Feb 23, 2025
I learned about the framework of lenses in Jesse Schell's Art of Game Design. Schell says, "[...] View your game from as many perspectives as possible. I refer to these perspectives as lenses, because each one is a way of viewing your design. They are not blueprints or recipes, but tools for examining your design."
Lenses that work for game writing often work for non-interactive writing. Maybe I hang out with too many SFF authors but I find there's a lot of overlap particularly with genre writing. I reach for my lenses constantly to figure out the logic behind a gut feeling: something feels off; what is it?
None of these came to me in a moment of heavenly inspiration; I stole them from friends/mentors/books or arrived at them in discussion.
THE PROBLEMS BUCKET: What gets problematized in your story? Which is to say, what goes in your bucket of problems? Inconsistency here is what kills me. For example: a contemporary fairy tale retelling that isn't sure whether monarchy is something to be interrogated or not. Just this week a friend pointed out that interpersonal relationships should basically always be in the problems bucket but sometimes aren't. I hadn't thought of using this lens that way but it's so smart. My friends are so smart.
EMOTIONAL = MECHANICAL. If you have a villain who face-turns (or an NPC you want players to like) they can't just cheer on the heroes, they have to provide some missing piece of the puzzle to be satisfying. See also: shounen fights where one guy punches better because his friends believe in him.
SIDE CHARACTERS ARE A PRISM: With limited time/space, a way to make a text feel richer is for every character to say something about your main character. What thematic questions does your MC pose? How do side characters reflect those questions?
PUNCHLINE PLACEMENT: Where in your line/chapter/mission/cutscene is the most important piece of information? Play with that for pacing/tension/surprise. "And his name was… DRACULA!" feels more explosive than "And Dracula… was his NAME!" It gets repetitive if you only ever place your bomb at the final beat. Maybe a script feels weirdly paced because your bomb is always in the same position within a line (or chapter, or mission, or cutscene...).
EFFICIENCY: How many things is your line doing? Can it do more? Things a line can do (non-exhaustive list): reveal something about the world or a character; further the plot; tell the player where to go; explain a UI interaction. If a line or scene drags maybe it's not doing enough to earn its keep.
PLAYER ERGONOMICS: How comfortable are players in this story moment? How good does it feel to exist around this character? How uncomfortable can you afford to make your players? IMO a lot of popular villains are popular because they have good player ergonomics, and selling a face turn relies on it.
PERSONALIZATION: Even in a linear story, is there a way to make the game respond to some player choice—their action, their state, their inventory? A couple small things here make a big impact.
SURPRISE THAT SURPRISES: Not only a surprise in terms of what's there, but a surprise in terms of what is possible. Something that blows open the expectation of what can even happen in a game/activity like this. It can create awe. Psycho Mantis reading your save data is personalization + a surprise that surprises; to me these two lenses are often intertwined.