Recently in Narrative Design Definitions Category

The play is a literary form that comes down to us from Ancient Greece intended for performance. Used as a production tool to create a perceived story space on stage, it consists of characters, dialog, action, and setting. It is a form that was adapted for motion pictures then called the "screenplay". While not particularly different than its stage play ancestor, the screenplay is intended for use on linear theatrical productions such as film and television. I chose to adapt it to games for purposes of strengthening game story. While games have their design documentation, often a 'bible' of information or a presentation intended to communicate a cohesive vision, the screenplay acts as a method to create a common story vision among widely disparate development pipelines within game development, with the aim of creating a better user experience. While not a concept I claim to originate. It is a form that I have forged wholly on my own, with attention to what makes a game screenplay unique.

Part 1: Cinematics

Linear cinematic segments, while potentially altered by the player, or selected in a meaningful non-linear fashion via gameplay, are no different than traditional screenplays. As the first screenplays did not veer too far from stage plays, with minimal sets, and high caliber, sometimes over-the-top, characters. So to the game screenplay is still akin to the screenplays of film. Example 1 (below) is from my first game screenplay for "Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts".

Example 1: Game Screenplay Cinematic Sequences

The formula shown above is for a Russian Folktale as described by Vladimir Propp in his book Morphology of the Folktale, the formula reads "A tsar, three daughters (α). The daughters go walking (β³), overstay in the garden (δ¹). A dragon kidnaps them (A¹). A call for aid (B¹). Quest of three heroes (C↑). Three battles with the dragon (H¹-I¹), rescue of the maidens (K⁴). Return (↓), reward (w°)." (1) While Proop's semiotics may seem too formulaic for free souls, in practical application his truth stands firm as Aristotle's Poetics. His structuralist approach to classical literary design easily adapts to interactive experiences, and clearly points to the exponential narratological complexity associated with non-linear experiences. In order to maintain narrative integrity throughout an interactive experience a rigid structure must be adhered to, narrative design was born into the world to bring classical structure back into modern storytelling.


Narrative design is a narratological craft which focuses on the structuralist, or literary semiotic creation of stories. Narremes, or story elements, are formulated into a cohesive narrative structure in such a way as to create a metanarrative or archnarrative for the reader/viewer/user/player. The term "narrative design" was described by Madison Smartt Bell as "[the] form or structure of...final importance to any work of fiction..."Bell (2) Believable narrative structures are created from well designed narremes. These elements rest within a greater narrative structure, think of the mushroom in Mario or the sword in the stone. Narrative design is the structuralist architecture of literary semiotics that together form a work of fiction. Creative adherence to a well designed narrative structure will result in greater entertainment value and thematic communication.

Entertainment is an umbrella of a term which has grown even wider in today's web 2.0 world; our span of fiction's have begun to take on many forms. "After the novel, and subsequently cinema privileged narrative as the key form of cultural expression of the modern age, the computer age introduces its correlate - database."Manovich (3) Design of the story related elements, or narremes, of this database and their causal relationship as a metanarrative within said database is narrative design. Digital games are interactive database narratives. Database narrative refers to narratives whose structure exposes the dual processes of selection and combination that lie at the heart of all stories, particular data - characters, images, sounds, events - are selected from a series of databases or paradigms, which are then combined by the player, through action and thought, to generate specific stories.(4)

Game mechanics give a player navigational functionality within the 'data-space' of multimedia narrative (game). "Choices about the design and organization of game spaces have narratological consequences"Jenkins (5). Media theorist Henry Jenkins, continues to describe the crafting of fiction within games as narrative architecture. Crafting more believable interactive fiction requires coherent narrative design to ensure maximum entertainment value. When executed with skill, a narrative design strategy innately provides the reader/viewer/user/player/ with a wider cognitive palette from which they can self-author more emotive and visceral interactive fiction experiences. 

1. Vladimir Propp. Morphology of the Folktale. via Wikipedia 1928
2. Madison Smartt Bell. Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure. W. W. Norton & Company.1997
3. Lev Manovich. Database as symbolic Form. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.
4. Stephen Erin Dinehart. RTS as Database Narrative. Narrative Design Exploratorium. 2007
5. Henry Jenkins. Game Design as Narrative Architecture. MIT Press. 200? 

In a transmedial work the viewer/user/player (VUP) transforms the story via his or her own natural cognitive psychological abilities, and enables the Artwork to surpass medium. It is in transmedial play that the ultimate story agency, and decentralized authorship can be realized. Thus the VUP becomes the true producer of the Artwork. The Artist authored transmedia elements act a story guide for the inherently narratological nature of the human mind (see illustration) to become thought, both conscious and subconscious, in the imagination of the VUP.

Narrative Designers are storytellers whom live alongside a game as it develops through the production process. As the project grows and alters over the course of production, they are there to make sure the story maintains continuity throughout the experience. They are managers, writers, game designers, artists, and more. The pillar of their primary tenant must be founded on a transparent blend between narratological and ludological tendencies within interactive experience design. Simply put the balance of play and story.

Narrative Design demands understanding of the whole product. Like any good Hollywood Director they need to know the entire production pipeline. It is only through this understanding of the implementation of said narremes (narrative elements) that one can truly craft an interactive story. From characters to color scripts, shape scripts and even dialogue, it's up to the Narrative Designer to create compelling documentation for the whole team. It is through this classical approach that best stories can happen, and the craft can refine to a unique form of high design. That said it's a new field, it's ripe for exploration and definition.