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One of the most fantastic, often-referenced, television series ever created was a short, science-fiction/action series called "The Prisoner". No, I'm not talking about the recent remaked, I'm talking about the 1960's spy show that lasted all of 17 episodes, and whose creative spirit, design, and subversive message created an indelible mark on the counter-culture movement. One of the things that made the show so great, though, is that it is far more layered and subtle than the main premise - "No Man is a Number" - makes the show out to be. As games embrace more and more of the cinematic aspects of film, and attempt to create more important and thematic narratives, can games create this similar layered experience?
For those that have not seen the show, and since it has recently been rereleased on Blu-Ray, I highly recommend picking it up, the original version of "The Prisoner" is a true cult classic when it comes to early television, particularly in that attempts to explore the story-telling capabilities of a relatively new medium in which more and more money was being invested.
Sound familiar to anyone?
What makes "The Prisoner" such a profound work of fiction is more than its allegorical style, rife with symbolism and unique art and production design. It starts with an exceedingly simple concept: A spy resigns for no reason, is kidnapped, and someone wants to know why he resigned. Add to that each episode is so full of allegory and symbolism, and so eager to pose new questions without answering old ones that it makes the theories that abound around such recent shows as "Lost" seem practically banal by comparison. All of this was accomplished in 17 episodes - a summer filler in the current TV market.
It isn't that "The Prisoner" is a great universe for a game - to be honest, it isn't - the dilemma stems from the exceedingly layered universe that Patrick McGoohan created and that the conflict presented in the premise is an internal conflict represented allegorically by his struggles in the Village.
McGoohan, the creator, stated on more than one occasion that his goal with "The Prisoner" was to create something that people would want to talk about and carry away different meanings from each episode viewed. On that account, he succeeded, as the sheer volume of websites dedicate to the show continue to see traffic on the Internet.
What can we learn from the "The Prisoner" as developers, then?
Have A Clearly Defined, Simple Premise: This is the spine of your story structure, and without a clearly defined, explicit, fundamental concept upon which everything else turns, your story will fail. You must have this premise nailed down, and it must drive your protagonist and antagonist. Too often, game developers have a needlessly complex premise which requires further twisting and turning to fit the game mechanics around. Simplify Simplify Simplify.
Commit to Story Early: This is worthy of repeating, and the fact that it keeps coming up again and again shows that it is still a problem. Preproduction time is spent less on game story and universe than it is system design and proof of concept. As I was recently told: pick out some interesting locations, and the story will spring from it. I think that is a rather "cart before the horse" mentality - write a great story first, and use that as an inspiration for locations.
Eschew Game Immediacy: Games are exceedingly emphemeral.
Developers never know if their titles are going to be even a modest
hit, let alone picked up for a sequel. Don't think that way - the most
compelling game universes are deep, explained, rational, even if the
rationale behind their existance is unknown.
Embrace Subtlety: So concerned are game developers that their story or message is lost in the gameplay that whatever message they want to present is shoved in their face. Establish the rules of the story and the game universe with the
assumption that the player will appreciate the complexity of your
creation, even if it is not explicitly presented to them. Layer in allegory, hint at deeper complexity, and let your players fill in the blanks.
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I think part of the problem... is that by nature, designers are just used to being in creative charge of the game. A storyline written before the game? That's just a way of taking creative freedom away from them. Stupid, I know.
But, still, even if the story is written first, designers NEED to make sure that the game represents the story well. One example: Modern Warfare 2. I have it on direct authority that the storyline for the game makes absolute sense on paper. Unfortunately, they failed miserably in making background connections within the scope of the game, making the story confusing and convoluted (can anyone truly explain why the patriotic Shepherd gets pissed enough to nuke his own country?)
Another side of this discussion is pretty exclusively in the game category. Games have the unique ability to allow people to form and develop the story according to whatever choices they make. I'm not just talking about multiple endings, but a fully dynamic system of action and consequences (Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain? Anyone?). Designers should believe in the power of their players to make their own decisions, as opposed to trying to lead them by the nose every minute.
Good subject.
Another example of simple=better is Star Wars. Many fans were pissed when they found out what powered the Force--metasomthingorother. It went from spiritual mystery of power to biological weapon.
Gamers tend to have decent imagination. We can, and will, fill in the blanks.
One point I might question is the idea of story first, locations second. It's possible that games might be different from novels in this respect. But I've read comments from several writers who assert that they created the map first and let the story flow from that, and they're glad they did it that way. Tolkien said, "If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards." And the late David Eddings said he deliberately did much the same thing when setting out to write what became _The Belgariad_.
On the subject of logical consistency... phew. I can't count the number of conversations I've had with Gamers who insisted that any effort spent on internal consistency is at best a nice-to-have, that it should only be undertaken in whatever time remains after the really important stuff -- the numbers-driven gameplay -- has been completed (i.e., never). But I have never been able to accept that because I've seen what fully-realized worlds look like, and they're vastly more interesting and memorable and enjoyable. So I emphatically support the concept of finding someone who's capable of seeing large-scale relationships between the parts and the whole, and letting that person bring the elements of the gameworld into coherence. All the bits should work together to add up to a whole that's more than the sum of its parts, and the whole thing ought to give more meaning to each individual bit that a player encounters. To quote Tolkien again: "The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside."
Finally, on simplification, there's what the poet Archilochus said: "The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one great thing." Perhaps game designers should be more like hedgehogs -- find one great thing and then iterate the hell out of it. I suspect it's likely that this approach was a crucial element in the positive critical response that games like Portal and Braid continue to receive.
In rerereading my post, it looks like I need to fire my copy editor :)
I'm not sure all of what The Prisoner covers could be easily translatable, but the premise sure is.
Bart mentioned Tolkien, but I think it's worth remembering that Tolkien was a professor of linguistics, first and foremost, and he wanted to create a language. Middle Earth and the stories from it came about as a result of creating the language, and as a method to present the language to the public. Linguists know that language and culture cannot be treated separately, and that's really where Middle Earth (and various other works, too) come from.
Joshua mentioned Halo and I generally agree about the first game (that's the only one I really play, and only single player). However, it's also worth remembering that Halo is simply Bungie's presentation of the concepts from Larry Niven's Ringworld series, a Hugo and Nebula award winning franchise that began in the 1970s and that was itself part of his larger "Known Space" stories. It bothers me that I have not heard Bungie admit this source for their work, but the inspiration is obvious to anyone familiar with Ringworld and its sequels, even down to using some of the same concepts such as directions on the Ringworld (downspin and upspin). In fact, Niven's Ringworld concept was inspired by earlier scientific suggestions of a method to overcome population, energy and resource pressures, the Dyson Sphere proposed by Freeman Dyson.
Perhaps that's why LotR, like The Prisoner, is still with us. The primary creators of both of those worlds cared enough to spend time making sure that everything fit the core premise.
That doesn't mean that Developers should treat them so ephemerally - looking at HALO, there is an exceptionally large game bible, outlining the extensive lore of the universe, that is - last I heard, well over 200 pages. That commitment to the background of the universe and world can be seen in the game you play - the world feels richer than it really is.