Games that are Narrative Based

A while back I played a game called "Indigo Prophecy." The main story line gets a bit convoluted towards the middle, but the way in which the story line drives the game play is truly an interesting experience. The game begins with your character, Lucas, committing a murder. Lucas wasn't in control of his body at the time though, and when he is back in control he has a corpse at his knees and evidence to his involvement all around the scene. As Lucas, you must hide the evidence and then escape the scene. Then, after you've escapes as Lucas, you take control of the two cops who arrive at the scene and with them you must find all of the evidence that you hid as you were playing Lucas. The game progresses in this way until the end, making you play a game of cat and mouse with yourself while trying to uncover the truth of the murder.

Dialogue Trees in Video Games

In the last decade one of the greatest developments I've seen in video game writing is the use of dialogue trees. A dialogue tree allows the player to respond to a NPC (non-player character) in nearly any way they would want. For example, your character approaches an NPC who seems angry. Your character will have a number of ways to respond to said NPC, from politeness to violence, or in between. These dialogue trees are most commonly seen in American RPGs, role playing games, such as Fallout 3 and Knights of the Old Republic. What really makes these dialogue trees interesting is when the way your character acts actually influences how other NPCs react to you. This not only makes dialogue trees fun, but it also allows customization into your character's personality.