Chris Crawford on Game Design

Chapter 11. Storytelling

Games and storytelling have a long and twisted history. Brenda Laurel was the first exponent of storytelling in computer games; she wrote a number of influential works on the theoretical problems. The game design community seemed to like the idea of stories mixed with games, but could never figure out how to do it. They especially liked the idea of making games more “cinematic,” but few had any idea of what that entailed.