Game Narrative Summit: Conflict, Mystery, and Connection in Casual, Free to Play Puzzle Games

I released super that and I'm the owner of net games this is Anthony and originally this was supposed to be a preview of my talk for the Game Developers Conference in a couple of weeks you may know that it was cancelled because so it's no longer preview for me to deliver a talk and since I've been working especially over the last year to develop this team of awesome people and in that spirit I invited them to come in and join the talk with me especially since the games that we are going to showcase tonight they're the ones to know more about them than I do at this point which is we're going to talk about

three things that we discuss with our clients absolutely every day conflict mysteries connection we work mainly on casual free play puzzle games although that's starting to change as we branch out into other areas so a little bit about us we're a storytelling focus to do so we're primarily writers we do something called the sine of story in games which gets to be a fairly technical skill because you have the gameplay of the story that needs to be integrated so that's a focus and yes we do have shirts matching shirts we wear them there in the Sun they're short-sleeved they're in the summer box so these are our services they are for science Trek concepts dialogue strips and in-game text storyboard cutscenes

and voiceover I'm tascam quest closed fractions I have an empty choice pack suspect so even though Anthony has a fantastic voice we are actually not the voice-over actors in addition to this crew of the whole time we have for other people to part-time writers we just have full sail university here locally in the English department yay graduated and - voiceover actors who work out of their home studios on the east and west coast for us one of whom is someone here born raised in st. Louis who just went out to LA and he was becoming a famous actress so pretty new story I think the first thing or notes hard was conflict how many of you think conflicts bad early good well from this constantly just today in fact we're working with an IP

that will not be mentioned and we had the kind of school them on this idea you know if you want story this is matching to mansion which is kind of our free burden it's what everyone wants and when they come to us for services it made eleven million dollars in revenue in January in the very beginning of this game you have your bestie to me who comes up she's encouraging you because all the story so this is the restoration game we're going to fix up a mansion the first thing that happens is that door falls down so that's your little first bit of conflict it's not having conflict but it's enough it makes it exciting for you actually because you were drawn to this game to fix up that mansion so you know we're gamers you like problems there's a

problem the next thing we do is have a bad guy show up I know this seems like story 2101 but a lot of developers don't have any bad guys in their character side so when Tiffany fights back conflict occurs and that's a great thing his name is Rex Houston of course and the fact that he has a claim on the mansion because he was related to the person who gave it to you threatens the very reason you were brought to this game right to fix up that mansion so it's a little more than making the place pretty you are there to keep it from Rex and keep it from getting time to go to sleep so it just gives you a little more motivation these are the hooks that all the points became it also provides us a

way to give us seamless and native integration which can be a little bit awkward and nice on mobile games now you don't always have to have a limit this guy mustache twitching so obvious but sometimes those obvious especially when you're doing something news and came out three and a half years ago and in its genre it had no one had done so we needed something a little obvious to kind of school those players you have another game which will also have a story you're so filling you know how this works and now that that influence was boss so you don't have to have that though sometimes the bad guy isn't all bad and so we went a little further with the game lilies garden which in terms of revenue is just under magic team and it

came out in spring of 2019 and it is making about eighty million dollars and all of us upon sensor tower so it's not like super information this guy Philip Jones is not the most any actually has mustache but he's not twitching it it's not so much he is here to explain that there's a little more work you have to do you can't just fix up the mansion and there's a condition right a special condition so you have to restore the entire garden to his former glory in 30 days and this is the way that a character he never appears on screen she's a great aunt reaches from the grave to put the big oscillate you have to do the impossible so when this pans back and you see the

whole oldest old garden area that's a pretty tall order and of course there are other obstacles that come across you so this guy is an interesting character in that he's not going to sabotage you or anything like that he isn't really on your side though he means business another way deal with us we start working on a game called wild things that was time and Wow things a kid can't you remember something something soft lunch but in this case you can an antagonist or villain that is known of course not an actual character that appears in the game in this case a storm arises and destroys the land storm is part of that intense and you're you're attempting to stop the damage or

