[Random] What's the story? Tell me another...

How many plots are there? Lots of minds greater than mine have queried this, and come back with a lot of different numbers - there are three proto-stories, or seven, or a different seven, or... ok, I say greater minds than mine, but the lists of 20 and 36 story ideas seems to be reaching a bit. The fewer you can think of, the more I can respect, else it becomes like when I watched Big Trouble in Little China as a 12 year old and decided there were about 30 different groups all fighting each other (just because I recognised Lo Pan, the Three Storms and the Wing Kong as separate entities didn't mean they were different sides. No - it just followed basic narrative, good guys and bad, and now I want to watch it again...)

Story telling is such a fundamental human trait - we use it to entertain ourselves, to inform ourselves (the news is, ultimately, telling us stories about what has happened in the world), and even to make ourselves better people (at least, that's the hope - parables try to mark out "right" and "wrong" actions, but the value of the story is entirely down to the story teller. Or the news organisation). But this isn't a writing blog. It's a gaming one. But after writing my last (admittedly less interesting than hoped) entry, I realised how stuck on rails the narrative is in games.

The Six Plots of Gaming

1) Player vs enemy force

The easiest one to identify - success is simply down to being the last one standing. It worked for Space Invaders, it worked for Street Fighter, it works for pretty much every boss fight ever - challenge your ability to deal damage. When LotRO wants 10 orcs dead from an area, this is all you are doing. 

Less obviously, it is also the other cars on the track in Virtua Racing or Ridge Racer - winning is about overwhelming them at their own game. Assuming it is racing and not time-trialing (see Plot 3 there), all you are hoping to do is be the one that succeeds at their expense.

It was tempting to add Halo here too - it seems an obvious choice... then I realised that Halo is part this, but more a part of -

2) Player journey

... you see, a lot of the fights in Halo are actually avoidable. This is something learned playing the original in legendary difficulty- if in doubt, leave the soldiers to die, and keep running. Yes, some fights are essential (so, taking Plot 1), but ultimately the game wants you to make it from Point A to Point B, and confuses you by putting a gun into your hands.

The same could be said for R-Type, or Vigilante, or Shadow Complex (one of the best games I've played in recent years - but ultimately, it's still about gaining ways of moving from Point A to a previously inaccessible Point B).

You are ultimately fighting the environment - or not fighting if you can (and choose to) avoid it. These get disguised in a lot of ways - to speak to someone at a different location, whether it be next to them or on the other side of the world; to collect an item out in the wilderness; or just not get blown up as the screen scrolls you ever closer to the end-of-level boss.

3) Player vs the clock

A classic - just needing to do as much as you can before a timer ends. This can be achieving set goals, or merely staying alive. Think of Gauntlet - for all the running around, for all the monster generators, there was only one thing that mattered, your "health" constantly depleting. But it wasn't health - it was a portable timer, raised with food and lost with everything else... and disguised as Plot 2.

(and of course, let's not ignore the flip side - working to beat those best lap times in Sega Rally or Gran Turismo. It's not about the cars, it's not about the track - it's about the clock. Success is measured by it)

It's always been a staple of arcade gaming, where the need to get one person off a cabinet to allow another paying customer a go is key. You don't want an expert who can maintain eight hour at the controls, if only because they don't have the same facilities as astronauts and the clean-up required will be disgusting.

Yes, multiple Plots meet here - a "kill Tim the Accountant of Doom in the next 5 minutes" quest will involve Plot 2 and Plot 1 as well. But the involvement of a timer in so much of gaming means it is a content Plot device.

4) Player vs logic

Perhaps a harder one to categorise - this is solving puzzles. When you worked out what to do with that chicken with a pulley in Monkey Island, it was this. When you worked out how to avoid being shot in Portal, it was this. Success is measured in overcoming puzzles, rather than going out guns blazing - it's more like playing solitaire, knowing how the deck is arranged and so working out where to place the cards. You can learn how to win, rather than train for it.

A lot of games fit in moments of logic - those puzzles that you have to solve somewhere between Point A and Point B - but often these are moments tacked onto other plots. Others pose themselves as logic puzzles, when in truth they are linear (for example,  you do not have to actually work out who is poisoning the mine in Baldur's Gate - just follow the steps the story tells you. You cannot lose the game by getting the wrong culprit, or failing to find the problem at all).

5) Player recognition

... Tetris. See shape, fit shape, repeat. It's not an issue of logic, it's about making something happen almost faster than you can consciously realise. It's how you fit colours together in Columns, or pop those bubbles in Bust-A-Move, or generally prevent your head from exploding while playing Warioware... Things may try to cause you pressure - getting faster, getting closer, getting bigger - and you can't stop and consider a move (otherwise it'd be Plot 4).

At its heart, this is all that drives the craze in music games like Rock Band - they are a form of Quick Time Event, just like those driving so many fight scenes in Shenmue - where you know you have to perform an action at just the right time... Stop and think, and you'll likely fail. It needs to be intuitive. Like fitting tetrominoes together.

6) Player aquisition

Success measured by getting something... It may be money, it may be items, it may be slightly more convoluted by making something, it may even be that poxy Amulet of Yendor which I never even got to sniff in years of playing Rogue-likes. Not that I'm bitter.

It could even be pursuing something more in the meta-game, such as points, or XP. Most RPGs do not rely on saying "you must be this level to enter" - rather, they are Plot 1 and Plot 2 cases, more pressing you to gain levels so you are able to survive and fight better. But not every fetch-and-run quest is about travelling; the crafting quests in games like Atlantica are completed when the key item is made, whether the materials involved looting bosses or simply visiting the market. The same goes for LotRO, and I suspect many, many other MMOs I've never had the time to experience...

... so are there others? Perhaps. I hope so. It would be a shame if a passive form of entertainment - story telling - could have more forms than an active one - gaming. We are supposed to be involved after all. Though perhaps the comparison is itself flawed. Games do need, and have, a sense of narrative, but the experience is obviously something different from being told a story*.

So, these individually or in combination together make up gaming. Except for whatever I may have missed... and if you see what that is, let me know! :)

* My original analogy was comparing games with stories to the small smile felt on seeing the sun for the first time after heavy rain... with a brick. Nothing to do with each other. But the difference isn't that severe - they also have a lot in common.


EDIT: I shall undoubtedly edit this as thoughts occur, opinions change, and games (hopefully) give me new experiences I never foresaw. The first two are more likely.

EDIT: ... and removed two unneeded paragraphs from the intro. Wow, I write too much.