I hear too often “Nobody gives a darn about narrative in games”. Or “no one reads on mobile”.
But every successful game I know has a strong narrative component. Narrative is not the line of text, it is the sequence of events that creates a story together with the players.
use a star -> dialogue -> select decoration -> room upgrade -> dialogue -> new tasks -> new level
This is narrative.
swipe -> match -> explosion -> cascade -> match -> special tile -> … -> TASTY!
This is also narrative.
arena overview -> goal -> countdown -> GO! -> move character -> spot enemy -> hide -> collect gem
And this as well.
The story stack
Often we stuff a mediocre game with readable content in hopes that players will get hooked “for the story”. In this case, the risks of having an expensive and poorly thought-out product increase. A story should always be seen as the last step of a good game.
- Fantasy comes first
- Then come the actions that can be performed on the fantasy
- Then comes the system of resources, rewards, and the game economy
- The world is built on this
- Stories can happen in the world.
If we start from the other side, however, it works for visual novels but not for mechanic based games.