Many stories start with a punch, and The Forgotten City is no exception. Born out of the massive mod of the same name in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Forgotten City lets players experience an engaging adventure full of elements such as time travel, philosophical questions, and murder. But what's less well known is that if it weren't for Nick Pearce, the general manager of the indie studio Modern Storyteller, who was punched in the face by a stranger, the game wouldn't have been born.
Pierce, a former lawyer who was beaten up by an unreasonable stranger on his way to a creative writing class, prompted him to write a short story and garnered a lively response. Since then, Pierce seems to have found boundless creativity and motivation, and eventually wrote the huge script for The Forgotten City.
"I got a great story out of it." Pierce recalled with a smile.
Back in the Duke of Doom era, Pierce enjoyed tinkering with levels and mods, and realized that mods could be influential narrative tools, such as The Mod Bounties of Fallout: New Vegas. The Mod creation of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was particularly enjoyable to him, and he even switched careers to start his own studio, spending years to complete the development of the Forgotten City.
From fantasy mods to ancient Roman temples
1700 hours. Before quitting his official job, Pierce devotes about 11 hours a day to developing content for the Forgetting City, the first game mod in history to win an Australian Writers Guild Award. In the process, Pierce taught himself how to write code. At first, Pierce only intended to create an ancient city, but later decided to add something unusual: time travel.
According to Pierce, no one in the scripting tools he used had ever created time travel (gameplay) before.
"During those 1,700 hours, I spent almost half of my time running into walls and trying to solve those problems on my own." Pierce said, "I suddenly had the idea of adding a time loop (setting) because in the story, the whole city is destroyed. ”
At the beginning of the game, the protagonist wakes up by the river, and the time background is modern. But when the protagonist encounters some ancient ruins, he is suddenly teleported back to ancient Rome, where gladiators, priestesses, merchants, and immigrants all move around the city. Players will soon discover that the ancient Roman city collapsed because someone broke the Golden Rule — even if only one person commits a crime, everyone else will turn into a golden statue and die.
The protagonist can choose to play roles such as a mercenary with a gun or a knowledgeable historian, figuring out who broke the Golden Rule and stopping it. Players can also use the time loop (mechanic) to get to know the inhabitants of the city and help them. "The time loop encourages players to play because they have plenty of opportunities to figure out what the problem is... Players may also encounter a variety of different endings, because the player can influence the direction of the story, and the outcome will change accordingly. Pierce said.
To avoid a legal dispute with The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda, Pierce had to make drastic changes to the story and setting of the original mod. As a enthusiast, in order to ensure that the game's portrayal of architecture, costumes, etc. is as close to history as possible, he also asked many questions from Philip Matyszak, a historian at the University of Oxford, who had written several books on the life of ancient Rome and ancient Greeks.
"The game's story seems to fit very naturally into the framework of ancient Roman history." Pierce said, "I can discuss Stoic philosophy, Socratic dialogue, the gods, human civilization, and different religions. All of this helps to make the story seem more grounded and meaningful. Personally, I think that's the biggest advantage of making an indie game specifically. ”
Build the cornerstone of your narrative
To incorporate more than 60,000 lines of branch dialogue from the script into the game, Pierce employed several different approaches.
"From a technical or back-end perspective, we've made two principles clear: first, we should give the player the motivation to learn about each character; second, we need to provide the player with a character that's interesting and personal enough." Pierce explains, "Both jobs are indispensable. ”
While the dialogue mechanics of Forgotten City aren't unfamiliar to most players, they can easily make players feel emotionally resonant with their characters. Whenever a character tells the story of their difficult life, such as being enslaved or losing a loved one, the player can say "I'm sad to hear this news." This sentence itself will not have a special impact on the plot, but it can enhance the player's sense of immersion.
At the same time, players can also choose not to listen to the full speech of the NPC character. "Players often travel through time loops, and other characters forget the player, but the player remembers them. So we have to provide the player with a quick shortcut through the dialogue, otherwise the player will be very angry. ”
The time loop can also give the player a pleasant sense of power: for example, a clever player can use this mechanic to get rich quickly — stealing gold from wealthy residents (which would cause the city to be destroyed) and then running away quickly. "That's what I want to give players in most missions that they feel like they're smart or have great power." Pierce said.
In a sense, the narrative core of "The Forgotten City" is the interpretation and discussion of the Golden Rule and morality between modern and ancient people.
"Our goal is to create a lot of uncertainty around breaking the Golden Rule... Nothing is black and white, and I want to encourage players to explore the city and discern for themselves what is right and what is wrong. ”
Share suggestions
Pierce shared some tips on screenwriting and game design. Pierce stressed that in a game that contains a lot of dialogue, developers need to find ways to keep players engaged, preferably every 3 sentences of dialogue so that players can respond to the words of the NPC character.
At the same time, Pierce believes that developers should strive to create a rich variety of characters with different characteristics. "If you put [the character's] flaws and virtues equally important, you can make the character seem more interesting and grounded."
In addition to the main storyline, developers can sometimes consider building secondary plots and present them in a reversed way. "Building a worldview is key. I work very hard to make the city look like a real, believable place. The first question was ' How do people live here?' This, in turn, raises a series of other questions, such as what people eat, what they wear, where to fetch water, and so on. Well, we could use the aqueduct to divert water from outside the city and also drink wine and beer in the tavern. ”
Original translation
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/delving-into-the-narrative-structure-of-the-forgotten-city