Painting worlds in color

Hi! My name is Daniel and I am Art Lead here at Ether Spark. 

Narrative and Storytelling in games has gone through several incarnations of perception throughout history, both with gamers as well as game developers. When I began working with games, it was typical to think of storytelling as something that is told in cutscenes and text logs. Something that happens between the sections where you get to play and have fun. While this can certainly still be the case, people are more aware now than before of what goes into making a game. Not in small part thanks to how the tools have become more available and powerful to allow anyone to sink their teeth into it. I would like to think that there is an appreciation and a want for good storytelling in games. But while the tools are there, it is still a struggle to balance all the core pillars of game development, such as art and gameplay, with narrative design. Many studios still look towards the storytelling they have to be the first thing to begin culling and cutting corners with when the big deadlines are looming. Because if you cut the code and art, there won’t be a game to play, right?

Narrative design is not supposed to be something that exists in a vacuum outside of the art, code and game design. It should be what weaves them all together in one big beautiful tapestry. It can help to give purpose to how the game is played and helps guide what the world looks like and why. Though as a game developer, it is healthy to remember that while it is important to get a sense from the beginning of what your narrative design should be, it is also healthy to know what it shouldn’t be. Not all games should be a sprawling epic with deep characters, dialogues and twists. Sometimes the narrative design should hardly even be noticeable. And sometimes, the story shouldn’t even come from the developers telling the players anything directly. Sometimes, the best stories are created almost entirely by the players between themselves.

It all comes down to what narrative design will serve your game the best.

I have been part of many projects at the beginning stages, both as part of a development team and for personal works, and the starting ideas always come from different angles. In some cases the core concept of a game comes from the idea of a single mechanic. In others there is a vague outline of a story in mind, or a single scene. Sometimes it is a piece of music, and in a few there has been just a feeling. How do we capture a feeling and make that into a game? When I was brought into the world of Ether Spark, it was almost the complete opposite. Many of us at Ether Spark have spent countless hours living inside fantastical worlds and shared quests we still remember and talk about today. We were all filled with worlds, creatures and treasures, adventure and magic, danger and excitement. Ideas and concepts were talked and dreamed about late into the summer night. 

How do we take all that we have lived and loved and not only make it our own, but make it yours? 

Ever since then, we have been hard at work in establishing the core foundations of our game. What is it about? What does it look like? How to bring the joy and pure fun from the games we love into what we make for others to share? 

It has been, and remains still, a tough endeavour. But seeing a world being built and growing every day is nothing short of inspiring in itself. And for me, that is what game development is all about.