Making a new introduction to my game. Part I: narrative.

Hi there, friends and foes of democracy!

My game, Socratic Democracy, is currently undergoing major changes, with the hiring of an artist as well as a producer. One of the areas that I want to improve is storytelling, be it in the form of cutscenes, dialogues, character construction and so on.

A good introduction is key. A good introduction provides the context, challenges and goals. It is a great opportunity to motivate the player to press on. But to do so, it must be short, strong, captivating, informative. How could I accomplish it all? I am not a writer by any means. 

My story, to be well introduced, must talk about a city that has accumulated problems over several generations. A city that was once promising but is currently in decay. It feels like it is too much to present early on...

Fortunately, just as I was asking myself how my introduction should be I came across a wonderful example in "Attack on Titan". AOT is an anime series about a centuries-long struggle between humans and titans (this is no spoiler, by the way). Several chapters go back and remind viewers of events that happened a hundred years before, and how the city evolved from there. AOT does so effectively by employing well known elements of film language. In particular, it presents ancient events using an old movie aesthetic and a voice over that goes straight to the facts. The images and style are captivating, while the narrative is compelling and informative.

I feel pretty convinced that this is the way to go... but what do you guys think?

Cheers,

Pedro

This is part I of a 2 part series. Please check out again in a few days, when I will talk about technical requirements of using the film language style.