GDC 2013: Monday

25 year old technique from Ron Gilbert. Ron actually calls them Dependency Charts

He's right, it IS my first GDC. 

Developed for Maniac Mansion

For purpose of talk, "puzzle" means anything you use to challenge the player. Boss fight, minimum level, etc.

Quick, barebones flowcharts

Separate game and story. Leave story out of the charts.

Use key in lock, don't describe finding key. 

"Cut story ruthlessly, then cut some more until you can't stand it. At that point it's probably about 2x as big as it should be." -Hal Barwood

Puzzle dependency lets you pare story back to essentials. Only what players need to know to care about the challenges in front of them.

"It's all keys and locks." - Ron Gilbert

Make it bushy: branch out, then choke back up. Give players a few things to work on, but have clear gates where all previous tasks must be complete.

Linear is easy, but blocks, chokes, and fails on weakest link while discouraging autonomy. 

Research Self Determination Theory

Bushy lets you gain skills and resources to solve the harder parallel puzzle. 

Linear overall, but bushy in chunks. 

Work backwards

Build ending first, figure out what player needs to know/have to get there. 

To make harder add multiple prerequisites for progress

To make easier add alternate paths

Strong, but expensive fixes

When stuck on story, look at mechanics, when stuck on mechanics, think story. 

More important that it feel real than be real. 

Real is often boring. 

Authentic = real - boring 

Research the real thing, identify the fantasy, expand from there. 

Three Main Sources of Reference:

Real

Experts - doing the job. don't use a glossary; you need context. 

Tangential - work with, have perspective. 

Approximate - similar, space miners? Use real miners and underwater welders. 

Get more than one. Get them comfortable and talking.

Hollywood (mainstream entertainment)

Be familiar with what most people expect from this genre, not slavish, but be aware. Writing cops? watch Law and Order. Writing vampire? At least know about Twilight. 

Fans

Fan forums. 

Tangential communities (air soft, larpers, D&D)

Borrow consciously. We can be more than interactive movies (Walking Dead was great, we can do other stuff)

Cutting makes sense in movies, is super disorienting in games. Breaks immersion, steals control. 

Games are more linear than film. 

Economy in dialog

A one off cool moment works in a movie. In a game it happens 100s of times. 

Let players make the cool moments. 

D&D teaches a lot about letting players drive the story. Drop the content, systems and GMs. 

He's pretty sure oral story telling is magic. 

Games are special because we have

Real time

Choices

Consequences

Responsive

Unique

Research topics:

We need more storytelling structures. We usually use:

Roller coaster

Retold (Tetris, madden)

Sandbox

Hybrid coaster (deus ex)

Procedural

Let's get better at non-combat ai. Why don't characters react to the weird or dumb stuff players always do? 

Sets not worlds. Smaller, more fully realized spaces over huge, poorly defined worlds.