Slot machines today are no longer the same as they were decades ago. As technology improved, possibilities opened. At this point, more and more players expect a story in slot games like the ones you can find at mr bet. As such, it is important that as a game developer, you also incorporate stories in slot machines through narrative design.
What Is Narrative Design?
The word “narrative” simply means story-telling. With slots, you can add a story to keep players engaged.
Most games have a narrative design. One story we can talk about is The Last of Us. In this game, the player takes the role of a survivor in a world full of zombies. The player has to battle these zombies to save a girl whose blood could have a cure.
You can do the same with slot machines. For example, in Gonzo’s Quest, players take the character, a treasure hunter to ancient Mayan ruins. In the slot game Immortal Romance, the story revolves around vampires.
How to Incorporate Narrative Design in Slots
In this section, we will provide you with the elements of narrative design in slot machines.
Create a Story
Before creating a story, you must choose a theme or a genre. There are many, and below are some examples:
- Fantasy like dragons, vampires, and werewolves.
- Mystery like murder, investigations, etc.
- Real-life stories like wars, mafia, and crime.
Now that you have selected a topic, you can start building your storyline. Always make sure you have a protagonist that the player can root for, and that this protagonist is the player’s character.
Next, you need to create a mission or goal. You can only do this if you have a conflict in the story. For example, you can use terrorism as a conflict. In the game, the player is a soldier, and the mission is to stop a bomb from getting off.
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Immerse the Player
The next step is to immerse players. Of course, the first part of the immersion is by spinning the reels. For every win, the player will progress in the storyline.
You need to make players work hard to progress in the story. However, this progress will only happen out of luck. The longer the player plays, and the more wins they have, the closer they get to the end of the story.
Immersion will also happen if you use great graphics and sounds. Both of these are crucial components of games. As such, you must ensure that your graphics and music, including sound effects, are top quality.
Use Features Players Cannot Resist
Lastly, you must use features that players either expect or cannot resist. The most common features in modern slot machines are wild and scatter symbols.
What you must do is make it more exciting. For example, you can use moving wilds, stacked wilds, or scatter symbols that accumulate and will activate a bonus feature.
Keep in mind that the bonus feature must progress the storyline, and then the player must also have the opportunity to make big money from it.
Finally, it would help if there were several bonuses in the game. Usually, slot machines offer one bonus, and this reward just gets repeated if three scatter symbols are landed. You can have different bonuses at each progression so the player can look forward to something.
Narrative design is a basic expectation in today’s world. All people who play games want to get immersed in a story. Stories are important because you want the player to stay connected with the game.
Because of this, you have to think of storylines that will captivate your target audience. There are so many ideas out there, so keep exploring and you will surely find a niche!
