Building a Paper Prototype For Your Narrative Design

[Music] All right. Hello everybody. Um, as Tom said, I'm Jamie Anton, and uh, today I'm going to talk with you a little bit about narrative paper prototyping. Uh, this talk is going to have three main parts. Um, first I'm going to be talking about uh, the problems that a narrative paper prototype is designed to solve. Sort of why prototype for narrative and uh, what a narrative prototype is. I'm going to talk you through a building process, how you can actually make a narrative paper prototype effectively, and I'm going to uh finish up with just a couple notes on running, fixing, and using that prototype you've created to improve your final game. Uh, first, a little bit about me. I'm a game designer and a writer. I'm working at uh Disney I have a great job at Disney digital publishing. I make interactive children's story books and apps. Um, but that's that's my current job. Um, that's

not everything that I've done. I I've had a lot of different um I've sort of made many different kinds of games over the years that cover a wide range of interests. Um, first, I've made games that allow players to uh be creative with their choices. I've been really interested in games that create positive and lasting player outcomes. I've worked in games for health and games for change. Um, I've worked on a few games where the focus was to really generate powerful and unexpected experiences for the player. Whether that's fear, as in hush, uh, delight and happiness, as in my work with, uh, Matt Corban Winterbottom, uh, or tranquility or sorrow, or some weird mix of emotions, as in, uh, the game The Pond. Um, and I've also been really interested in games that connect players to story in new and interesting ways. So, uh, in this process the I'm, as you can see, I'm sort of interested in games that don't fit right into a clear mold. I'm interested in innovating a little

bit. And to do that, I've really turned to paper prototyping. And I'm huge on this concept of paper prototyping as a way to make great games. Um, so first of all, let's define our terms. This is pretty this is pretty basic, but what is a prototype? A prototype is a mockup or draft of a potential game. Um, and it's made to sort of sort of narrow the risk of making something that doesn't work. Let's say I wanted to buy a tuxedo. Um, but I but I'm not sure if it's really going to work for me. I'm not sure if it's going to be um if it's going to be a good investment. This shirt is sort of my prototype of a tuxedo. Um, it is focused. So, so the the tuxedo shirt is not focused, but um a prototype, a good one, is usually focused on a core aspect of the experience. I guess in this case, just this is the core of the tuxedo. Um it's playable. Tuxedo is not playable, but um but a game prototype is um and

it's playable so that um you know, you basically want to make sure that people can really test it out. um it's made quickly and it's basically a disposable practice run of a larger project. Um so here's something that you might be used to seeing as prototypes. This is a this is a very common prototypes and games. It's it's something that's used a lot. Uh the digital sandbox. It's something that game makers use to early on determine the game feel. you sort of put players in a area with not much art with pieces of the game all over the place and just see how they interact with the controls and you figure out the moment to moment and what feels good and that is incredibly important. Um, but it doesn't tell you everything about the experience of a game. In fact, there's a lot that that prototype doesn't tell you. Um, it really focuses on that single moment of first contact with the game where you're sort of feeling through and excited by this notion of,

"Oh, I can jump and swing my sword." Um, it's goal-f free. It's free of context. And, uh, it doesn't really address this larger experience of a game. It doesn't address the game's narrative. Um, so before I go too far into that statement, I'm going to talk about what's a game narrative. And I'm sure that there is there are many different answers to that question in this room since we're at the narrative summit. Um, but I'm going to take a stab at what I think a game narrative is. And bear with me for a moment. Um, first I'm going to sort of point out the traditional narrative. This is going to be very reductive. In a traditional narrative, in books, in uh TV, in movies, uh, a hero is often called to action and through a series of events, they strive to overcome challenges in order to achieve a goal. Um, and why is this an audience really in they really enjoy these narratives that you see this form uh this sort of basic structure in all sorts of

narratives that audiences relate to. Um, and why? Because they can step inside the shoes of one of at least one of these characters. They can empathize and suddenly they feel like they're they get the rush of that they're overcoming a challenge and they get the excitement of trying to achieve a goal. Um, in a game narrative, it's a little bit like this traditional narrative structure, but it's a little bit different as well. In a game narrative, the player is performing the actions that influence events, and they're learning to master a system and rules that you put in front of them to achieve their goal. So, basically, a game narrative structure, the player is the hero. And I just want to emphasize that because that's really important. the player is the hero. Um, so a lot of games take a lot of time to try to uh create an association between an avatar and the player. They try to make you feel like you are this collection of

