Storytelling is the Name of the Game: GCAP and why we should all be indie developers.

‘We can all be indie developers as we all have a story to tell’

The Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) conference left an impression on me. I could feel the passion and love everyone felt for video games and play in general. Play is important to us as a species, culturally in the way humans interact with stories and socially in the way we interact with each other. We play when we communicate and as gregarious beings we identify with the world in which we live in through play. Play is a form of rationalising the world we live in and, of course, play is pure storytelling.

We read books and relish imaginative dilemmas. We watch films and observe the nuance of the director, but play is how we lose ourselves, to become part of the telling of the story. It is when we fuse our personas with the protagonists and our experiences to the fictional worlds. It is often said that music is the highest form of art, but since GCAP, I feel that video games share the pedestal with music as I believe it elevates us beyond many realms of possibilities, emotions and dreams

There were many speakers that intrigued me on both days of GCAP, but it was Mattie Brice and her keynote on Earnest Games: Why you Matter to Game Design that really fascinated me. Mattie frames play as something quite exploratory, as something that allows gamers to explore multitudes of stories written from perspectives of a variety of developers. She equated game design to us, the people, as each game is personal to both the game designer and the gamer. And I think there is something special to this idea that is highlighted especially well in the most personal of games – the indie title. With unparalleled personal freedom, the indie developer is an artist able to conjure illusions through design and code, musings from their vivid imaginations to tell us a story; a story that is personal to them and them alone. There is nothing else I’d rather play as a writer as I’m always interested in listening to the stories of others.

“Through play, we explore the forbidden, the impossible, the things that we are not allowed to explore in our daily lives. In this sense, fiction operates much like play: through fiction, we try lives, and those trials are bound not by the values of life, but by the particular morality of that fiction. Pushing the analogy further, game designers are actually life designers – creators of an order and a world in which a different life can be instantiated.”
-Miguel Sicart, Beyond Choices

One of the developers of indie game Rabbit-Rush attended GCAP and I was lucky enough to play it whilst waiting for the initial keynote on day one. Rabbit-Rush is a very peculiar yet wonderful game that drew me in from the get go. It was retro, it was creepy and it was unique. It told me a story through play; the story of the developers. Of all the late nights they fed this game, of all the burgers and fries they ate themselves. The clichéd blood, sweat and tears was apparent; I was drawn and I was hooked.

The game reminded me that we can all be indie developers, in that we all have a story to tell, and can tell it in our way, whether it be through games or other forms of expression.  For example, Mattie mentioned a program, called Twine. Twine is a lovely program that allows developers to make games with a focus on storytelling. A little complicated to learn and play with at first, but there are great tutorials out there! I’ve ‘played’ with it and if I can do it, anyone can. It’s just the story that matters; story and the chance to give others a way to experience your creation through play. And if you make something awesome, I’ll read it (contact me here – @DNN_Lewis) and I’m sure many other people will too. You will make a difference, indies always do.

To finish, as Mattie did: ‘we are game design and our flaws are game design too’. Indie games are great because of this “flaw” notion. Flaws, like story and play, are markers of being human. Write stories, create games. Fail, retry, and tell us your story; your special perspective on a specific situation. Your games are beautiful, your stories are interesting, please don’t stop and continue adding to the indie market! We need your voice; we all want play with your imagination.

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Author: Dann Lewis
Creative Writing PhD student at Deakin University + Writer + Gamer + Cyberpunk
Twitter: @DNN_Lewis