Storytelling 101

During term 1 we had a Storytelling class with the very fantastic Mr. John Meadows. He delved into the tried and true structures of storytelling during our first few classes, more of a recapping of high school literature theory. We got a good refresher of the three act structure (you know, how 99% of stories are written?) and had our first assignment based on such.

I choose a game I quite enjoyed when it first came out: Star Wars the Force Unleashed. While it may not be the best game in the Star Wars Universe, I did thoroughly enjoy the use of its story to bridge the gap between the prequel and original trilogies. Since a majority of video games focus so heavily on gameplay, and often very little on story, I choose this as my example since it uses the three act structure so well.

Our next big assignment was a doozy, one that took nearly three weeks to complete. Well, for me it did, but of course that was both the benefit and curse of being a part of the last presentation group. For this project we learned about another very concrete storytelling device used in a lot of literature, the Hero's Journey. Our assignment had us take a movie, particularly one that we enjoy (unless you wanted to have a terrible time), and turn it into a video game using the Hero's Journey paradigm.

For this assignment I decided to go with a movie choice that, if you know me, was painfully obvious. As a big Miyazaki fan, it's tough to choose your favourite film from his library, but for this it was pretty easy. I picked Princess Mononoke since it is a prime example of the Hero's Journey. 

My presentation had it's hiccups for sure. I spent a good portion of time making a snazzy looking Keynote presentation for my final Storytelling class (where unfortunately Powerpoint is the more accepted format). I thought I would look pretty cool using my phone to control my presentation, but of course, doing things that aren't the norm usually blows up in your face. Note to self, try to test out connecting your equipment to a projector and running a slideshow BEFORE you're late to class after a break and spend the next 5 minutes getting it to work. However, I kicked technology in the face with a flying dragon kick and got it to work and belted out a stunning performance, or so I would like to think.

The Storytelling class is a fantastic way to break into the world of video game narrative and something I've been very interested in delving into myself. We'll see where I head when we have to stream in term 3!

KC