reparative efforts by this storm and then and so your role is as having this guardian angel country there and they choose you good answer while enhancing and attempt to thwart the evil designs that are evil and this is your attention tell me what you casting you have to go down to this one we'll just yet so this is a new release game I'm give out five by five right here in st. Louis you throw an ultra typing

story the places spelling the big roller coaster tycoon game as you may be occasions also different I would have anything out story and that what graphite lab babies when they came goes great the story they had a set of predetermined like main characters but the one thing they're missing was the billing so that was the first day of guy community develop us some kind of feeling character that would be a central source of conflict of the party and that care except they were saying he's your guy trip to my clique kicked me Matthew to man changing he's speaking out there for me landfill area and this is a part that's that you're on gather for years as Khomeini think he is distracted dump this trash there is no exact don't serve care I mean the big thing about being fellated is a lot of times in these games you kind of start out the game with your guide character coming across and beating this big antagonistic character but in this game Sam he's already known that cool area they've already been kind of duking it out for years and what really makes Ling feel very different is that by the time the

player starts the game the players already blank Valerius big thing is like he wants this part for himself those marks attorney in Atlanta but simply just like starting the game the player who's already bought that part they've already beaten landfill and by taking the part away from him making him at his most desperate simply because he just started the game painful and he's this kind of central character to where he's not immediately in the game at starting these characters type diabetes garbage so I when he does show up makes a pretty big impact that takes us to the next ultimate story time and that is a mystery concerning on the roller coaster tycoon that was absolutely key to building that story yeah so another thing about these kind of diamonds that they blend a lot so no one who's roller coaster tycoon have big st. agnus and insightful source of conflict for those

antagonist can overlap with the history which we see with the other care dragon can use called The Phantom and the Phantom was my own personal Scooby you like feeling some mass kind of Austin character that goes around sabotaging the park and he brings this resource of mystery because it's stretched out her entire University seasons the game they gotta know who he is is just a little whisper as little people like oh and you see the phantom running around and the big they know the Phantom it is on that you have this mascot character we have a little tighter right big bumbling panda bear on the icon of the game was there where you see the source of all fun and love and inspiration of the park and by the end of the game to find out that little Tyler he's the Phantom and you just go along this big mystery not only that he's a don't put why and like something only discovered like he gave himself so in weapons this year course

we still have this huge storm destroyed wild lands why wishing right from the very beginning Liam hints that he filled with some sort of guilt waters that he has some sort of Hillary had must must have had some sort of role and you don't know and you show up and you are the keeper which is that what they call these studying ancient characters and you've come across the enemies disheveled and dirty from the store here we need to see whether they're better than so when you're doing this year you're giving the whole layer of mysteries and flat bangs right so first and most obvious it's it's just

what the storm what caused it come from then after that it's the question of meaningful well I suppose Liam's rolling its events what went wrong in general why why did this come about all this it was there some force behind it was there something that was done there so the high part of it inhabitants and then what can you do as that Lola people what can you do to repair the wildlands and relationship with the animals with each other and finally because very early on Liam shows some fear from over the counters these spirits as you begin to question over or can be spiritually trusted do they have an alternative gym that I was actually good ones and some new ones what's that spirit one on one and finally what is this world all about what is the central theme of this book what's going on

so then there's a one interesting aspect to out things that's a little bit different and that is police was a hero he doesn't want you just solve mystery doesn't want a mystery to solve so Liam are a hero or medic main character has his best bestest buddy and other elephants and Emma has no guilt whatsoever all of she knows is something terrible happened to the world she lives and she wants to know who caused it why why did it happen how do chimera so she comes to to these when they encounter you you come across these Turtles that they had a whole bunch of books from Alondra and and these books really think we can figure out what went on with do some research Liam doesn't really want anyone to figure out what happened so he duplex he

tells her you know this is actually important but our main goal here is to help help out the other creatures in the wild map so we need to focus on that and these these are our eternal characters they are very slow because they're so slow they usually only speak in one-word sentences these very long with pocket of workers and that's why you get but somehow they so mention communicate but it works right you know Liam says we should help the turtles turtles are very sad because the area's been devastated and Emma crisis which is like your your effort that's not that's not going to be searched let's help these troubles so then comes the role of another game had work that called Sweet Escape and yeah the game's Jess's game is all about sweets making sweets and eating sweets UFOs a group of adorable talking animals is to go around going from sweet shop to sweet