pixels. You're Mario. You're Batman. You're Cubert. Um, but the avatar is not the hero. The avatar's story is completely directed by an outside force. It's the player that is chasing a goal that's in their head, overcoming challenges that have a uh that feel real to them. It's the player that's taking the action. It they are the hero of the game narrative. Um so now that we've talked a little bit about game narrative and prototyping, I'm going to talk a little bit about narrative prototyping for narrative. Um which is not the normal mode of game prototyping. Um but it is extremely popular and useful in other storytelling mediums. Um, so in books, um, before an author spends months or years trying to create, uh, sort of write a story, they'll often go to an outline or to some notes because

they want to do a smaller risk write up to see if their narrative, the narrative that they have planned, makes sense. Um, in filmer TV now we have a uh a medium that's a little bit more complicated. Um, and there are a couple prototypes. First, there's a script which is just getting the ideas down on the page, seeing if the ideas make sense in themselves. And then once you've gotten through that big risk, you go to the next level of risk. Does this do these ideas make sense visually? You create a storyboard. In animated films, um, there are it's an even more complex medium. there's so many technical steps between the idea and the final product and uh basically it's it's a much bigger production. So prototypes get even more important script storyboard then an animatic where you see how it all this storyboard looks set up in a camera so that you're not wasting time on shots that don't matter. Um, all these pro all of these narrative prototypes addressed huge risks and then smaller and smaller

risks that these elaborate ideas that people have for their stories only make sense in their head. So games as a narrative medium are undeniably complex. They have everything that uh animated movies have and more. You have to make all your pieces from scratch very often for this very literal presentation. turn an idea to art and sound and animation and logic. Um, but that's not the biggest risk in your game narrative. The biggest risk and unknown in games is the player. Um, so if your premise and goals and choices and challenges don't make sense to the player, if they don't line up, then you're sunk. Um, because the hero doesn't is not interested in continuing on this journey. So, let's put the hero in the narrative as cheaply as possible, as early as we can. Um, basically, I think it's really useful when you're addressing this risk of games as a narrative to create a

narrative prototype, a playable and flexible outline of the premise, the rules, the events, and the choices that's made to answer some really fundamental question of what's the hero's journey for the player. Do all your pieces fit together into a compelling experience? And does it all make sense? So, that's a big question. That's a really heavy question to try to tackle. Um, and architecting something like that digitally seems to me at least a bit overwhelming. Uh, because we want this narrative prototype to be flexible and to be something that uh that players can interact with in a sort of fluid way. We wanted to have lots of small in sort of address a bunch of the features that you see from your larger game and uh respond to the player intelligently. Um in code trying to build a prototype like this would be could itself become a cumbersome and overreaching mess like Matrix Reloaded.

Um and but um so that is why I suggest doing a narrative prototype on paper. Paper is quick and easy and disposable. It allows for improvisation and imagination. Basically, if your game is a show starring the player, the easiest way to get them engaged early is to basically create this little narrative paper prototype. Set up a cardboard TV essentially and invite them inside. Or put another way, make your narrative outline as a board game. Uh, so you might have one or two of two reactions at this point. You might be saying, "Oh, cool. Okay, I'll get started." Or you might be saying, "Okay, I have no idea how to do that. I don't know how to make a narrative outline as a game." Um, I've done this a lot. I've done this for a few different projects. And so, I'm going to walk you through my steps for creating um for creating a narrative prototype effectively. Um, the first thing is what you want before you get started. And

this is this is a set of the things that you really need to have before you begin prototyping. You need an idea, which is pretty obvious. You need an idea that you're excited about for a game and a willingness to expand it. Um, second thing, believe it or not, I would say for a narrative prototype is you need a deadline. And I try to make this thing quickly if I can because it it should be disposable. It will change. Um, I spent at most 3 days or a hundth of my total time frame on this prototype. You need some people who are willing to make this thing. That's probably you. Um, and you can have someone else work on this with you, too, but I'd say one or at most two people should be involved in the actual construction of a prototype. If you have a lot of collaborators, that doesn't mean that you can't brainstorm and come up with ideas beforehand, but the people that are doing the building, you want to keep that small because you have such a short time frame and want ideas to be really pure and clean. Um, and you want some simple supplies. Um, so a couple things that are important here. little

