Why Is the Backstory Critical for Your Project Game?

You don’t start a project out of the blue. There is always a backstory to it.

When you turn something into a game, it helps to look at each of the game’s components. One of the most famous definitions of games, and which I quote very often is this one:

“What defines a game are a goal, the rules, the feedback system, and voluntary participation. Everything else is an effort to reinforce and enhance these four core components.”

— Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken

There are two reasons why I quote and refer to this definition often:

• It’s simple and easy to understand.
• The parallel between real-life projects/activities and games is immediately visible because the former also have goals, rules, many types of feedback systems, and voluntary participation, where the latter is often confirmed with a signature in a contract or a different kind of agreement.

The need for one more component

Although I agree with Jane McGonigal that the four components she identified are enough to define games and that any other part of a game is derived from one of those four, I feel a need to distinguish one more feature of games.

And it is the backstory of your game. Here is why.

The backstory in books, plays, and movies

Let’s see what a story is first.

“A narrative or story is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.).” — Wikipedia

A story — either imagined or real — is often about a character or a set of characters. They don’t have to be human, but something happens to its characters throughout the story. There is a start, a middle, and an end to each story.

And before the story began and we were invited to read, listen to, or watch it, there was a story preceding it — the backstory.

“A backstory, background story, back-story, or background is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding and leading up to that plot. It is a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest.” — Wikipedia

We get to know the backstory inside the story we read, listen to, or watch.

In an article, for example, we read about the background of the featured person (character). In a fictional story, the main character or other characters might give us snippets of their backstories and those of each other in dialogue or action.

A backstory in a game includes you as its player.

In games, the backstory is a little different from a story you read, listen to, or watch — assuming you are only the reader or the spectator watching the story, and not the actor.

The backstory in a game can be often found in its description, and it indicates what happened before you as a player come into the action.

To illustrate that, here is the section called “Objective” from the description of one of the card games we enjoy playing in my family — Go Nuts For Donuts! by Gamewright.

“A massive tray of fresh donuts has just rolled out of the bakery. You and your fellow donut lovers want to eat as many as you can, but there is no sharing in this game! If two or more players pick the same donut, nobody gets it. Pick your donuts wisely and see if you can get the most points by the time all the donuts are gone!” — Go Nuts For Donuts! by Gamewright

So you could say that the “Objective” quoted above describes the goal of the game, and it does. But it also gives you the necessary background details about you and your fellow players as well as the story of the environment you are in.

Let’s look at them a little closer.

You and your friends, who want to play this game, are somewhere close to a bakery. Maybe in a cafe. And this cafe is special. Its customers can get the donuts for free, but only from the tray just served. Above that, they can’t get the same donuts as other players.

The players also have to choose a donut in each round before making their choice public. If the players (= the customers of the cafe) are lucky or observant enough to have chosen donuts different from their opponents (= friends), then they get their donuts.

After reading the first half of the “Objective” section, we also know that the customers (= you and your fellow players) of this cafe and bakery LOVE eating donuts because they want to eat as many donuts as they can.

That is quite an important detail about you as a player in this game.

So in a game, you take on a specific role, and as its player, you have to know the backstory of this role and the setting you “inhabit.” If compared to a story in a play or a movie, then it would be similar to it, but only if you were an actor in that story.

Thus, the backstory in a game or in a play, where you take part, becomes personal to you. It becomes a part of your story.

It becomes your backstory. Or at least a part of it.

You are an actor in your project story and player in your project game.

The same thing happens in a project you take on — regardless of the fact whether you came up with the project’s idea yourself or someone assigned it to you.

You don’t start a project out of the blue. Any project and any activity, and the ideas behind them have a backstory.

Those reasons why sports are good for our health are this kind of backstory. Many studies and experiences by others contribute to this backstory too.

But also personal experience, or a story of a company you are working for, make them part of the backstory for your project “game.” And the more you are aware of that story, the better you will be able to play it.

But you are also the author of your project story and the designer of your project game.

However, there is a necessary amendment to what I wrote above.

In any project or activity which you turn into a fun — for you — game, you are not only its player, but you are also its designer.

The following sentence will sound like a repetition of the previous one — at least partially — but it is very much worth repeating it.

Regardless, where you enter the project or task as its player, you also become its designer, or at the very least, its co-designer.

If we make a parallel to movies, then it would be like in those where its director, screenwriter, and/or producer is also one of its actors.

Words in conclusion

You’ll never be able to play a game or a role in a play or a movie without knowing its story, and in particular, the background part of it — its backstory.

And I’ll go as far as to say:

You’ll never truly enjoy your project or activity “game” without knowing its backstory, that is, without learning, appreciating, and taking it as your own.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article, then you might also enjoy these:

P.S. To stay in touch, join my e-mail list, Optimist Writer.