With Laura Packer

Descrip: “BREAKOUT: Compelling video games need compelling storylines. Traditional narrative offers many exciting possibilities, but there are other tools you can use to develop a story. Improvisation allows you to tap your imagination in unexpected ways, tell old stories with new finesse and explore narrative lines without inhibition or censors. You may just find a new tale aching to be told. This workshop includes several exercises. Participants will leave with new story ideas and tools for story development.”

Improvisational storytelling – there is no failure.

• “Improv is something that really helps feed our creativity”
• How to tap into it and bring it into your work, to make us more creative?
• Goal: New ideas for stories, games, tools for developing new gaming materials.
• Why Improv for game design?
• It’s fun!
• “Loosens up your image engine”
• playful
• new creative directions
• You already know how!
• What are stories and games made of?
• Emotional hooks
• plot
• charater
• cultural elements
• structure
• narrative
• Motifs
• discrete images that carry weight
• Prominent in Folklore study.
• Discrete recurring fragments or themes across many stories.
• Elements that tell you about the story
• Ex: wolf
• dark forrest
• Powerful because they carry implied cultural knowledge.
• They do some of the work for both the story creator and the audience
• Ex: how a character holds a gun, stance – tells you something about the character.
• Image in the story
• Connect with the audience
• Give your audience room to be part of the story.
• Ex: Red Riding Hood – you know the basics, but your audience fills in the details – the color of her hair, the contents of her basket, the way the forest looks.
• Plant images, but give your audience the opportunity to put themselves into that image.
• “Stories work because they are something we identify with.”
• A symbolic language.
• Improv:
• there is no censorship – “Yes, and…”
• Freedom to play with images.
• Take what you are given and run with it.
• Find ideas you didn’t know were there.
• Collaborative.

• So let’s play some games!
• Game one:
• Count off – split room.
• Fortunately/Unfortunately
• Split up use a prompt, switch off from person to person, first says fortunately, 2nd says unfortunately, continue switching back and forth around the circle.
• Note: May be AFK a bit while I participate. More notes forthcoming.
• “On my way to the conference today, things were going really well, until traffic came to a stop”
• two loops around.
• First person ends story.
• 2
• Four groups of four.
• In the round stories
• Can be on any topic but
• start with the prompt sentence
• Turn taking, max 8 sec per person.
• Two rounds. last person ends story
• Yes, and…
• 3
• Fairy tales that boldly go
• Opening sentence.
• Change it by plot – take the plot you get and start playing with it.
• Change plot elements and run with it.
• Yes and…
• Last person after 3 times ends it.
• 15 sec to tell.
• 4
• Above again, but alterations by character instead of plot.
• Change character.
• 3rd person style.
• twice around
• esp. useful when stuck about which direction to go with in a story.
• rapidly think about character perspectives
• 5
• Tag
• Throw an item within the group.
• Time to talk is random.
• Order tagged is random.
• Each person has to continue the plot
• So how does all this improvisation help with writing games? It can help you find a new narrative.
• The ideas that you leave behind may still feed something else.
• Triggers thoughts. A way to think about narrative beyond just sitting down and writing it.
• Story, Story, Die excercise
• An improv story game. Only conducted by a person who points at the person to get them to participate.
• The person who fails to continue ‘dies’ and is dropped out of the story.
• Ups the ante.
• Quick, random selections.
• Think of it as a party game, preferably with a few drinks.
• Good, bad and ugly.
• Players get characters in the narrative (a pre-(or partially pre-)established narrative, like a fairy tale).
• Each player is assigned a characterization and must react to another player.
• Ex:
• Snow white is getting married and she must ask for advice from the good, bad and ugly fairies. Each fairy must give advice in response to questions decided on the spot by ‘Snow White.’
• Emotional improv
• Telling a story and then ask for emotions, the emotions change the telling and tenor of the story.
• How the emotional content changes the story.
• Bring out from the sessions elements that can be used in your games.
• Does the improv and its elements help with a game you’re developing? A game you’ve played, or a new game idea?
• Developed collaboratively and in an environment where you cannot fail – this helps!
• Use these techniques to think about game writing and game design.
• Stories are sometimes reflective of the environment and society they are being told in, especially with improv, where you come out through the story.
• “Look at motifs that have powerful cultural currency.”
• There are motifs in the news!
• The Motif index – http://aramzs.me/8w
• Using crayons to draw (even badly) as a way to work your way through a story. Another way to work without judgement.
• You can draw out specific scenes and find specific imagery
• Find something you specifically do not often do to play around in. This helps you get over creative humps.