shop kinda fix things up but when you get into these three states is that it has this originally initially prominent like antagonistic there for me plus and Buzz is the expected we're gonna allow them go to a shop and tell he's approved it which means case test me about everything they make and eating everything for they have a chance and so the main difference about buzz though is like he has a role of mystery because he has a is entirely owned secret role he's not just the inspector he's something else and that's something that players eventually start to learn and find out by the end up receiving which lips buzz kind of background to the other good guys side lastly we have connection which may not sound on the surface as something related to story but just hang on there first thing we notice is the characters connecting to each other is something that flavors value so it is instance be surprised how many players

even though they're drawn to this as a renovation game all this G's meet the neighbors over blame or floor part of that is because we're drawn to faces we have taped or photos of people things but it's also because this is an exciting idea that character in the darkened we other characters that the world that we're playing in us is people in this case we've got Edna who shows us a valuable lesson that connection can sometimes be difficult she's not necessarily the friendliest roadblock oh and I wanted to say what the steering is also introducing a feature into the game so remember it to the end of the talk I talked about how the goal and the story or the gameplay and the story have to be

integrated together so this is a really really good example and talked to your game or that's happening to good effect so Edna comes in and it's an interesting quickie moment where you're getting to learn that this place is people with some interesting characters you may be challenging but it's also introducing the feature of visiting another person's mansion so here you have a random person that you can go visit and the story continues though we have Edna and Tiffany getting to know each other we don't abandon this as writers and have tutorials feet come in and it's kind of dry away it's just like oh your ears what you're going to do now and keep it related to the story another way that characters can connect with each other's romance and this is something that can be a bit brave for a developer tried never tried to do

anything like to calm but it's something that resonates players especially when you've got a couple of little quirky characters in which those difficulties become quickly apparent so in the case of Tiffani and Jack we start to see the jack is much more enamored with this world and the mansion itself so really naughty references but the idea that took me or Jack could overcome this obstacle of Jack's obsession with something that kind of fuels the flavor for quite a while in that game and now we talk about another kind of interaction where the player actually is connected with the characters this is that clear when we were first brought on by excited us about this project is that generally speaking when you're interacting with a characteristic

building something for them and you you're providing them direction and somehow this is one of you can actually recognize very very first thing that happened this land in the wild Angeles majestic and gentle keeper being and therefore LeAnn's that knocked unconscious from the storm with her clothing dirtying the table and the prompt is tap on OPM to revive Houlihan you tap on him and he starts to shake you cause some spiders that he wakes up and that kind of interaction happens throughout the entire game not with me just above all the other various animal characters that you could introduce to so after you had your first interaction with Liam and Benny first two builds then all of a sudden Liam says well I'm really to shovel them dirty if you take man and you have once again you control this little scrub brush and you scrub it and lather them all up and gets all foamy and then you rinse it off and he's

all happy and Chinese messed around because he's very excited okay and it's really great it's amazing how you feel like you've really done something that you just like we have a pet if you brush your pad to me her a little happy you feel like you've actually in an interactive with this character and I said it's not just Liam there's a scene where Emma is really tired and she feels like she needs a break so you get a rubber ball and you get to throw the ball and it bounced around she chases it it's very very cheap adorableness a scene with him on skateboard Liam does breakdancing office we're always coming up with new things to add and oh can we have a baby animals with this and whatever so baby and these interactions occur every single time you run through a chapter you can get at least one of things sometimes the most humorous

character in sweet escapes is a penguin named scoops and as his name suggests he works for an ice cream shop he just loves to eat sweets all the time and he is such a good character with the players with sweet escapes that he's starting his own fan fiction just for his weird comedic random outbursts you know like a missing word he tried to build himself major scoops his tag trick that people had your arms and just because he's so lovable he's such a goofball that mime time at home disaster like hey bird scoops or a hey you know I noticed he wasn't in the last comic tasks like why the heck wasn't me you know he's the source of humor it really cancer plate sometimes though that way to really really make that connection bring the calls that be the success in connection is the actual wind indicator so in this case especially while things one of the primary objectives is to bring these animals back together you

