on writing games

other hidden nonlinearities

Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand Thoreau

Just as I insist on not starting your first game with complicated structures (multiple endings, dynamic branching, probabilities), I also suggest that you start with a short story.

Narrative complexity is non-linear: a novel is not just a longer short story.

A novel has properties that do not exist in short stories, and said properties arise because of its length.

In order to sustain a long linear story we usually need multiple characters, locations, scenes, motivations, pacing changes, etc.

And each of these things has such a level of interconnection with everything else that it generates a network of dependencies and chain reactions.

The care of this network of dependencies is essential to maintain the consistency of our story.

And all this is just talking about a linear story.

If we add interactivity into the mix, things get way worse, because an interactive story is not a story with choices.

There are properties that arise because of interactivity.

On the other hand, when one has a project and estimates it, it is often said that one must multiply the estimated time by 2 or 3.

There is a mathematical basis for this: time is not volatile, it can only move forward and not backward. Therefore, there cannot be errors that shorten the project (negative time), but there are plenty of errors that can delay it. And this delays are also non-linear, one thing affects the other and so on.

That’s why I always insist on making short games, or experiences that grow horizontally, more variety among the options of a short story instead of very long stories.