dry erase board is can be very useful. Um, playing cards, a couple pieces from old board games. Post-it notes are great because they're sticky but not too sticky. You can move them around. Um, but basically most of this stuff you're going to either have around or you're going to be able to get when you need it. Um, you also based on your idea, you need some narrative reference points. At least one game that has real similarities to your idea and thoughts about its player narrative. Um you so this is a game where the premise or the mechanics or something is really in line and where you um and where you've played through the game. You don't need to like the game that you're that is your narrative reference point, but you should have thoughts about what you went through as a player in that game. So last is second to last is a personal storytelling experience. And this is a little bit touchyfey. Um, but you really want a time to uh look back at a time when you felt engaged and empowered as a

storyteller. You want to look for your comfort zone as a storyteller and hold on to that because you're going to use that later. Um, for you this may be telling a story around a campfire, telling a joke or to a laughing audience or painting a picture. But me, I always think um personally about being 10 years old and my first experience with role playing games. So, my friends and I didn't have rule books. Um, but I made up a pretend world. My friends made up characters and we rolled dice and told collaborative stories that are it's still this place of warmth and comfort where I feel like anything is possible when I think back at that time. Um, so finally, of course, you need that focus on the central question of game nar narrative as you go forward and as you get ready to make this thing. You want to keep this about how the premise, rules, and actions come together to uh create a player story. you're not testing um the the mechanics, the look and feel or the game balance. That's gonna and you want to keep in mind that those are not what's on the table here. Um so once you have that all ready, um

basically my first step is an initial write up. I lay out the narrative elements of my game. These can be notes. Uh they can be totally informal. They only have to make sense to you. And I'll go through these pieces in the order that I like to use because this is the order that makes sense to me. Uh, first of all, the premise. This is the going to be the most fun part of this write up. Just go nuts. Write down everything that's exciting to you about your game. Um, so you know, you you might be like, "Oh, um, my game is is this world where story to where stories come to life and there are luck dragons and rock biters and empresses." Um, write all the stuff that you think is really exciting, but only uh do this for about 10 minutes because that'll force you to stick with the things that you think are most exciting and important. And it'll cut you off because if you don't do this, you could waste a lot of time just writing down exciting things about your game uh before you get to the meat of it, which is the player. Um, the second thing is putting the player in that

world. Think about the player role. Um, does the player actually assume a role in the game? Are we going to put them in the shoes of a character in the narrative? Are they going to be John Malkovich? Um, how much of an identity are we asking them to take on here? Or are they really just playing the game as themselves? This is the second question you want to answer. Um, the goals of the player. So, what's the carrot on the stick? What's pulling them through the experience? Uh, so I always go back to um Scrooge McDuck. Man, Scrooge is so great. Scrooge loves getting money. And you might think that that is his goal. It's nice. It's simple. But money itself is not his goal. His goal is to get all this money and then to swim around in a huge pile of his own money. Like most players, his goal is experiential. There's an experience that he wants to get out of this. And uh your players are going to be the same way. Um conflict. So what obstacles are in the way of that

goal in your story? What are the barriers to efficient victory? And I say efficient victory because a player can play your game for as long as they are intrigued by it. Um, so Cisphus here, his goal is to get the rock up the mountain. And his conflict is with gravity. And for some reason, he keeps on playing this game. It's compelling to him. I don't know why. Um, so also, so then we start to get into more of the meat of where narrative comes in. Player choices. Jot down um the the big interactive choices. And basically, this is where you want to look at in the abstract, big picture, what is the player trying to do? Are these choices tough? Are they meaningful, like deciding whether or not to get on that plane? Um are they strategic? Or are they more tactical? Is it more a matter of who to aim at and who to shoot in a moment? Um these are all choices. and whether they're large or small, you want to write them down. And you also want to write down actions

here. Um, so actions and choices, that's sort of a fine grain distinction, but think about it in terms of this one-man band. His choices are where to play and when to play, and his actions are this, his player verbs, his guitar, his symbols, uh, his his drum kit. Um, when he plays those things, those are his playing the drums, playing the guitar, those are his verbs. um resources. So, this is where you've talked a lot about what the player can do, and this is where you draw the first clear connection between your world and your player. What in the world can the player use? Um, and these these resources should be simple to understand, if possible, but elegant. Uh, you know, in Monopoly, Monopoly is, you know, a little bit maligned as a game. Um, but the as a resource, Monopoly money is great. It's um it gives an opportunity to the player. It provides information when you look around and see how much money people have compared to how much you have. And uh it also limits your actions in a

