Sworn Enemies
There's a common expedient in video game design, where the game will give the player a "sworn enemy", an ancient enemy that the player has to just assume is the bad guy from the start. The only problem with that is, game players today are just too sophisticated to accept a cartoonish version of motivation like that.

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Did you ever notice how many games just start off by handing you a sworn enemy? In GTA San Andreas, they start the game by dropping you in 'Ballas' territory, and the first time you run across one of those gang members, the game tells you that they are your 'sworn enemy.' What I don't get is, Why?


Why are these guys my sworn enemy? Because they killed some of my gang? Sure, but I've killed a whole slew of them, so it's kinda a wash, right? I mean, either we actually keep score, or we just assume that we have to kill everybody. Either way, we've got no real reason for all the hostility.

Some games will start out by giving you a reason for hating the bad guy, and that works out a lot better. You are a simple peasant going about your simple life of collecting mushrooms, when suddenly a boulder destroys your entire village, and as you look up, you see the evil troll grinning down at the smoking crater of your home. . . now that's motivation!

But lots of of the games start you off with a 'sworn enemy' just as an expedient. If you play Sudeki, you start off with them handing you an enemy. An ancient enemy, the Aklorians, who have been at war with your people for some time, and seem to attack you for no reason. At the beginning of any game, I've got nothing but love for all God's people. When you tell me I've got an ancient enemy, I tend to question it more than just jump in and say, "Yeah! Let's kill those bastards!"

I find myself more interested in their motivation than angry with them. I kill those that attack me, but I just can't buy into calling them enemies. Then, about half way through the game, I find out that they are not my "real" enemy. In fact, someone else is manipulating both sides to attack each other. Well, how . . . underwhelming. Sorry, it just doesn't feel like betrayal when you don't really love or hate either side.

What's worse is that most games will foreshadow this situation. Look, if you are told to attack somebody, and you aren't given a reason for it, and people actively avoid questions which might mitigate the hatred, chances are you're being manipulated. If you really want to make the players believe a story, you have to give them a believable motivation for both sides. We hate the bad guys because they want to take over our world. Okay, but if you don't tell me why they want our world, then it just doesn't quite gel. These days, it's hard to accept general greed as a motivation, unless you make your enemy so cartoony in his manner that people accept him as generally shallow and two-dimensional.

Now, this would be a great betrayal. The troll destroys your village, and you see him dancing on the mountaintop, gleefully enjoying the destruction. You hear him say, "Boy I really do hate all humans. I just love smashin' em." Okay, at this point, you accept that your story and motivation are going to be two-dimensional, and you just play the game normally, trying to stop, or kill, the troll. Along your jouneys, you pick up a pal who tells you that his village was destroyed by the troll, and he has been following the troll ever since. So, cool. Now you've got a party in the standard video game sense.

But then you notice, in the middle of one of the battles, that the latest village the troll destroyed was a troll village. You notice that your new friend always seems to know just where to go next to head off the troll. Through cutscenes, you notice all kinds of intricate little details (like the troll is always rubbing the silver band around his head, like it was giving him a headache).

If games can do that, start with a simple two-dimensional story, and slowly evolve it through small, incremental clues, it would keep the player's attention, and build them up for a much better betrayal. For instance, the game leaves clues that lead you to believe your new friend is controlling the troll, but does it in a way that seems like the game is trying to keep that secret from you. Then, just when you're expecting the betrayal scene, where you are ready to confront him, you get stabbed from behind by a huge, new enemy with his own army of controlled trolls. You wake up in a jail cell thinking, "What the hell just happened?" Now, that's a sweet setup.

Any story that leads you subtly into building your own idea of which side is good and which is evil, then completely obliterates those beliefs in climactic storyline changes, will be heralded and loved.
- posted by BrandG @ 7:13 AM 0 comments