While gameplay and story intertwine to create a quality narrative in video games, there is some degree of disconnect between the two: both can be done well, both poorly, or one well and the other poorly.  Tom Bissell notes how both sides are a craft unto themselves, that “When gameplay fails, we know it because it does not, somehow, feel right.  Failed storytelling is more abject.  You feel lots of things – just not anything the storyteller wants you to feel.” (Bissell, 2010)  I am usually all for readers and players making their own meanings out of their texts, but I also understand where Bissell is coming from: authors and writers have themes and ideas they want to convey, explicitly or implicitly, through their texts.  If we, as players, are not experiencing those feelings, then the text did not do its job, plain and simple.  Video games take on a number of different structures and styles to convey their themes, and each manages to tell the story in a very unique way.

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1. Linear and Non-Linear
2. Structure
3. Other Narrative Tools

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