Introduction
A lot of people on the forums are bringing up the question of multiple playable-characters from different factions and species. To reiterate, right now Turner the rabbit is the only playable character confirmed for Overgrowth, but with mod-tools this good I'm sure other campaigns will soon follow.
I thought it would be interesting to have a lot at the various patterns/archetypes/paradigms used for the story and progression of games with multiple characters and/or factions. These are by no means the only ways of skinning the cat, but they've been used to great effect in the past and are worth taking into account. My hope is that this list will be useful for present and future Overgrowth modders.
And who knows, maybe the team will consider multiple characters too, now that they have the technology?
I - Polyvalent
Examples:
- "Tekken", "Jedi Power Battles", "Diablo" ...
- Obviously the simplest way of doing things would be to have only one set of missions, and a character selection screen at the beginning of the game, between missions or even during gameplay. Most fighting games use this pattern because it works very well for tournaments. In Tekken you select one character and fight all those you might otherwise have played. Each character gets their own cinematics and a different level order, but by and large things don't change from one to the next, and the boss is always the same.
I played a great deal of Tekken 5 back in the day, but I really have no idea what the story is about. Go figure.
Pros:
- Immediate access to all of the different characters.
- Any of the characters can be the winner.
- Only works for a specific kind of story: all the characters must be on the same side or after the same thing (winning a tournament, taking over the world).
- Each character's story tends to seem a little contrived, and the overall storyline may need to be quite shallow to remain polyvalent.
- One of the stories will have to be selected to be "canon" if a sequel is made, so none of them feel "real".
II - Divorced
Examples:
- "Warcraft", "Supreme Commander" ...
- A brute force solution to the above problems, this pattern features one completely unique storyline for each faction or character, so works for characters/factions in opposition. Since the player's side always wins, these stories immediately contradict each other, so will have different endings. They can be seen as alternate versions of the events. For example, Warcraft ends either with the Orcs destroying "Stormwind Keep", or the Humans destroying "Blackrock Spire", depending on whom you choose to play.
It took me hundreds of tries to kill that s.o.b, and now he's not only alive but was apparently just "misunderstood"!?
Pros:
- As above, immediate access to all of the different factions or characters.
- Again as above, any of the factions/character can be the winner.
- Work harder not smarter: need to write two different stories, design two different sets of levels and create a lot more content overall.
- Many players won't see all the content you've made, becausethey won't play through all the campaigns.
- As above, none of the divorced stories feel "real", and one must be selected arbitrarily to be "canon" if a sequel is made.
III - Sequential
Examples:
- "Starcraft", "Warcraft 3" ...
- In order to fix the problems with the previous solution, this one uses a single storyline, which is seen from each faction's point of view in turn. Thus each faction's campaign continues on from the last in chronological order, and also continues to ramp up the difficulty. For example, Starcraft has the player controlling first the "Terran", with mostly easy mission, then the "Zerg" with more difficult ones, and finally the "Protoss" with some very challenging levels.
In Starcraft 2 (spoiler) we learn that the Zerg weren't evil, just "misunderstood". Now why does that sound so familliar?
Pros:
- Only one story needs to be written and one set of assets created.
- All the players who play through the game will experience allyour hard work.
- Not all factions or characters are playable from thebeginning, or are too difficult to play when just starting out.
- The player knows which side is going to winand it isn't necessarily their favourite.
IV - Alternating
Examples:
- "Total Annihilation: Kingdoms", "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare", "Lugaru: Temple", "Lugaru: Empire" ...
- We don't want to alienate players who want to play a specific faction by making them play through all the others, but we don't want to write multiple stories either. The obvious solution is to use a single story which is constantly switching perspectives. For example, TA: Kingdoms always has the player controlling the winning faction; changing sides are the different factions advance and retreat. On a side note this is the paradigm adopted by all the Lugaru modifications to have featured multiple playable characters.
In this mission you play as the faction you were being destroyed by just previously. Note the heraldic shield that appears at the start of the briefing: it appear whenever you change perspective.
Pros:
- A single coherent story as above.
- The player isn't kept waiting too much.
- Changing factions draws you in and keeps the gameplay fresh and interesting.
- Progression and difficulty curve tend to be a bit unstable.
- The player still can't play who they want when they want all the time.
IV - Interwoven
Examples: Description:
- Simply chop up the an alternating storyline into its component points of view and then reassemble them as separate threads: voilà , distinct but interwoven story lines. In other words, each faction's story can be played on its own, but isn't divorced from the others: they all take place simultaneously. In Aliens vs Predator 2 for instance, the marine Alien missions take place largely before anybody else's, and in general the protagonists are always in a different place or at a different time (though at one stage the Marine protagonist sees the Predator protagonist asleep in a test-tube).
Great game! Note the time-stamps: they appear at the start of each mission and are really handy for piecing the story together. Also note the hilariously bad voice-acting.
Pros:
- All the campaigns are accessible from start to finish from the very beginning.
- Players who like to finish everything will really enjoy thecrossover points between the different stories, where they catch aglimpse of their "other selves".
- Without playing the other factions' levels it can bedifficult to understand what's going on. The stories on their own may not make sense independently and the pacing may be off.
- The different protagonists can only ever glimpse each other.If each one is their team's champion it can be difficult to write astory that doesn't feel contrived.
- Keeping the protagonists apart often may also mean creating adifferent set of levels for each, so a lot more work.
- A story that gives equal weight to several different pointsof view is difficult to write: sometimes one is neglected or gets alot more attention.
V - Multi-linear
Examples:
- "Sacrifice", "Splinter Cell: Double Agent", "Survival Crisis Z" ...
- A bit of a special case, applying more to a story with a single character and multiple factions rather than to one with multiple characters. This paradigm is similar to alternation, but in this case the player gets to choose which factions they'll play as next. As they progress certain doors will be opened or closed to them, and the ending will vary based on which path they choose to follow. Sacrifice had the player choose a god to work for each mission, and awarded them an extra unit from this specific faction, usable in subsequent levels.
"Stratos" was voiced by Tim Curry - hurray!
Pros:
- Pretty much all of the above: the player can do more or less anything they want, and everybody loves choices.
- Also pretty much all of the above: a lot more work is required, and a lot more care must be taken to prevent incoherences and a psychedelic pacing and difficulty curve.
VII - Non-linear
Examples:
- "Dawn of War: Dark Crusade", "Rome: Total War" ...
- Similar to the first pattern, you're given a free character/faction choice. But this final solution also splits the game in two separate mini-games: a turn-based Risk-like world-map is used for selecting missions, and the main game involves playing the levels chosen through this interface. In Dark Crusade for instance, player picks one side, and all the other sides are controlled by the AI: each territory is a skirmish mission, and each faction's headquarters is a story-mission.
Each faction gets special introduction and conclusion cinematics.
Pros:
- The player writes their own story: as a designer you only need to set up the pieces for them.
- Each playthough is different.
- New factions and/or characters can easily be added to the world.
- The story often feels rather shallow and the levels tend to be quite generic because of their need to be polyvalent.
- You'll often end up playing the same level over an over again as the enemy keeps retaking it.
- Generally things start very difficult and become progressively easier as the player gains the upper hand on the world-map. This is exactly want you don't want!
Conclusion
That should be enough to be getting on with. Let me know if you have any more examples, or suggestions of your own for new and different paradigms! I'd be happy to add (even) more to this list