your economy is where its animals and they're having their own difficulties and their stripes between each other or the community cells in the environment and your job is to come in and both fix the environment but also try and figure out what's wrong what's gone wrong with their relationships that you can somehow look at in this case you've got a little family rataxes meanie and mel but leaving a me another meerkat and their six kids and binky make you monkey so you've got that with meerkat casimir passing and they run this stuff like it's a mine but also a shop and they're very very stressed out they're kind of families kind of disintegrated you do all these things bring them back together and it all culminates in a big family dinner what could be more we're a family again that having a big family dinner actually invited to be with them

and sit with them oh that's lovely and so you've won that you've completed the object of this arc you succeeded you've brought the family back together again Wardenclyffe that song talks about connection through humor another way we love you that ease your mega jokes and especially me I love my Maggie jokes this is kind of one of those moments where we call out the player there's someone allowed to speak so the way along with some cans is pointing out that yeah you're the player you are financially supporting your on the sphere because you are the one fixing everything but highlights the flooding you can't actually say at least now that this generation of film games so lastly and one point out of the things that we we have the greatest impact on in the title Louise garden was creating a sense of a character that never appears on screen so your great

aunt who is the one you bequeathed you this garden that you have to restore never appears but her story gets told it's really the things that you discover throughout the game here is my photo she's very or keeper send it so this idea of singing to the piece which becomes actually one of the tasks in the interactions part of the restoration it's absolutely a sum up we talked about three things I'm actually use an acronym CMC conflict with stream connection these are the elements that were always talking to conflict really does mean bad things happening and that's okay you have to see people suffer a t-shirt you used to say two words your character if nothing was happening was that that's

[Music] [Music] villainy and antagonism force like that storm history isn't just for detective stories anytime a player is given a task to try and solve something essentially that's the type of history and players love solving things so a lot of Ministers sometimes the quest salt mystery can be thwarted by your own hero right sometimes the hero doesn't walk on the street yourself and that's okay and could be repulsive and catching is a key opportunity for acquisition aids thank you and attention I play bass players with

characters and sometimes that means romancing sometimes it means absolutely nothing but the opposite of romance and connection is also relieved a weakness the big trading success that are important to game alright that concludes our talk here's our website if you want to come warm we're happy to stick around for questions Thank You Anthony and Dexter who literally practices this evening has their own lake for this process yeah it

really depends on the client so sometimes a client comes to us with a game that they've tested and they're not happy with the results so in that case we have some someone's story and characters that we need to benefits in other cases that come to us and they want to partner and collaborate and so the roller coaster tycoon story they had some idea already because obviously they had to pitch and work with Atari to get the proved but Dexter and I sat down with the graphite late lab team here in st. Louis and we talked about the characters and then created the story arc so we helped them develop the characters and then we created the art with Adam in

collaboration which was a neat neat process we actually this is outside these games but we have worked on interactive novels as well I've done four of them in Dexter's done one and those you know it's really more like a novel so the writer comes up with I mean you still pitch and get approved and then you tweet based on feedback and stuff like that so you're still working with the developer especially on the gameplay integration with it but that's much more like you companies come to us and just say it's not working with what's wrong and we will literally write up a report that says you don't have any conflict mystery or connection given these characters here's some ideas on how you might integrate that and then it doesn't sometimes they'll just say

thank you that's all here's a check and so for sweets games I will plug out the story and then we hear that God made with between maybe like that stuff and especially after their first inventors working on a project that has an approval from very large powerful company and then there's a yeah [Music] stakeholders which could have a whole bureaucracy of their own have to also weigh in so that we've done the whole gamut you have right now yeah literally one guy an achievement cream of like writer or artist programmers and it's very small team

