GENERAL
The Narrative Guild is a weekly study-group at Breda University of Applied Sciences. During this specific guild we talk all about storytelling in media, quest design, writing dialogue etc. During our school year 2022-2023 I have taken over the Narrative Guild, since the teacher who previously organized it decided to stop due to low attendance.
While re-imagining what this Guild could be, I decided to create weekly presentations where we covered topics on narrative in Video-games, but also outside this specific medium. After these presentations students were invited to show their own work and we all could give them feedback.
On this page you will be able to read on all the topics we covered in this guild.
If you would like to have access to specific presentations you can send me a request at lucasdaneprive@gmail.com
QUEST DESIGN
We went over the different types of quests and their structures. Throughout this presentation we talked about how we can create quest experiences that are more full-filling and immersive in the game world.
Quest Design
LEVEL STRUCTURES
During this presentation we looked at different level structures and why you need to know about them. What are the differences in writing a story for a Linear game in comparison to an Open World game?
Level Structures
Endings
CHARACTERS
What makes characters unique and how can we tell stories with them. In this presentation we created our very own characters and presented them.
ENDINGS
How do you end a story? How do I make sure that my stories have a proper ending that leaves the reader/viewer/player satisfied? And how do we surprise the player with a wild ending? We looked at red herrings, tv tropes and different types of endings.
Characters
ENVIRONMENTAL STORYTELLING
Throughout this presentation we talked about the different ways of telling story through environments. We went over a ton of different methods that each have their own goal.
Melancholic Storytelling
Environmental Storytelling
NARRATIVE-DRIVEN SOLO GAMES
During this presentation, another student and I looked at what steps you need to take in order to succesfully create a narrative-driven solo project. How do you get out of the concepting phase and making something that is playable?
SCRIPTWRITING
Together we learnt the basics of scriptwriting, such as proper formatting. We also worked on showcasing the personality of a character through their dialogue and created a scene with them in it.
CUTSCENES
How do we use cutscenes to tell the player something? In this presentation we talked about basic film practices that can be applied to your own work, and how videogame cutscenes have evolved throughout the years.
Scriptwriting
- CONCLUSION -
The Narrative Guild made me a lot more confident in presenting as I had to talk to a group every week. Besides this, it was also great to refresh my memory on different topics in narrative by creating these presentations. It made me research certain games, certain tropes and try to explain this in the best way possible.
Overall I had a great experience presenting the Narrative Guild and I'm glad that it expanded the knowledge on narrative for the students, and also for me.
Learnt how to more confidently present in front of people.
Learnt more about Narrative Topics such as cinematography, script-writing and environmental storytelling.