Reposting from ldjam.
This has been a pretty interesting Ludum Dare so far! All of our team members had never done a story based game and we decided to go out of our comfort zone to take the challenge. The theme made it even harder to make something that it’s not obvious or cheesy and we were REALLY worried that the players wouldn’t get the story and the true meaning behind the gameplay. It’s not easy to tell a story in such a short time without sacrificing other aspects of the development, but we pushed ourselves to make all game elements as balanced and even as possible.
Fortunatelly, from the comments we got so far, people seem to be understanding the game really well - not only that surprised us but we are really happy about it! It means that we managed to tell the story in a cohesive and concise way, somehow.
We started discussing why it was actually working and figured out that storytelling isn't just about the script, but about how all the elements communicate and complete each other. For example, if we hadn't spent as much time as we did polishing and adding details to the graphics, the message wouldn't get through the same way. Same thing for the audio - if we had the same track all along the game, the impact wouldn't be the same.
Using a variety of visual elements to help telling the story
What we've learned from that, is that for telling a story in a game, you have to make sure everything else follows the story flow, even if that means a new set of sprites or a new song or even a different gameplay mechanic.
The story has to be thought as a "living creature", and so must be all the other elements that are part of it.
So yeah, make sure to play Pain That Binds Us and let us know your thoughts on it and what's your approach when developing story driven games!
Play it here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/697896
Cheers!