One Kind of Experience is the Story
"Story" is an element of game play that is of varying levels of importance to various players. Some players feel the story element is excess baggage, and are primarily interested in the interactive game. Others are more interested in story and less in the game. Most people are somewhere in-between, such that the narrative elements enhance the player's interest in the game.
One point the author makes is that there really is no such thing as "passive" entertainment that an audience simply absorbs. Even a linear story involves an active mind, to understand the characters and form expectations of what will happen next. If the story is compelling, it means that the audience has identified with the character, and have a sense of a desired goal for the character.
In many ways a game is a story in which the player has taken control of the narrative and indicates what the hero does next. Traditional storytelling has attempted to enter this arena with "interactive stories" (where the reader makes decisions at critical points and reads a different plotline depending on their choices), and there's a "dream" of creating fully-interactive storytelling in which the audience plays a part and helps determine the outcome.
Thus far, such experiments have not gone over very well. The reason is fairly simple: the average person isn't creative enough to interact in a way that will make the story interesting. They must be guided along, and have a limited number of decisions, in an environment that nudges them along in the right direction. And at that point, the story has become a game.
A common method of integrating story and game is the "string of pearls" method - in which the non-interactive narrative is the string, and the interactive game play is the beads, and the sequence is generally interspersed: game play, cut scene, game play, cut scene, etc. The author concedes it's a bit clumsy, but it has worked very well.
The author stumbles around the topic a bit more, and eventually gets around to a handful of "Story tips" for game designers:
- Consider story from the perspective of conflict: a character wants something, but there is an obstacle he must overcome, then another, then another
- Keep it simple: a complex or multithreaded plot may be difficult to follow, or distracting from the game
- Transcend reality - Many games are based on far-out themes that take the player out of their normal world. "A guy goes to the store to buy milk" does not make a very good game (unless it's Postal 2)
- Consider typical plot structures from fiction (Georges Polti), or common themes like the bildinksroman or the hero's journey
- Adapt the story to the game - remember that the function of the story is to enhance the game, and it should be possible to alter the story to suit the game rather than the other way around
- Consistency is important - once you have a theme, stick to it. Incongruities stick out, and can be seen as cheesy. Worse, it's a deal-breaker for players who are focused on story.
- Internally credible - The player will willingly suspend disbelief, but you can make some mistakes that will jerk them out of the artificial "reality" of the story
- Be careful of cliche - You can get away with using certain trite themes in games (the evil dragon, alien invaders, etc.) and there is value of leveraging their familiarity, but a cliche lacks resonance. If you have a unique story, or a unique twist on a hackneyed theme, it resonates better.
- Consider providing detail that's outside of the game - a map of a fantasy world shows areas the players will never visit, the backstory may include characters the player will not encounter. These additional details, while not essential to the game, make the essential parts of the story seem more credible.