"Rockstar Games did the impossible here with crafting a lead antagonist even more likable than Red Dead Redemption's lead man, John Marston."
"The narrative machinery behind this story really is ingeniously engineered."
"Dark Souls is a testament to how the entire game can be used to tell its story and how, if you do it well enough, you won't even need players to read or understand a single word for them to still feel like they get it."
"The game would feature a compelling narrative, an iconic cast of characters, and an all-star voice cast."
"This is the mark of a very smart storyteller, who understands how narrative and gameplay must be shaped by one another to create a strong story."
"We wanted to explore the marriage of a cinematic experience and narrative choice-driven storytelling."
"But if you want to define a middle point between blank slate and authored hero - Commander Shepard would be the perfect candidate."
"Every detail, every number, every place name is there by deliberate design."
"We wanted a nonlinear story... every quest in the game and all the story arcs that occur in the game had to have multiple solutions."
"The gameplay philosophy of The Last of Us Part 2 is putting you in the shoes of Ellie."
"A perfect balance is struck... emotionally engaging and thrilling stories."
"Creating this narrative design was especially challenging during Hades’ development, since the player doesn’t follow a direct linear path."
"He was great at world-building, he was great at coming up with unique new plots for these characters."
"Each level is made to have its own mini narrative that can be fleshed out as much as needed to support this extra gameplay."
"The lore in this universe is so deep and everything is so well thought out."
"Chromer was designed in a way to tie back to another major character from s novel this being Friv the mother of Max Daman and someone who possesses the same power of control over the world known within the work as The Mark of Cain."
"What makes undertale so special is its ability to seamlessly interweave these two narratives"
"Nothing is permanent death because it's comic, so you know obviously it comes back, money has to be made."
"The story is largely built up around making significant decisions surrounding both the larger case which is called the Nightmare and several smaller haunting cases that make up side quests and these form the major and minor choices of the game."
"Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons offers one of the best examples of ludonarrative harmony I've experienced."
"The outrage over cyberpunk 2077 is a paradox because the materials stirring that outrage is designed to do exactly that within the framework of a video game narrative."
"Breath of the Wild fixes pacing problems with minimal cutscenes that never feel dragged on."
"Rather than just giving Lara a gun and saying she can kill somebody, we want to put you in a situation where you feel like it's kill or be killed."
"If you cut out all the filler and repetitiveness and just looked at the best parts of GreedFall and stitched them together, you'd have a brilliant first act for a three or four-act game."
"We're all about weaving that narrative and that experience into every aspect of our game design."
"The game begins... a booming discount Dumbledore talks us through it." - Josh
"It's funny looking back at Puffballs submission page here, referring to Henry as 'the guy'."
"You can't have dark and evil without light and good, so maybe."
"Guardians of the Galaxy just wants to create a story that people will be able to relate to and understand and feel."
"They finally cracked the code here when it comes to storytelling in a board game."
"Elevate combat by giving monsters motivations and goals that set up stakes for the encounter."
"It's kind of sad that after a game from 16 years ago set the bar for narrative design so high."
"I want meaningful choices, consequences, drama, tension. Give me these classic elements."
"Borderlands is a game that crafts stories around players and their loving relationships with their guns."
"The ghosts, while not as scary all seem like they have a purpose in the story this time... Every single ghost truly feels like they were a character involved in this community at one point."
"Narrative is gameplay and gameplay is narrative."
"Procedural narrative generation can help move story games from progression to emergence."
"Bloodborne has some of the smartest narrative design I've ever seen."
"Battlefield 5 can treat us to a truly gripping story focused on a specific squad."
"So, my narrative excuse for this is that in my setting the way a resurrection works is that the cleric who is casting the resurrection spell basically it's like a good Horcrux."
"Embedding the story into the design of the environment itself is a beautiful way to tell a story."
"The story quests of Warframe is brilliantly made."
"Kronika is the architect of every single event in Mortal Kombat history."
"This sort of gameplay alludes to a ludo narrative consistency as the storyline goes on to mirror the gameplay."
"You see posters for figures plastered all over the city but you never really get a sense that they existed they're plasmids and splicing were a really."
"They wanted her to come off as really competent."
"World building is something distinct from character building or narrative or set pieces or even lore. It's a more ambitious endeavor that aims to bring together all of these things under one banner."
"Vakara is a brand that in its DNA seeks to have mature complex themes balanced with levity and humor. One doesn't exist without the other." - Narrative Director, Far Cry 6
"The biggest change here is the addition of dialogue with choice and consequence being a highlight for Ubisoft."
"Pitting a self-professed and self-righteous straight-edged savior against a devil-may-care candle burner was a stroke of genius."
"I also just take stuff from like loads of different mythologies to fit the story and create something new."
"Undertale continues to stand out due to its compelling story, memorable characters, its simple and yet charming pixel art, and innovative gameplay mechanics."
"It lets players drive their own story with options beyond belief but none framed in such a way as to damage its own narrative."
"The narrative arc guides the player forward by promising greater action, tougher challenges, and satisfying story beats."
"Everything looks like it could all have a purpose in the story."
"Occasionally a video game will set you up to fail with an unwinnable boss fight where your defeat is designed to progress the story, raise the emotional stakes, or demonstrate how much the game hates you."
"We've put so much effort into making sure that everything is rewarding, it's interesting, it's talking about characters, worlds, emotions."
"No other skybox ever has a storyline like that, you can call these storyline quests."
"They've already gone in a certain creational and narrative direction with the remake at this point."
"Everything he does to make things better makes them worse."
"A dark tale laid out in a comic book format."
"This ending is insane, it feels like it's designed to drive the listener into Insanity as well."
"This is basically like a mystery drama tale set in a creepy old house."
"the villains are here to complement his story his journey his arc his character development they're not here to steal the spotlight from him"
"Licorice Recoil's creators clearly understand what makes each genre tick on a much deeper level than that and they've used that knowledge to rearrange all that narrative clockwork into something new and beautiful that still completely works."
"The laws built in retcon systems, dragon breaks etc., aren't bad, they actually keep the series from being too tied down and restricted by its own rules."
"Inside is all about making you feel the whole way through."
"Wander is in so many ways the perfect type of protagonist for a video game."
"Putting story first means above all else creating something that feels complete."
"It's honestly the kind of thing you expect to see... supposed to feel like a movie without a movie." - Gameplay design reflections
"Halo reach was always a game where from the beginning you knew how it was supposed to end."
"We've followed this basic setup through pretty much the rest of the game."
"It's awesome to see such a concept nailed with him as the narrative is allowing him to unleash the entire Rogues gallery on New York City."
"Characters should not be mascots. Characters should be characters."
"I hope we have a main antagonist since we don't have human NPCs." - Peace Boy
"Creating a movie based on a paradoxically absurd premise."
"Joker being not a boring mute protagonist, but he doesn't have a character shoved at him."
"You see a film that has something like level design that feels structured, it feels like it's video gamey."
"Introducing three lead characters transforms both the narrative into one interwoven story."
"They play very well into the themes of consequences."
"One of the best ways to succeed early on as a narrative designer is to become the designated driver for vision-keeping."
"A user story... really describes a little story about what a user could do on your website."
"They give us these hills and valleys so it's not just a volume of ten the entire time."
"We want this to feel like an authored journey."
"We should discover what games like this have to teach us about storytelling and how we can harvest those techniques when designing narrative for other kinds of games."
"I really appreciate your time and that you have a thirst for knowledge about narrative design."