Picture a cave. It’s dark outside, but the smooth rock surrounding you provides comfort from the elements. A fire crackles before you, and the flickering, warm glow illuminates shadowy figures seated in a circle around it. Someone clears their throat, the storyteller begins to weave a tale, and as the threads of the story grip your imagination, reality fades away. Thus it has been since the dawn of time…

All terribly epic isn’t it? But the fact is that mankind has told stories for thousands of years. Gaming is just the latest evolution of the narrative method, but is it more Spot the Dog and Jackass: The Movie than War & Peace and Schindler’s List?

Where’s Spot: A tale of love, loss, war and the desperate nature of the human condition.

Gaming narratives will inevitably be compared to books and films, as they are the other significant storytelling mediums, and game-makers over the years have clearly taken inspiration from both of them when trying to tell a story. Can gaming ever live up to the tale-telling heights of other media? Should it be trying to?

I would argue that games should not necessarily try to be more ‘cinematic’, as this implies that the best games should aspire to be just like a film. Although as a primarily visual medium, gaming has more in common with movies than books. The interactivity of gaming is what defines it and what separates it from other artistic forms, and it’s also what gives it the potential to be so much better at creating a story that involves the player.

To look at how gaming stories are distinct from those of films or books, we need to first explore the many different types of gaming story. There are games where the gameplay dictates progression in the game; most First-Person Shooters would fall into this category. In these titles the story is usually nothing more than a backdrop to give the player motivation. The player still can make base-level choices, such as which weapons to use, or how to beat that boss, but they can have no real effect on the story or the way in which the game is played. Platformers such as Mario titles, and even Point-and-Click adventure games would also fall into this category, and in many ways this is the simplest gaming experience. All that exists is the goal, the way to achieve that goal, and the challenge of getting there.