Video Games

The Writer’s Game: Demon’s Winter

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I continue to analyze what video games I’ve played provide lessons for writers! This time, a blast from the long past!

Demon’s Winter was released in 1988, a sequel to Shard of Spring which I never played.  Though it had mixed reviews, I found it to be excellent and replayed it at least three times.  Not only was it a fun game, it had excellent storytelling which provides valuable lessons for writers.

The core of Demon’s Winter is something we’ve seen all too often (more so since the 80’s).  Monsters destroy your village so you inevitably sally forth with a group of diverse characters to fight evil.  Demon’s Winter went beyond the stereotypes with excellent story and setting elements.

Spoilers follow.  Yes, for a game from 1988, but I feel I should say it.

One Step Beyond

The first thing I noticed playing Demon’s Winter was the class (profession) and skill system.  Many games of the time essentially stole from Dungeon’s and Dragons and called it a day.  Another party with a fighter, a mage, a thief, etc.  Demon’s Winter did its own thing while building a setting.

First, gone were many typical generic classes.  Combat characters had to choose between a wilderness-wandering Ranger, a holy Paladin, etc.  Wielders of magic drew their abilities from multiple styles.  There were even two pantheons of gods for religious characters to follow.  Each character could be customized further, adding to the richness.

The manual of the game explained the character choices in detail.  I learned why it was hard for Paladins to learn certain magics – they avoided anything that wasn’t healing (or you paid a lot of skill points).  The two pantheons of gods were described in detail.  The manual helped the setting feel alive and refreshingly different.

For writers, this is a good lesson that you can play with tropes audiences expected while still making them interesting.  Explore the tropes your own way and add your own details and worldbuilding to bring it together.

Say It And Show It

When playing Demon’s Winter, I was pleased to see that places and story elements mentioned came into play.  There was not a pile of generic fantasy names and flummery, but actual things you’d see and deal with.  Something said in passing might be very important later.

My favorite part of this was discovering a seemingly throwaway line about a Dwarven Forge was real.  My party trekked across a strange island and found this hidden place that made weapons.  Needless to say, we left well-armed to fight evil, and I enjoyed the game’s rich continuity that much more.

This is a classic element of writing – foreshadowing, say-it-see it, etc.  But it’s nice to see it well done and in a way that matters.

Shake The World

Fantasy Epics often see the world changed and threatened.  Demon’s Winter was more than happy to break the rules of the setting when the bad guys got busy.

How broken?  The first major plot twist in the game sees the demonic villain of Demon’s Winter murder the gods.

There I am, slightly past the halfway point of the game, when I am informed the gods have been dead.  Clerics and shamans in the party lose their powers and seek out elder deities to get them back.  The impact of that moment stays with me to this day.

Demon’s Winter didn’t stop with deicide.  As your party closes in on the villain, he plunges the world into eternal winter and destroys it.  Cities and towns you relied on are gone, the graphics change, and survival becomes harder.  The game’s final arc takes on a post-apocalyptic bent.

None of these moments felt cheap because they fit the story and the setting.  The world broke in ways both impactful and believable, and I felt those moments.

For writers, it’s a good reminder it’s fine to break things up and shake them up if it makes sense.  Doing that can make the most sense, and it engages your audience. 

End It Well

Finally, I remember Demon’s Winter for the endings.  Once you defeat the big bad, you had two impressive possible endings.

First, you can join with one of the older gods and achieve dietyhood.  This is a nice ending, but the game suggests that your new career may be in danger when evil rises again!  A solid ending with room for a sequel.

The second ending is one that stands out.  If your heroes choose to stay mortal, they each get a different ending based on character class.  Depending on your party composition, you get a different set of stories and a satisfying conclusion for each character.  The team Theif may become a legend while seeking great treasure while the psychic Visionary becomes an advisor to the new ruler.

This second ending added personalization to the ending, drawing the curtain on your adventure in ways that felt real.  You had closure not just on the story, but your characters in a way that gave your tale personal meaning.

