Narrative & Interactive system
This week’s lecture by Conway Sutton really made me think differently about what storytelling in games actually means. I used to think being a narrative designer was just about writing dialogue or planning cutscenes, but now I understand it’s much more about how the player experiences a story through space, actions, and choices, not just words.
One of the first things that stood out to me was the difference between a game writer and a narrative designer. A writer creates the words we see or hear, while a narrative designer decides how those moments fit into gameplay and emotion. Conway said, “The narrative is everything the player does, not just what you tell them.” That line really stuck with me. It made me realise that the player’s experience—the decisions, the failures, the tiny environmental details—is the story.
In the horror story group activity, we used a three-act structure to shape a psychological narrative about guilt and memory. The player explores an old attic and finds a mirror that shows the face of their younger brother, who drowned years ago. As they uncover objects like a toy, a T-shirt, and an old photograph, they slowly piece together what happened. I tried to make every interaction feel like part of the storytelling—touching a wet toy might trigger an echo of the past, or a flicker in the mirror might hint that something isn’t quite real.
The story builds up to the player remembering the day of the accident: two kids playing by the river, one slipping, the other too scared to save him. We created multiple endings to give players emotional agency. In one, you try to save your brother but fail again; in another, you’re trapped in a loop of guilt, wandering the attic forever; and in the “true ending,” you realise it was all a dream—a metaphor for acceptance. It’s not about winning, but about understanding and letting go.
During the lecture, Conway also talked about scope: how writers should always think about what’s actually achievable. That hit close to home because our original idea had way too many branching endings. After hearing about scope control, we decided to simplify, focusing on emotional depth over complexity. Instead of lots of dialogue, we leaned on environment and sound to tell the story.
What I liked most about this week was how it connected theory to emotion. Writing for games isn’t about controlling the player: it’s about guiding them through feelings you both co-create. For our project, that feeling was grief, and learning how to express that through choices and atmosphere felt incredibly rewarding.
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