challenging way when you don't have the money you need. Um so for the final element of we're going to talk go a little farther into the world in the story and uh we're going to outline our game events. Now you don't want to think about this as a formal system of rules. Not yet. We still want to keep it high level and think about what sort of changes are taking place. Are these changes regular and predictable or are they, you know, or are they clockwork or are they big and dramatic? Put in biblical terms. Does it rain twice a week in your world or is there a flood on the way that's going to hit at hour two? Um, these are the things you want to think about. So, now that you've done that, you've sort of written down some elements in this area that crosses that's formal and informal. you've sort of laid out narrative elements of your game and uh you've thought about how the player is going to interact with that world. So now it's time to start building out your story. Doing this well may take you back into your right of to make changes and that's okay. Um but I

want to go through a couple examples of games that do this well. Um as and a couple principles that I think really work. First of all, when you're thinking about story, you want to think about how you're going to show the player your goal. in journey you see the mountain with the light and you don't need to be told to go there you know if you can make something like that fantastic um give meaning to rules in your game this is a screen from Dino Run um which is a game where you know the rules are pretty simple you're it's a little running game and there's a timer that where if you fall too far behind you're going to have to restart but story was used to really narrativeized this goal in a really interesting way. In Dino Run, an asteroid hits and you have a wall of destruction. This is sort of the extinction level event coming up from behind you. Staying one step ahead of that is much more interesting than a timer. Um, use characters uh if if you can. Now, people are funny. They see

characters everywhere and once they start seeing characters, they start caring. Use that. Um, characters can be goals. Keep Clem safe. Characters can be resources. In classic JRPGs, your options uh for play are personified as characters. And characters can be conflict. Now, sometimes a character can work as many uh in many narrative elements as once, which is fantastic. Like like Donkey Kong, he's a source of conflict. I mean, he's holding your goal, this damsel in distress. He and but he's also throwing obstacles in your path. He's also disappearing back up the level and driving you onwards for a long-term goal. He's such a central part of the game narrative that even though he's not the playable charact he's not playable, the game is named after him. The game is not called Mario. It's called Donkey Kong. Um because this character is so key to the understanding of the story. Um finally, you've got your story events that you've been interested in, the things that happen. Try to tie them into the player's actions as much as possible, the things that you know the player will be doing.

Um and that will make them meaningful. So, uh, finally now, um, you want to cut story points that don't do any of these things, that don't reinforce or showcase goals, call the player to action, give them feedback, or provide a break or reward. Um, I think I don't have as much time as I think I do, so I'm going to keep I'm going to go fast. Um, okay. So, next, drafting the rules. Um, basically, when you're figuring out the rules of the game, now that you've got the elements, now that you figure out the story, remember you're playing as the computer. So, keep these rules simple. Remember, you're not testing mechanics. Um, so if you can substitute, but you can substitute a challenge for another moment of excitement and test different outcomes. If you can do that, that's great. So, dice are a good simple way to do this. They may not be the same test that a to a player as combat, but they can provide that little challenging moment. But let's say you really want to test a player's skill to some degree. All right, you can do that. Um, let's say you think it's important for the game

narrative to um, basically test their accuracy as a shooter as a shooter will do. So, okay, make a little micro prototype. Put up a dart board and make that a little part of your game. And, uh, success or failure can can sort of depend on where they hit on the dart board. Um, so rules will be different for every game, but there's one more thing I want to emphasize. You may be simplifying a actions, but you want to keep the elements of choice strong in your game, or else the player is not going to be doing anything in this narrative prototype. Um, identify your most important cho choice points and figure out what's behind either door. Um, so now it's time to actually start building. And I'm going to rush through this because it's pretty straightforward. Choose your pieces. Um, and use simple, familiar materials. As I said before, um, one quick note, don't use anything too light. Um, so you're going to be tempted to draw on paper and just like make a little resource that way, but once you start playing these games, that's going to go all over the place. Weight it down on something like

a coin or it'll scatter. Um, making the board. So, uh, so your final step is setting up a space that's going to abstractly for the player represent their world or more accurately their screen. Um, this is your game board and you want it to have weight. You want it to be flexible and sticky, and you want it to have some simplicity and focus to it as well. You really don't want to over complicate this with the UI elements that you'll need down the road. Just think about what the player needs in that space. So, now we've got a premise, a goal, a board to play on, resources uh that the players can use to achieve their goals, choices, rules that create conflicts and opportunities, and events that affect and inform play. Um, so I know I started a little bit late, so I'm going to keep on going for a minute or two. Um, you guys can obviously leave if you want. Um, so finalizing your prototype. Um, basically what you, um, what you need to do now

