Three-Act Structure and Rising Action

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En provenance du cours de California Institute of the Arts

Story and Narrative Development for Video Games

653 notes

California Institute of the Arts

Story and Narrative Development for Video Games

653 notes

Cours 2 sur 5 dans Specialization Game Design: Art and Concepts

In this course, you will examine how storytelling acts as a vital mechanism for driving video gameplay forward. Looking at several historical and contemporary games, you will be asked to evaluate and interpret different story styles with the goal of identifying themes and procedures for your own game ideas. We'll examine traditional narrative story processes, such as three-act structure, and how they fit into game story flows and the strategic elements of gameplay. Ultimately, you will learn how to define character, setting, and structure to create a compelling game concept.

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Week 1: An Introduction to Story

For the first week of the class, we will be analyzing the components of three-act structure using a classic fairytale as an example. We'll examine the characters in the story by figuring out their goals and the main conflict that creates a rising arc of action to keep the audience interested.

Defining the Spine3:48

Three-Act Structure and Rising Action6:10

Rencontrer les enseignants

Dariush Derakhshani
Faculty, Character Animation
School of Film/Video

Understanding story structure is really gonna help you create your own stories.

Most traditional stories are told through what's called the three-act structure.

We begin with Act 1, funny enough, which is called the set up.

Here we introduce the major characters involved in the story,

usually the protagonist and the antagonist forces.

We also set up the world, or setting, in which the story takes place, or

at least where it begins.

Act 1 ends with what's called the inciting incident.

This is the event in the beginning of a story that sets off the primary conflict

between the protagonist and the antagonist.

And it also defines and gets the hero's quest up and running.

We see this in Sleeping Beauty.

In Act 1, Maleficent shows up to the birth of Princess Aurora

totally uninvited and curses the baby purely out of spite.

That's our inciting incident, and

that is what causes the conflicts throughout the story.

Three good fairies, part of the protagonist forces,

try to help the newborn princess, and agree to take care of her hidden away in

the woods to keep the curse from coming to life when she turns 16.

And with that we end Act 1.

We as the audience, we've learned where we are and who we root for

as the primary characters, and who we want to see defeated as the evil villain.

The major conflict and what they have to face also is what we learn in Act 1.

Moving on to Act 2, often called the confrontation,

this act is where all the action of the conflict plays out.

And we see a rise in tensions.

We see a rise in action as the obstacles facing the hero become more and more dire,

until we get to the end of Act 2 where there's the final conflict,

in which these two opposing forces finally begin to resolve that conflict.

This Act 2 is usually the longest part of the story, and

it's where the idea of rising action is most seen.

Each event that happens in Act 2 should build upon the last and

create more tension and more danger of the hero failing their quest.

This keeps us engaged and always questioning, [SOUND] what's gonna happen?

In Sleeping Beauty we see the forces on Aurora's side trying to

shield her from the curse of pricking her finger and falling asleep.

Throughout this act, new story points come up that put Aurora's safety in jeopardy,

since Maleficent, the antagonist, keeps scheming and

thinking of new ways to trap Aurora into the curse in the first place and

keep the kingdom from saving her at all.

This all culminates when Maleficent turns into a dragon and

fights Prince Philip at the castle.

He truly is the last thing that can save her.

And this is Maleficent's last effort to stop all the heroes.

That's the final crisis, and this ends Act 2.

Finally, there's Act 3, often called the resolution.

In this act, a good story will resolve the conflict in a super satisfying way for

the audience.

Usually this is when we see the hero vanquish the villain in this ultimate

fight, and finally claim what is rightfully theirs.

Justice.

With Sleeping Beauty, Act 3 begins with this final battle between Philip and

Maleficent as the dragon.

He slays the dragon and vanquishes the evil fairy and

is able to find Princess Aurora.

He kisses her and relieves her of the curse through their true love,

which we see blossom in Act 2.

The rest of Act 3, we see the story wrap up, and

the lovers live happily ever after.

Understanding this narrative three-act structure

really helps you to find the story behind your game.

But it also helps to find the arc of your game, how it starts and

where it goes and how it ends.

Basically how does it play out from start to finish?

So how do we define this structure in terms of a game?

Let's start with Angry Birds.

This game is not a deep narrative experience, to be sure, but it does have

a beginning, a middle and an end, like the three acts we've been talking about.

In Act 1 we see the pigs steal the birds' eggs, and

the birds band together to get them back, getting angry.

They resolve to knock over the pigs to defeat them to get their eggs back.

Act 2 starts and becomes all the levels of game play that you, the player, enjoy.

Each chapter of the game gives you harder and

harder levels to play to beat the pigs.

But the pigs always manage to get away at the very last minute, taking the game to

the next level of game play, rising that action.

Act 3 happens at the final level of the game, which resolves in the pigs

ultimately being defeated and unable to regroup to steal away with the eggs again.

There are no more levels to play, and Act 3 concludes in seeing that the birds

have gotten all their eggs back, they're standing over the defeated king pig.

This is a pretty simple game story but

is nonetheless a solid story we could see in three acts.

For a deeper look into this narrative structure,

we're gonna take a look at a really richly narrative game called StarCraft 2,

Wings of Liberty in next week's class.

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