Narrative News Book Club: Kaitlin Tremblay's Collaborative Worldbuilding for Video Games
Narrative worlds underpin all elements of story.
Hello fellow narrative designers!
As promised, I’m distilling learnings from a book I purchased at GDC, Collaborative Worldbuilding for Video Games by Kaitlin Tremblay.
Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve learned from a book until several weeks later, when you find yourself using the tools you gained and thinking “Boy, I sure am glad I read that!” Such was the case with Tremblay’s book. I have used concepts from Collaborative Worldbuilding several times at work in recent weeks and each time I said a little thank-you to Tremblay in my head for making me a better games writer.
So let’s get to it! My notes are point-form and EXTREMELY condensed, so I recommend you purchase the book and give it a full read if my brief rundown piques your interest.
Why is worldbuilding important?
Tremblay quotes Stant Litore, writer of the book Write Worlds Your Readers Won’t Forget, who defines worldbuilding as “a process for identifying opportunities for conflict and exerting pressures on your characters.”
I’m not sure about you, but that blew my mind. I love driving plot from characters—I’m very much a character-first type of writer—but you need a catalyst for action. That catalyst, Tremblay shows, can (and often must) be derived from the world that the characters exist in.
The world exerts pressure on the characters and their reactions to that pressure leads to believable conflict (the best kind of conflict).
Side note: after this revelation, I’ve been adding a ‘world pass’ to my plotting. Did I miss anything that the world is doing over the course of this part of the game? What is happening in the world that could exert pressure on my characters?
For instance: if a pandemic has just broken out in my game world, that likely means roads are clogged and cell service is spotty. How does that help or hinder my characters? How will they react?
Later in the book, Tremblay notes three main categories of conflict:
Person v. person
Person v. self
Person v. world
These are helpful because they point out that the world’s pressure doesn’t have to spawn violent or bombastic conflict, it can be as simple as: it’s raining so sun-loving Sarah is cranky and starts a fight with her best friend.
The key principles of worldbuilding
Tremblay’s key principles are:
Prioritize believability
Even if you’re creating an outlandish fantasy world, it should tick along to its own internal logic, and do so in a consistent way.
Be expansive/open
Not every detail needs to be hammered out before you start creating, in fact, it shouldn’t! In games, you are co-authoring a world with your players. You’ll want room for evolution and new ideas to bloom.
Focus on tangibility
Show, don’t tell. The small details in your game that players notice in passing will tell the story far better than a lengthy lore description.
Find inherent pressures
Per the above section, think about what particular pressures this world exerts on its characters (and the world’s society at large).
Worldbuilding in live games
Tremblay advocates a world-first approach to narrative in live games (meaning games that are consistently updated post-launch e.g. Genshin Impact etc.)
Live games are experiences designed without an end, so focusing on worldbuilding as a story engine “provides a more consistent and naturally coherent way to generate these stories and characters.”
Worldbuilding and ‘non-narrative’ game elements
Mechanics
“What you can do proves out the rules of the world, to some degree.”
If you have a non-violent fantasy game, then the world should reflect why and how this society became pacifist. Vice versa, if you want to depict a pacifist society, then the mechanics should not be focused on combat. The narrative and the mechanics must align.
Art
“The Game Maker’s Toolkit discusses how even things like the scale of a place and the materials used in building can illustrate aspects of the people who then use those spaces.”
My note on this: Many people think of worldbuilding as a mainly narrative matter—but, like I always say, story is in EVERY part of the game. The images tell so much of the story! So, if you’re a narrative designer, try to connect with everyone on the team on worldbuilding so that you are all telling the same story.
Goals for worldbuilding
The world should grow in response to the game’s lifecycle (for a live game).
The world should build on existing characters while still providing space for new ones (for a sequel).
The world should include a variety of opinions about the current technology (for a sci-fi game).
In other news: time-sensitive job and opp!
Y’all, there is so much more to learn from that book, so go ahead and borrow or buy it if you can, but I hope that short distillation was helpful in some way!
My monthly roundup of jobs, opportunities, and resources is coming at the beginning of May, but in the meantime I also wanted to note a few time-sensitive things:
Devolver Digital is sponsoring 200 free WASD tickets for low-income devs. WASD is a massive game industry event in London that takes place April 25th to 27th.
There is a rare junior writer gig open at NetEase based in Montreal.
That’s it for now, but I’ll be hopping back into your inboxes shortly with the May roundup.
About the Writer:
Rose Behar is a narrative designer at Scopely working on a new IP. Her previous work is featured in Longleaf Valley and Ashe Cove by Double Loop Games, among other projects. She puts out the free Narrative News roundup every month.
Fabulous, as always