Designed for game developers, designers, and students interested in interactive storytelling, this book introduces the fundamentals of narrative design for video games and shows how storytelling works within interactive systems. Rather than focusing only on theory, the book emphasizes practicing narrative design, helping readers understand how player choice, pacing, and structure shape the narrative experience.
You’ll begin by exploring the core foundations of narrative design, including choice spaces, exposition, and essential terminology used in interactive storytelling. As you progress, the book examines dynamic narrative metrics such as interactivity, exposition density, pacing, and suspense, providing a framework for understanding how narratives function in games. The book also introduces practical structures and interactive templates that can help developers design narrative systems more effectively, along with tools and techniques for editing, refining, and improving interactive content.