Storytelling Without Words
Storytelling Without Words
Some games don’t use text or dialogue to tell you the story. Games can achieve storytelling without words. There’s a game called Virginia, which tells a story with no dialogue. It involves an FBI investigation in a small town in Virginia, and there is no spoken dialogue at all. You have to piece together what’s going on from locations, body language and actions. It’s a bizarre experience.
Unpacking – Storytelling Without Words
One of my favourites for this is a game called Unpacking. This is a game where each level is you unpacking moving boxes and putting everything away. It has literally no dialogue at all. You start with a child’s bedroom, and learn that the person likes to draw and paint, play soccer and collect plushies.
You move through each stage of their life, from university to living in their first apartment with friends. Then they move in with their partner and there’s a sad moment where their degree certificate must be hidden away and you struggle to fit everything in alongside the stuff that is already there.
Suddenly you’re moving back into your childhood bedroom. You also see more and more medications, mobility aids and other things that indicate chronic pain or illness. Finally you get your own place and settle in. Then someone moves in with you, and you can fit all their stuff beside yours easily. Then finally you both move into a larger house and set up a nursery for a baby.
You literally learn about the people through their posessions, and the first relationship that fell apart was with a man, but the second relationship that went well was with another woman. Then you discover the nursery and unpack all the baby stuff, so you know they are bringing a child into their family. There’s sad moments when you realise the character has developed chronic health issues, and that they aren’t able to show off their achievements when they live with the man.
Show, Not Tell
It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone’s life just from the things they own. You see what is kept over the years, which shows you what matters most to them. I highly recommend Unpacking. It’s a lovely experience and it’s really amazing what you can learn about a story with no words to give it away. One of the common rules about storytelling is to ‘show, not tell.’ While I don’t believe this is an absolute rule, Unpacking shows that it is possible to tell a compelling story without using any words at all. Indeed this is the appeal for a lot of gamers. They want to explore and discover things for themselves instead of having everything spoon fed to them.
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