The different forms of story telling

Story telling has been around for centuries and can be done through many different forms or mediums.

Back in the times before we had technology we would tell stories through caveman paintings, songs and verbally telling the stories. In this day and age creators have many tools at their fingertips and hundreds of mediums to choose from such as animation, film, TV, stage performance and even video games.

When telling story lines through video games you  must first choose a genre and a method of delivering the juxtaposition’s for example tell tale games prefer to use long cut scenes with large amounts of dialog to show emotion in their characters while other game companies use interactive mechanics to make the player feel as though they have control even thought it is as if a cut scene is taking place without cutting the player off the controls completely.

What is a genre?

a genre is a way of categorizing types of media such as arts, music, video games and film. We use genre labels to give the player or viewer a guide as to what content they will find within the selected media.

You can tell what genre a game is by looking at a screenshot of the game play and noticing the following things listed below:

  • Sci-Fi- Bright colors to represent lasers such as red, green and blue, maybe a few brown shades in the background to signify a different planet or maybe grey or white to show a space craft.
  • Horror- Dark colors such as brown, dark grey, black, shadows and monstrous figures, metallic or wooden surroundings, low light.
  • RPG- small window of visibility, lots of information on the HUD, health bars and damage count, party chat.
  • Shooter- ammo count, right hand is seen or a weapon, a map or radar, score board/score system, usually a first person view.
  • Adventure- discovering the mystery, saving someone, collecting hidden objects.
  • Simulation- realistic items and vehicles, no HUD or little information.
  • Strategy- top down view, grid view, tool bars along edges of screen.
  • Sports- usually large fields or courts along with simple basic colours like green, Orange our blue also bright environments unlike most other genres.