Unfreezing Ideas With Demon’s Winter

Demon’s Winter went far for a game, let alone a game from the late 80’s in an genre often filled with derivatives.  It built a world where characters meant something, smashed their world when needed, then gave them personal and satisfying endings.  By embodying these important lessons, it provides an example of how impactful they can be.

Takeaway’s for writers:

  • You can use tropes, but give them your own twist and the details to make them living and believable.
  • If you call out or bring something up, it probably should be part of your story later.  That also helps with worldbuilding.
  • Be willing to shake up or break your world in ways that fit your tale.  Give such things meaning and impact because sometimes you have to shatter expectations to fulfill them.
  • Make your endings personal so make the characters’ journeys relevant and impactful.  This doesn’t need to be complex, but it should be meaningful.

Steven Savage

The Writer’s Game: Approaching Infinity

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Welcome to the start of a new series analyzing how games and game systems provide lessons for storytelling.  I will focus on what games teach us in general, though my focus is on advice for non-game tale-telling.  Now, onward!

Approaching Infinity

Approaching Infinity is a space adventure in the “roguelite” vein.  Like the classic game “Rogue,” the game is usually over when you die.  Games become a little easier as players unlock resources available for the next adventure into a hostile cosmos.

The game contains all the elements of classic space adventure in a simple retro style that draws from decades-old genre tropes.  Travel in space, blast aliens, trade goods, explore planets, the usual.  The lessons come from how these tropes work within more significant stories and how they come together to make a unique tale in each game.

Approaching Infinity‘s story elements exist on three levels and provide valuable lessons on writing.

Great Rivers of Story

At the “top” of Approaching Infinity‘s stories are different factions, about a dozen as of these writings.  Players can take missions for these factions, and most missions unlock further opportunities and advance the tale.  When the player completes a faction’s linear chain of missions, they usually unlock an ending to the game.

Each mission chain provides a background story on the faction and its place in the galaxy.  The player’s activities have meaning in the context of the game.  Faction missions also provide a sense of a bigger picture, filling in blanks as one plays the game.  One could play the game many times before they saw everything or understood the backstory.

These “big arcs” remind writers that stories work with an overall, meaningful tale.  Such arcs don’t have to be complicated (Approaching Infinity‘s quest chains are mechanically simple), but they should have truth in them.

These multiple story possibilities also provide a potential writing exercise.  When one looks at all the possible “big picture” stories in a work, work out multiple endings – alternate tellings.  Such work helps you understand the tale you ultimately tell, as you’ll understand why things happen and what might have been.

Choice in the Flow

The “big arcs” in Approaching Infinity also interact, depending on player choices.  Choosing to help one faction can alienate another faction.  Completing part of one mission chain may make you enemies as you’ve had to blow up a few enemies.  You can try to please everyone, but you can’t, as which “big arcs” you follow lead you down specific paths.

The game handles this with a simple diplomacy score.  The score goes up when you do things a faction likes and goes down with the opposite.  When you have about a dozen factions competing and random and procedural events happening, the game becomes complex.

Story-wise, this is a good example of how smaller-picture actions cause “big arcs” to collide.  How many great tales hinge on that one choice or one mistake?  Approaching Infinity creates that feeling of tension in a complex-to-evaluate, simple-to-understand way.  A player’s (or character’s) choices pile up and life becomes complicated at some point.

The individual parts of a story don’t have to be complicated –the “big arcs” can be simple.  The interactions, the choices, they make a tale delightfully complicated.  Plus, playing with those choices lets you ask “what If,” much as players of Approaching Infinity see their suddenly-destroyed starship and ask what they could have done differently.

All Those Tiny Waves

The sweeping adventure and juggling alliances of Approaching Infinity happen in a procedurally-generated galaxy.  Each game is random, meaning new sectors, planets, caves, space wrecks, and more await you each adventure.  Each game also starts with giving you a choice of ship models and commanding officer.

