Evolution of Storytelling. Part I

This will be the first of a series of posts in wich we will take a look through the differents generations of videoconsoles and how storytelling has been evolving together with the technology and techniques of videogame design. In this first post we go through the first, second and third generations.

The first generation.

Released in August 1972, the Magnavox Odissey (or just Odissey for short) was the first homeconsole to be realeased. It's graphics were extremely poor, only being able to do extremely basic shapes of white. To compensate for this, a plastic overlay was to be used on the screen to simulate the background the console could not render.

Magnavox Odissey

For the most part, storytelling was almost not existent. There were some brief texts in the manual of the games to set some background for the game and explain what those white squares are suposed to be, and the overlays aimed to create some kind of ambient and help imagine the scenario we were in.

The games were normally about sports, but there were some exceptions like Haunted House. Other videogames consoles would be realeased at the time, and the overabundace of games too similar between them will end causing the crash of the videogame market. It won't recover until the release of the Atari 2600, and the start of the second generation.

The second generation.

In September 1977, the Atari 2600 would be realease by the company of the same name, marking the start of the second generations of videogames. It was a very succesful videogame console, it has become an icon of videogame story and influenced next generations with it's used of microprocessor based hardware and ROM cartridges.

Atari 2600

It graphics were form of  simple shapes and colors used to represent both the scenary and the characters. This will mark the first time were a story could be told, even if extremely simple. A big part of the premise of the videogame was  told through the manual and others external material like tie-in comics. Once inside the game, the player had to use his imagination to both understand and place together the little bits of information given and form the plot.

The first adaptations videogames would appear, from Indiana Jones to Star Wars passing through Superman, comic, movies, television and all kind of media were the source of ideas for some games. For the most part, they limited themselves to reproduce the most emblematic moments of them.

Again, some bad decisions taken by Atari would end leading the videogame market to another crash.

The third generation.

The unknown at the time Nintendo released in 1983 the Family Computer or Famicon in Japan, and later distributed worldwide as the Nintendo Entertaiment System or as it is more commonly known now, NES. It marked the jump to 8-bit graphics, allowing the creators to make user bigger quantity of pixels letting them create more complex compositions and at the same times bigger worlds and more characters. This will be decesive for the born of multitude of games franchise and sagas that would change the digital media and which legacy will had dramatic effects on how storytelling evolves.

Later, the Sega Master System was released by Sega to compete against the NES, and although it had some success, it didn't reach the same level Nintendo did.

The Nintendo Entertaiment System (NES)

The most remarkable games of this generations when it comes to storytelling were:

Final Fantasy: A RPG (Role Playing Game) released
by Square in December 18 of 1987 and the first

of the long franchise . Althought there were some intervention of the narrator through the game, the story was told mostly through dialogue. Inspired greatly by tabletop roleplaying games, in particular Dungeons and Dragons, the game inmersed the player into a world of magic and fantasy, were four chosen heroes had to save the world. Although the premise was rather simple, the at the time unexpected twist of the plot and the complex world with multitude of characters and side stories were unseen before in videogames.

Metal Gear: Created by Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear
 marked the start of a saga most recognised for its

unique gameplay, innovatives ideas and rememorable plots and characters. What stand out of the first entry, Metal Gear, was it's intricrated plot, greatly influenced by action and spies movies of the time, we followed our main protagonist Snake rookie member of the special forces group FOXHOUND sent of his first mission, to rescue Gray Fox who infiltrated the terrorist base of Outer Heaven and aided through radio by his mentor and superior Big Boss. What make it most interesting is the combination of stealth gameplay, where the focus was on survival, and the story, make a whole between the two.

Metroid: A science fiction videogame characterized for
it's big world to explored, designed in a maze

like way in which the player had resolve both skill and mental challenges to progress. This in conjuction with it's graphic and sound design made a game where it's story didn't stand out for it's complexity or deep, but rather for it's ability to immerse the player. Even more remarkable was it's main character, Samus Aran. When the game was release little did the player know about Metroid's main character, apart from the iconic armor and being a mortal enemy of the Space pirates and the Metroids who murdered Samus' family. So when at the end of the game Samus toke out it's armor and revealed that, in fact, Samus was a woman, it was a shocking twist in a time were female character were exclusively the reward for the male main character. Samus would, despite controversy with the charater nowadays, become an icon of feminisn and equality in videogames for women.

The Legend of Zelda: A fantasy adventure game released by Nintendo, it became one of the most

recognised franchise of all time. The player took control of Link, a young boy who explore the vast kingdom of Hyrule to save princess Zelda from the hands of the monster Ganon. The world of the game was full of mistery and secrets and the player was given seamless freedom to explore it with little directions about were to go next. This led to an unique experience only found in videogames, where the player is led to create a personal experience with the game, becoming and explorer of the game's world lifting the shroud of mistery that uncovers it and creating his own story, thanks to the great level of interaction with it's setting and characters.

To be continue in the next part, Evolution of Storytelling, Part II.