Environmental storytelling is often accompanied with flavor text or a narrator describing their surroundings to the player. Visual and audio clues come together to help guide a narrative forward.
But without spoken word or text, how can designers convey information about a game's story through the environment?
In this 2016 GDC session, Tiger Style's Randy Smith discusses how the story of Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon supports intertwining plot threads of multiple characters and interactive, solvable mysteries all without text or a single line of dialogue.
Smith also provides specific examples of the successes and failures encountered during development, drawing on lessons learned during his previous experiences in environmental storytelling.
Narrative designers interested in learning the environmental storytelling techniques behind Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!
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