Thoughts on Game Stories

These are some thoughts of an amateur game dev on video game stories. Not heavily edited, just writing to organise thoughts, these thoughts will certainly evolve over time with more experience. Feedback is welcome, these thoughts are very much still developing.

Games have several layers to them, specifically the story of a game. Even games which claim not to have a story to in-fact have a story in my eyes.

The Player's Story

This might seem like a bit of a cop out but I think its important to consider the story of the player's experience as a part of the narrative as, while this section has the least direct control from the developer it is immensely important to the pacing the the game as a whole. This also determines a lot of how some people will see your game after they've played it.
Considering this layer may involve adding narrative weight to the direct choices the player makes, such as having a potential branch in the story be driven by the player choosing to go against what the game is telling them.
Regardless of how you handle, or even consider, story this layer is inevitable as it's a result of the player interacting with the game and making choices.

The Surface Story

This is the layer I think most people think of when they discuss the story of a game, the literal events presented commonly through dialogue or cutscenes, this may branch or not either way this layer contains these elements.
When someone says a game has no story this seems to be what they mean, there is no explicitly told narrative from the game itself.
This section is interesting to play with the linearity, what parts of the story are found when and the like.

Under The Surface

This is the layer of implied storytelling, I would consider the majority of environmental storytelling to go here. This section usually takes the elements presented to the player and trusts them to interpret the story being told, these stories don't have to carry the entire narrative, while they can link in with the larger story and thematically they likely should on average little stories are just as good in longer games.

Deep Lore

This is the realm of the theorists, the things which require a lot of interpretation from the player, like piecing together the descriptions of multiple items to come up with some backstory to the world. This section is good for rewarding those who are most willing to engage with the game, as such its a good place to have some of the more unrelated elements of your world regarding the main story, players in this section are likely to enjoy this kind of minutia, don't have this lore be completely unrelated though, remember people this deep into the game's story and world are invested in the higher layers and as such are likely to want some regarding that, but also as they are this deep they are likely to be willing to interpret what you have provided so give them some vague information they can discuss and enjoy arguing who's interpretation is right.

No layer of the story should REQUIRE a deeper layer for basic understanding of it up to that layer, if the King kills their army in the Surface Story there should be AN answer for the player in the Surface Story, but not necessarily the whole answer, the answer given may have holes in it or otherwise be incomplete but a player should be able to look at that section and think that it makes some amount of sense even if they can feel that there is more if they dig deeper.

Each layer aside from the Player's Story are able to tell their part through every element of the game, the level design the texture work, the model, the mechanics and anything else you can think of.

Each of the layers builds on the last and, aside form the Player's Story, are entirely optional depending on the kind of game you are trying to make, but even if you don't plan on including them its good to consider them. Players are a smart bunch and will interpret the game regardless of the developers intention but if they aren't invested, at least slightly, by a layer you are using they are unlikely to dig into the deeper layers. The main reason to bring this up is to say: Don't spend excessive time and energy on the Deep Lore without a solid idea of the Surface Story, this doesn't mean know everything about the Surface Story before you start with your Lore, but I think you should know what shape the story is supposed to be, its easy to fall into the trap of building out your Lore without regard of the actual story the player is experiencing and while I do think its important to have an idea of what's going on behind the scenes, if the Surface Story's not engaging, the player's (generally) not going to want to dig deeper into it.

These thoughts come mostly from thinking and less from experience, while I try to make my games, stories are a section in which I am still learning.

The most important thing is remember it's your game, these are just my thoughts which have been brewing for a while whenever I've tried to write stories for my games. Take what you find helpful and leave what you don't. My thoughts will surely evolve as I make more games, and as I consider the writing of those games' stories more closely, if you want to talk about these ideas I am always down to discuss any part of game dev.