Chapter 22 — Exercises

These exercises move from design thinking to implementation. Allocate 1-3 hours per exercise. They are sequenced: earlier exercises build the observational skill that later implementation work requires.

Exercise 22.1 — The Three-Object Room

Type: Design Time: 30-45 minutes

Imagine a single empty room in a game. A typical interior — bedroom, kitchen, office, cell. Place exactly three objects in the room. Arrange them so that a visitor entering the room would reconstruct a specific story from just those three objects.

Do this five times, with five different stories. Each iteration must use exactly three objects. You may describe the arrangement (placement, position, condition) of each object in one sentence.

Constraints: - Three objects, no more, no less - No text, notes, or audio logs — just the objects themselves - Each story must be specific enough that a reader could guess the basic narrative

Questions: - Which stories were easiest to tell? Which were hardest? - Which of your five arrangements would work best in a horror game? Which in a cozy game? Which in a mystery? - Swap one object in each arrangement for a different object — how does the story change?

Deliverables: - Five three-object room descriptions, one story each - A short analysis (100-200 words) of what you learned about composition

💡 Intuition: Three objects is the minimum for storytelling-by-juxtaposition. Two objects sit next to each other and the player wonders what connects them. Three objects form a triangle of implication — each pair creates its own relationship, and the whole generates a richer narrative than any pair alone. Start thinking in threes.

Exercise 22.2 — Analyze a Game's Environmental Storytelling

Type: Analysis Time: 2-3 hours

Pick a game from the following list (or another you have played extensively): - Dark Souls (any FromSoftware game) - Gone Home - What Remains of Edith Finch - BioShock - Hollow Knight - The Last of Us - Dishonored - Tales from the Borderlands

Play (or replay) one specific area or level for about 60 minutes. During the session, pause frequently. At each pause, write down:

1. What environmental storytelling is present in this moment?
2. How is it composed (placement, lighting, silhouette)?
3. What story does it imply?
4. What techniques is the designer using (juxtaposition, negative space, iceberg)?

Deliverables: - A 1,500-word written analysis of the area - At least 10 distinct environmental-storytelling observations - Two screenshots (where possible) illustrating specific examples - A final section: "What I would steal for my own game" — 3-5 specific techniques

🎮 Play This: Try to notice environmental storytelling while playing the game naturally first, then go back and actively look. The difference between "what I noticed" and "what was there" will tell you a lot about how these games reward attention.

Exercise 22.3 — Rewrite a Scene Without Words

Type: Translation / Design Time: 45-60 minutes

Pick a scene from a film, novel, or comic — anywhere outside games — in which a character receives information that changes them. A betrayal revealed, a love letter discovered, a family secret uncovered.

Now design an environmental storytelling scene that communicates the same information to a game player without dialogue, cutscenes, or text. You may use: - Architectural state - Objects and their arrangement - Lighting - Sound (ambient, diegetic only) - The player's own exploration

Describe the scene in detail. Where does the player enter? What do they see? In what order? What meaning do they assemble?

Questions: - What was lost in translation? What had to be cut because it could not be shown environmentally? - What was gained? What worked better as environmental than as narrative? - If you had to add a note or single short audio clip to the scene, what would it be?

Deliverables: - The source scene summarized in 100 words - Your environmental re-staging in 500-800 words - Reflection paragraph on what the exercise taught you

Exercise 22.4 — Implement the Interactable Note System

Type: Implementation Time: 1-2 hours

Implement the InteractableNote.gd system from this chapter's index. You should end up with:

1. An InteractableNote.gd script attached to an Area2D in Godot
2. A NoteDisplayUI scene that listens for the note_read signal and shows a popup with title and text
3. Player-side interaction logic (can_interact_with field, interact button handling)
4. At least three note instances placed in a test scene, each with different lore_text

Requirements: - The UI must dismiss with a key press (do not auto-dismiss) - Notes should have a visible prompt ("Press E to read") when the player is in range - The player's movement should pause while a note is being read

Deliverables: - A working Godot scene with three interactable notes - Screenshots of each note's displayed text - The source code (InteractableNote.gd and NoteDisplayUI scene)

✅ Best Practice: The prompt UI should also be diegetic where possible. A glowing rune on the note itself is better than a floating "Press E" text. This small detail is the difference between a note that feels placed-for-the-player and a note that feels placed in the world.

Exercise 22.5 — Write Five Item Descriptions

Type: Writing Time: 1 hour

Invent five items for your game. They can be any mix of weapons, consumables, trinkets, and quest items. Write a lore-rich description for each.

Required structure for each description: 1. 2-4 sentences total 2. Names at least one specific person, place, or event in the world 3. Implies a larger context the reader does not fully see 4. Suggests an emotional tone

Constraints: - Descriptions must feel like they belong in the same game (consistent world) - You may not directly explain any lore; the description must only imply - Collectively, the five descriptions should sketch at least two named characters or one major event

Deliverables: - Five item descriptions - A world bible paragraph (100-200 words) you wrote to maintain consistency — what world is this, what happened, who are the named characters? - Reflection: which descriptions felt best? Which felt over-explained?

