Narrative

Narrative in Game Design is all the core elements of the game coming together to have a player take part in a story or experience.

Elements
One of the main challenges a Game Designer has is integrating all of the elements together to create the experience they want the player to have when they play the game.

Gameplay
In the early days of Video Gaming, gameplay was singlehandedly the largest part of the game. The rules the designer created either enable or limit the player's choices when they play. If well designed, they can even let the player know things about the character and the game world without uttering a single word.

Writing
Writing has become a large aspect of games today. The writing is often all the dialogue, background chatter, the menu text and the flavor text describing things in the game world. This element is the one that often gets the most criticized by gamers and non-gamers about things such as Bad Writing or the infamous Unskippable Cutscenes. The writing alone does not tell the story.

Art
Before the player even encounters any writing and gameplay the first thing they encounter is the art style. Phrases like "a picture is worth a thousand words" can easily be applied to games. Characterizations could be