Story is about conflict, Without it there is no story. Without conflict there is also no game. Conflict is an obstacle (or series of obstacles) in a character’s/player’s path that must be overcome to reach the ultimate goal. The conflict can either be established through limitations (a player can’t just exit a room, she must overcome enemies, solve a puzzle or perform some other dastardly task first) or by having players compete against each other.
Let me be clear, “Journey to Cheeseland” isn’t a “story” game. It’s a cat & mouse board game with story elements but because of my narrative design background I wanted to maximize these elements to make the game feel like an adventure and create a new experience each time players venture out onto the board.
In this serie’s first blog (https://pixeldoriangm.blogspot.com/2020/05/journey-to-cheeseland-beginnings.html) I mention that story is much more than cutscenes and lengthy (sometimes interactive) dialogue sequences. It can be told through elements like your board, items, tokens etc. as well as the type of conflict you face and the goal you are trying to achieve. In this blog I will focus on randomizing and customizing key story elements to create a more unique experience within an established “frame” or world.
World Creation: Telling a story requires defining the world and the time in which the story takes place. This can range from a realistic world to a fantasy setting. “Journey to Cheeseland” transports players into a current day city in which mice have human level intelligence but are driven by mice instincts and desires (at least themed as such even if not real). The city is experienced from their perspective and point-of-view. Humans only exist on the periphery and are generally to be avoided (except for the all-knowing librarian and a friendly street musician). Were it a cartoon humans would only be seen from their waist down (like in the classic Tom and Jerry movies) and their words would sound like the trumpet woap woap noises the teacher makes in “Charlie Brown.”
My primary goal was to make the players feel like the heroes of the story. In the initial concept of Cheeseland players were competing against each other to reach the magical Cheeseland. But such a selfish goal didn’t feel heroic. So I added a mystery (the disappearing cheeses) and a reason for the mice to work together, finding Cheeseland while the city’s inhabitants suffer from cheese withdrawal. I also gave the mouse heroes a rudimentary knowledge of technology (mostly gathered from scavenging items from scrap yards and trying to put them together) and the use of old-fashioned walkie-talkies to communicate and plot together. This sets them apart from the city’s other mice who see technology as something alien and most likely, not to be trusted.
Randomizing Story: The background of the disappearing cheeses is part of the “embedded” story, meaning that each session has the same starting point and overarching goal. Though the objective in what would be referred to as a “gather quest” in role-playing games is always the same I wanted to randomize some of the components to mix things up. Yes, yes, in an ideal world I would also randomize the setting and the goal but that would have been too complex for this game’s requirements (remember when I mentioned that one of the requirements was to keep this game simple). It could easily become part of expansion packs though, using the same board and mechanics but with a new set of cards and it’s something I’m definitely considering (so be forewarned of more to come!).
So I started with identifying elements I could “easily” randomize:
Clue Givers: Each game starts with a different set of Clue Givers, some eager to help, some not so much. Note that convincing each of these Clue Givers to help is optional. It’s just the most efficient way to collect clues.
The Cheeses: The last five cheeses and their location are also randomized during the setup. As with the Clue Givers the difficulty level of these cards varies with the Blue Cheese being the easiest to “sniff out” and the Mysterious Cheese X only found on the black market the hardest to track down.
The Secret Entrance to Cheeseland: This randomized location is only revealed once all the cheeses are tracked down. It is the only way to access Cheeseland and confront the mastermind.
These elements don’t change the overall story but they change the key destinations on the board and vary the encounters you have.
The Mastermind: This may be the most important randomized element as it affects the story’s final scene. I’ll get more into this in the section about branching narrative.
There are two reasons why I didn’t randomize more of the starting elements:
- Card count. I’m currently designing this as a print-at-home game. Adding more cards adds more pages to print and more cards to cut and glue together. Even if eventually published as a boxed game a higher card count adds to the printing cost.
- Board layout. The randomized cards are currently laid out as follows:
Adding more random elements would require more space on the board and more setup time.
Encounters: The main random story element of the game are the encounter cards drawn every time a mouse rolls a 1 or 2 while moving. These encounters range from humorous to dangerous. You never know what is waiting for you around the next corner.
Items: Randomized items found by the player may only tell a micro-story (hey, I found a cool stinky fish) but have a real game impact as many of them can be used to the player’s advantage (not the stinky fish though) and in turn create a new story moment (I used Duke, the dog, to chase Maxo away!).
It’s your Story, Morninglory!
Taking a cue from role-playing games narratives in many other genres have evolved from the linear “let me tell you a story” to the more interactive and customized “tell your own story.” Branching stories (making choices and experiencing the consequences of those choices) and customization (creating your player character, defining elements of the world etc.) gives players a way to express themselves. I decided to borrow some of the elements of this narrative evolution in Cheeseland.
Making Decisions: I wanted to give players the option to make a decision beyond the expected tactical choices (where do I go next, which goal should I tackle first etc.). I added these kind of decision points in the encounter cards.
My current thought on encounter cards is to have players hand them over to either Maxo or another player to read aloud. This gives each reader a storyteller moment as they share what happens to the active player and wait for her to react to it.
The main decision will have to be made by the mice when confronting the Mastermind at the end of the game (assuming Maxo doesn’t stop them first).
Some of them were designed to be plain silly ...
..others have a more of a classical villain flair with some dicey options (see what I did there?).
So though each journey has the same beginning, its middle and end will differ each time.
Customization: This is another role-playing element I wanted to introduce. It starts with each player being able to choose a character with a unique “power.” Even though limited, these “powers” help each player feel unique and encourage collaboration.
(Player card wip)
Filling in the blanks is another way for players to customize their story. The most obvious “fill-in-the-blanks” is each character’s bio but I introduced other instances on the cards for players to create their own story moment. Sure, these moments are purely for flavor (they don’t affect the game itself) but players have fun coming up with reasons why they got themselves in trouble or have an opportunity to yell out their favorite superhero’s name.
My final story task is to explore options for players to create their own encounters or Mastermind using some preexisting format to avoid unbalancing the game. We'll see how that goes.
Whatever game you’re working on it’s worth taking some time to explore these types of narrative devices. If done right it can make the game more immersive and memorable. So think about it as you introduce your game’s story.
My next blog will be about prototyping, something I strongly recommend even for electronic games.
Have fun with the new exercise. If you enjoy this series and the games I'm developing you can support my work at https://ko-fi.com/pixeldorian. Thanks for sharing and see you soon!
Exercise
Take two different types of games like “Pandemic” (yeah, I know) and “Mousetrap” (!) or “Cards against Humanity” and “Checkers.”
- What is the conflict in these games? If there doesn’t seem to be a story is there a theme that could be turned into a story?
- How do the conflict in both games compare?
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