# Dev Log #2 - Linearity and Narrative Design

There are different ways to approach game design. One example is bottom up, where you work out mechanics and shape the experience around it. The obvious inverse, top down, is where you aim for an experience and try to find mechanics that compliment it. 

The approach of Narrative Design is similar. For Siege, it’s been top down. I knew I wanted loops, a progression of knowledge that allows the player to progress through the story, and the freedom to explore the world in as much (or little) detail as the player desires. But until I came to writing it, I wasn’t sure what the best way to achieve it was. I began with writing what ended up a very linear progression in a very complicated format, using a hell of a lot of Macros, to  what amounted in little player agency. 

The on-site QA tester (my wife) ran through the demo a couple of times and though she didn’t complain about it, I realised that in spite of the spaghetti aesthetic of the passages in Twine, there was really only one route of progression. (Queue wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

The solution was simple: deconstruct the spaghetti and use it as a trunk. If the main story of a game is the trunk, then the next thing Siege needed was branches. This may sound like a quagmire of mixed metaphors - but isn’t that what all writing is before you work out the kinks?