Wonderful article! Very thorough and insightful

Getting great writers on board from the beginning seems indeed to be key. Today, most developers focus on novel forms of game play, and only after come up with a story, woven as the framework, and limited in budget since it is perceived as varnish. Story will always remain awkward and peripheral that way.

What if, instead of trying to infuse more story into a game, we start with the story, and, trying as much as possible to clear our minds of preconceived notions about what a game should be, conceive interactivity to suit our particular story-world. Stories can and have been told through so many different mediums; apparently, even cinema, at its beginnings, had yet to discover its own strengths and struggled to imitate theater. Today’s games mostly work with cut-scenes, which clearly try to imitate cinema, and thereby fail to develop and profit from this new medium’s own strength.

So… start with the story, and then see what interactivity can bring to the telling of your story.

It is a fascinating subject, and a medium as yet in its infancy.

Great article!