This randomization and choice mean minute-to-minute happenings are personal.  Around every corner is a new planet, new piece of equipment, a new discovery.  The fine details of your adventure are personal and unique to you and your game.

If you’re on a mission from a quest chain to defeat a space monster, you have many choices.  Do you craft a new weapon for your starship?  Dash deeper into more dangerous parts of the galaxy to buy one?  Raid enemy ships for parts and equipment?

These choices may also affect your quest chains, your “big arcs.” Even when they don’t, they’re uniquely yours, part of your adventure.

For writers of any kind, this is an example that a tale is driven by discovery.  A story may be linear and straightforward, but it’s the moments that bring it to life.  When every scene, every chapter is unique, personal, and meaningful, a story grips us.  Even when a scene doesn’t surprise or suddenly switch up the big picture, it matters.

Of course, the tiny picture might create a sudden, surprising change in plot.  In Approaching Infinity, an unwise small choice might just affect the big picture.  Even when it doesn’t, there’s the tension that it might.  In many a game of Approaching Infinity, I kept an eye on my diplomacy, knowing I might make enemies I didn’t want to make!

Closing In On Infinity

Approaching Infinity‘s mix of simple “big arcs” and personal, minute-to-minute experience makes the game a Space Opera simulator.  Using simple roots, it creates a replayable adventure seeped in both lore and individual experiences.  No one element is overly complex, but their interactions are – just like many good tales.

Takeaways for Writers:

  • Having backstory-driven “big arcs” gets you to the truth of your tale.  They can – and often are – simple.
  • Plot multiple “big arcs” even if you don’t use them to understand your setting better.
  • Possible “big arcs” interacting help you craft a meaningful tale.  Those smaller moments of interaction drive the story.
  • Complexity can come from the simple interaction of simple “big arcs.”  The results are often far from simple.
  • Those moments where character choice sends them down one path or another are meaningful.  They also let you play “what if” and evaluate your work.
  • Storytelling is gripping when events, even small ones, are personal and meaningful.  Events don’t have to have big impacts.
  • Small moments and choices bring tension because they may have huge impacts.  Even when they don’t and the story goes along, that tension engages the audience and is meaningful.

Steven Savage

Stacking Stories To The Stars

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Lately, I’ve been playing Wildermyth, an RPG game about emergent storytelling. Playing a set of characters (and maybe guest stars) one adventures around, while choices, semi-random events, and so on come together. Characters become unique, complex individuals, small moments building to broad strokes – and may even become a “guest star” in later games.

I will probably write more on the game later, but I want to focus on how this game reflects good writing.

In Wildermyth, characters have a set of personality traits and abilities. As you play, these traits and other opportunities come together to give you narrative choices. These tiny moments create a grand epic – though there are “campaigns with plots,” you can also just play randomized games and let your own story emerge.

As I played the game, I realized this reminded me of good writing. Writing is about stacking stories atop stories to make a bigger story:

  • A book is a story.
  • The chapters of a book can (and should be) their own tiny tales.
  • A good scene is also a story, albeit one in context.
  • A single paragraph, done right, is a small story, leading from point A to point B.
  • I could even argue, in the right mood, a sentence is its own story. But I might not be sober.

It’s stories all the way down – and all the way up. I would say good authors realize most of this, and excellent authors understand this completely.

Think of how a truly delicious tale feels. Every part of it makes sense and is engaging, from a bit of backstory to a “just like them” piece of character quippery. Epic motions of the world make as much sense as the tiny pebble-starts-the-avalanche moments.

Less satisfying works lack this element, among others. Scenes exist without reason (and, “hey, cool backstory is a reason.”). Cause and effect have given up on a committed relationship. It’s a Frankenstory, without the spark of life.

The lesson I take from this is to remember the stack of stories that make up any one tale. Pay attention to the parts and the whole because you can’t separate them.

If you want a good example, well, I have a game to recommend . . .

Steven Savage