that you've created this formal system, so it makes sense to you, is build out your presentation. And this is where you're using that comfort, that comfortable place, that storytelling place that um really makes you feel like you're conveying a good story. Um so for some of you it may be visual or written or some performative, but this is where you're figuring out how to communicate those rules and systems to the player. You're presenting that. Um, now that you've done that presentation, it's you're ready finally to start rehearsing the running of this prototype. Phase one, run the prototype on yourself. Uh, you want to be able to do one successful solo run if possible. It has to be possible. You need to do a successful run on your own. And uh just see this as a conversation between you, the uh the developer who's made this game and knows all the rules and you the player who knows nothing about this game. Um you're going to find that you

missed a lot of things. That's okay. Um you can just expect perfection, fix those mistakes, run it again. Um, phase two, once you've gotten a successful run yourself, do a uh do a rehearsal with someone who will love you, even if you totally flub the entire thing. Uh, you want to leverage their patience to work out the kinks in those presentation elements that you uh that you put together. Um, and then once that has worked and you've got the presentation worked out and you figured out from the first play testers, this person you love, what is really unclear, now it's time to bring in some people whose opinion of this prototype really does matter. Bring back your conspirators, the uh, so either the collaborators or people whose opinions you trust. Um, and this is pretty obvious. Just um, just listen to this feedback. Oh, am I Am I cut off? Okay. Um, great. Listen. Listen to their feedback and look at what they

enjoyed, what's fun, frustrating, boring, or unclear, and adjust that prototype as you prepare for play testing. Um, God, Deborah did such a good job talking about play. You know, I was so cool talking about deeper user testing. This stuff is going to be very light. I'm just going to wrap up on this. Um, I used to have a list of questions here. I got rid of it. Um, I will put it up on the GDC vault, but um, write down a few questions beforehand because you won't want to think about them afterwards. Um, you want to write down questions and also if you can, you want to think about recording the play tests. Um, do vid use video if possible. Uh, but you need to get permission from play testers. And, uh, if you want to improve your presentation style, point the camera at yourself. And if you want to improve your game, you're going to learn a lot more though by turning the camera on. to someone else. So, play testing um it's I'm just going to sort of roll through that because that's super basic stuff about what it means to play test. And uh but the real important

thing here is this is not a scientific play test. It doesn't matter if your variables are all super clean and you're think and every all your ducks are lined up in the road. This is something that you this is a crucible, a trial by fire to make your game better. So, you can improvise if uh if you you listen for choices from the player. Um, allow them to skip things that that you believe they could skip. And if they have a smart suggestion, if they want to grab the mic and say, "Hey, this is what I want to do. Incorporate it into your play. Just let it happen. Um, and see if it improves the game as long as it doesn't seem like it's going to mess up the game too much. But whatever you do in those play tests, um, just note it so that you know, so that you have a sort of log of those changes. So people are polite. So have a third party uh ask questions for you and also set aside time to review. Again, another really basic thing. So almost done here. Um so once you've got all that, you've got play test notes and you want to look at the biggest problem with your prototype.

Is the goal unclear? Is it too hard? Uh is it are there dead ends in the gameplay? Is it just not that awesome? This prototype, that's the nice thing about the fact that you made this thing in 3 days. It's disposable. Um, figure out some bold solutions to your problems, discard, kill your darlings, and try again. Um, so when you finally achieve something that feels like a narrative outline that is interesting and exciting to players, there's a couple ways you can do go. You can expand that prototype. You can generalize because you're going to learn a lot from having someone run that prototype on you. So that's a matter of getting the rules in sort of a really formal setup so that you can be a player of your game which will be useful later on. But you can also use this narrative outline. It's it's sort of this if if your collaborators and everyone all feels like yeah this is the game we want to make. This is an extraordinary production tool. Um you can bust it out into asset lists into think about the animations and and all the pieces that

uh that you were sort of need to create as part of this game. And then you're also going to see some areas where this narrative obviously where the uh narrative outline this paper prototype you made really hasn't um where it where it's it's really not addressing issues. So then shift your focus. Maybe it is now time for that digital sandbox. Um so go back and prototype the next big question in your game. So that's all a lot of stuff. It's a lot of work. Even though it's disposable and quick, it's a lot to do. Why do I go through this process? Why do I think about it this deeply? Uh, basically because a narrative paper prototype is going to help me save time and money. It helps me see if my premise, rules, and choices are compelling to see if the piece if the pieces fit together coherently. It helps me form a shared vision of this whole game with my collaborators as early as possible. It shows me, of course, the player's perspective, but most of all, because it can turn early

development, which can be very difficult and unsure, into a fun and empowering experience. Thank you.