it’s not about being super-original.
If you called in a narrative designer as an afterthought, trust them. Dare to make some mechanics work for the story, if they have solid reasons to suggest that. Share the value of their work with the team, otherwise many might feel like a stranger came to stomp on their
egohard work. As for our ND’s job, it’s about going deeper and learning everything about the player and their intended emotional experience, the resources we have, and our limitations — and about educating non-narrative-minded team members why we’re here. because, as Meghna Jayanth (80 bDays, Thirsty Suitors) said, we’re not the narrative’s gatekeepers, we’re the conduit.
The narrative can be incredibly influential when you're tying theme and narrative and design together all at once. They can help inform one another and inspire new fun mechanics that you might not get. If you're not considering the world, you'll forget to be inspired by all the cool ways that the world can create: a weapon that you wouldn't have thought of in just the emptiness of space. If you had more context what this world is like, you're more likely to create something interesting. — Matthew Davis, Subset Games (FTL, Into The Breach)
Have questions about when and how to involve a narrative designer in your project? Want to share a sad or happy story about it? Hit the button!