King Arthur’s Quest for the Holy Grail and his Unexpected Encounter with an Unholy Toll Troll

NARRATIVE DESIGN EXERCISE

a branching narrative prototype made in Twine

AVAILABLE ON ITCH.IO

You play as Arthur, King of the Britons, and you're leading the valiant Knights of the Round Table on a quest for the Holy Grail. On your journey, you came across a terrifying troll guarding a bridge that you need to cross, demanding a hefty toll. How will you proceed? Your brave knights are awaiting your decision. 

Sorry about the AI slop I used instead of real art. It was just a writing exercise - I can't really paint like that!

This exercise, made as part of the Making Games course at IT University of Copenhagen, is a whimsical adventure inspired by the legendary comedy film Monty Python's Holy Grail. It taught me one important lesson: branching narratives have a habit of growing exponentially, and you have to be cautious as to when you want your story to actually branch out, because it can get out of hand really fast – as evidenced by the absolutely preposterous node graph below:

I guess it worked out in the end, but in a real production, you definitely can't write stories like this. The branches would have to converge much more, and there would need to be much less branching in general. It is my conviction that good narrative design is not about maximising player choice in terms of actual branching (that's unrealistic), but rather about creating a believable illusion of player agency. That can be done in a number of different ways, for example: 

• delayed branching, 

• acknowledging player choice in a more "cosmetic" way instead of full-on branching (e.g. different NPC reactions, even if they have no impact on the outcome), 

• letting the player decide how the story will be told – for example, by allowing them to pursue parallel storylines in different orders,

• environmental storytelling (the player just "happens" to come across something that conveys the narrative), 

• leveraging gameplay affordances, such as exploration, combat, crafting, etc. and tailoring the narrative to the player's natural progression through the game world. 

In this prototype, I obviously did none of the sort – it was just a neat excuse to click the "New Passage" button far too many times, write some ridiculous dialogue, experiment freely with the structure of the whole thing, and have an enormous amount of fun doing it.