like almost people working out of their garages all the way up to a very recognized life with like Hollywood connections and serious bureaucracy so I think it's gonna hard to give history without some storytelling because usually the conflict produced in this stream like someone died obviously and now we have to figure out who killed them this is the classic mystery we do have a client I would prefer to we're in a right now we're in a conversation in which we may fall on the side you know

we don't really want you to and conflict drama hobro storytelling arts instead what you get is like character and yets which you can do I've played a lot of farmville 1 & 2 and if you have to you'll know there's not a story in fundo but there's characters and they have little backstory kind of thing so those are been yet nothing's happening it's not like there was a conflict better I look that person and I gotta do this none of that but it's gonna get and maybe that's enough it's not usually for us because we like stories stories that book you know that's what when you're watching Netflix shows what keeps you up till 3:00 a.m. and suddenly watch seven episodes work [Music] previous life for Wizards of the coast

and we had as a meze a license or a very large company that was headed by a very powerful personality and they made it very very clear that why they didn't want us to do they need these things such as conflict understand connections because it's their story in their world and by gosh we will tell the stories they will create those things and no one else is allowed to and if you have that kind of situation it really varies so

like one client of ours currently we've been working with for three years so I started out freelancing for them as a solo and then they kept adding gains and then I was getting other games and so I built the team out and we're still working with them and they have us on two regular ones right now so anywhere from probably five to yeah one of the things that really various loud legs is that you can have a game that can easily take up 20 or 30 hours of a person's time a week yeah and then you might have another one that's like okay here's five and then the next week the next week the next week and the next week or is a short-term ones where they're like you guys are the experts and we just want you to weigh in on why this isn't and our test so give us 40 hours to do

analysis in two days and then they'll take you a to either build in the best case there's a here's the usability chapter one and we'll play on that look at all their documents or in the worst case they don't even build so I'm a thousand levels into matching tension [Music] and Tiffany ever get together August II kid or getting together to break them up I'm going together we have another one we're working on right now are it's like there's two couples and they have parallel

relationships sometimes crossing over and yeah it gets complicated like two main characters for like that you should be that they're not like official [Music] or uh do you guys have certain strategies for time narrative into different types of games like say universes like you were saying yeah absolutely I mean not to be crass but

you know the games don't make money we all go home are we gonna jump so it has to do with monetization and in mobile games especially free to play the game is free so then you have to create all these different ways to have games make money so that we can keep making game right it's like a big thing so are these hybrid narrative builder games with the match 3 or a collapse mechanic puzzle you've got the monetization around the puzzle and then how the tasks integrate with that and what cliffhangers you might set up that's definitely part of it in the interactive novels it's it's ironic because though those are so story driven and the content so heavily story if you play choices yeah thanks wasted so I wrote with those one called failed secrets and what I learned from that process is just that that fine craft and that dusters doing it too on another

project where you're using story content to monetize and it becomes very sticky regs you you don't want players to feel like they're being nickeled and dimed or anything like that to get the story so there's a real craft to creating a story and then building on extra experiences that warrant the extra pay right extra currency value so we add so this hasn't been released yet Danielle but what happen announcer so I think we things in broad strokes talked about emojis marrying that that narrative story line with so that you get two choices with a Napster choice you do the mustard you can imagine that right so that the advantage of this is that you still might have premium

choices but it just means you have to eat a few more levels of thought of this cable here right so it's like oh I really want that three star charts right cuz that's gonna be the interesting when I can tell okay I'll just beat this game for 3 stars less than the stock okay but but of course somewhere along the line there's like just I can get five more stars and in those sorts of the games is there's an old saying that seems to be pretty true that's being 8020 rule when I was teaching at Webster is to teach this which is that in games like that eighty percent of the people who play here's three things I'm not gonna give you a done it just gonna grind it the 20% will give you some money now of that 20% it also breaks down each one eighty percent of the people who give money will give you just enough to break even and all your profit is in that twenty percent twenty percent those what they call the white is those are the people

who will spend a very large amount of money so they add up to story funny humor whereas think beginning nah bollocks like a fast rap cake I like what kind of darker story exactly where sex