ABSTRACT
Beforewe start seriously looking at the nuts and bolts of game storytelling, I think it’s important to pause and take a look at the past. Games have come a longway since the days of Pong – and it’s not only the graphics, sound, and gameplay that have improved, but the storytelling as well. It’s interesting to trace the history of game stories as they evolved from a few lines of text or a couple of pixelated cut-scenes to the complex high-definition multimedia experiences of today and look at the titles that helped shape the eras in which they were released. Of course, a complete study of game history would require an entire book of its own, but we have time to take a look at a few of the highlights. In the end, no matter how much games continue to growand change, they’ll still be partially shaped by the events and titles of years past. As the saying goes, “To understand the future, one must first look to the past.”