🧩 Productive Struggle: Good item descriptions are harder than they look. You must commit to specificity (names, places) while restraining yourself from explanation. Writing a description that names a character without explaining who they are — and trusting the player to care — is the central skill. If you find yourself writing "a wizard named Gareth who was the king's advisor..." you are over-explaining. Cut to "Gareth's ring — he no longer needs it."

Exercise 22.6 — Level 1 Environmental Storytelling Pass

Type: Progressive Project Time: 2-3 hours

This is the chapter's project checkpoint. Revisit Level 1 of your Godot game and add environmental storytelling.

Requirements: - Add 3-5 environmental narrative moments (two or three objects arranged to imply a story) - Add 3-5 InteractableNotes with short (<50 word) lore - The notes and environmental moments should reinforce each other, not duplicate - Maintain worldbuilding consistency — all additions should feel like they belong in the same fiction

Process: 1. Sketch your moments on paper first (see Exercise 22.1 pattern) 2. List the objects you need; create or import sprites for new props 3. Place the scenes in Level 1 4. Playtest — walk through the level from spawn to finish, pausing at each moment 5. Iterate: remove what doesn't land, emphasize what does

Deliverables: - Updated Level 1 scene file - Screenshots of each environmental moment - A 200-word reflection: what story is Level 1 telling now that it wasn't before?

📐 Project Checkpoint: This is a composition pass, not a content pass. You are not adding enemies, mechanics, or major rooms. You are adding narrative texture to the spaces that already exist. Resist the temptation to redesign the level; just add the storytelling layer.

Exercise 22.7 — The Found Narrative Short Experience

Type: Design + Writing Time: 2-4 hours

Design (not implement) a short environmental storytelling experience — a single room or small apartment — in which the player discovers a complete story by exploring and examining objects.

Inspired by Gone Home, your space must: - Tell a complete story (beginning, middle, end) across a single room - Have at least 10 examinable objects (notes, items, photos, etc.) - Use environmental composition (not just text) to carry the story - Support multiple playthrough orders — the story should work whether the player examines things clockwise, counter-clockwise, or randomly

Deliverables: - A 1,000-1,500 word design document - A top-down map of the room showing object placement - The full text of each examinable object - A section explaining what each object contributes to the overall story

Questions to answer in the design document: - What is the story? - What is the twist or revelation (if any)? - What is the emotional arc the player should experience? - In what order should a curious player ideally discover things? - What happens if the player examines things in the "wrong" order?

💀 Design Autopsy: After writing this, ask yourself: does the story still work if the player reads only half the objects? Most first drafts require 100% completion for the narrative to land, which is a failure. Strong environmental storytelling must graceful-degrade — partial exploration gives partial story, not confusion.

Exercise 22.8 — Audio Log Audit

Type: Analysis Time: 60-90 minutes

Play (or recall) a game you have finished recently that uses audio logs. BioShock, Prey, SOMA, Alien: Isolation, System Shock 2, Metroid Prime, Control, or any other game in the tradition.

For five specific audio logs: 1. Where is the log placed? 2. How does the placement relate to the log's content? 3. What would be lost if the log were removed entirely? 4. What would be gained if the information were delivered environmentally (via objects, composition) instead? 5. Was the log a necessary technique, or could the environment have done this work?

Deliverables: - A table analyzing the five logs - A summary paragraph: does this game use audio logs as a complement to environmental storytelling, or as a substitute for it? - One paragraph: in your game, when (if ever) would you use audio logs? What discipline would you apply?

Exercise 22.9 — The Negative Space Room

Type: Design Time: 45 minutes

Design a room (single space) that tells its story through absence — things that should be there but aren't. The player walks in, looks around, and the emptiness itself generates meaning.

Examples of absence-based storytelling (for inspiration): - A dining table set for six, with five empty chairs pushed back and one still tucked in - A child's bedroom with dust on the toys but fresh flowers on the pillow - A classroom with all the desks neatly arranged but no student names on any papers - A barracks with every bunk stripped to the bare mattress and one boot left on the floor

Constraints: - The story must depend on what is missing - You may include only five objects in the room - The emptiness should feel composed, not just sparse

Deliverables: - A description of the room - A list of the five objects present - A list of at least three things the player would register as absent - The story the player assembles

💡 Intuition: Absence is harder to compose than presence. To make the absence of something felt, you must include adjacent cues — the empty chair works because the tucked-in chair draws attention to the missing diners; the child's room works because the fresh flowers imply recent human presence. Context creates the sense of missingness.

Exercise 22.10 — Playtest Your Environmental Storytelling

Type: Playtesting Time: 90 minutes (30 minutes setup, 30 minutes test session, 30 minutes analysis)

After completing Exercise 22.6 (the Level 1 pass), run a playtest with a friend or fellow student.

Session protocol: 1. Ask the playtester to play Level 1 normally. Tell them nothing about environmental storytelling. 2. Observe (silently) which scenes they pause at, which they walk past, which they examine closely. 3. Note which notes they read and which they skip. 4. After they finish, ask them (without prompting): - "What do you think happened in this place?" - "What is this place for?" - "Did anything stand out to you visually?" - "Do you remember any specific objects or scenes?"

Deliverables: - Observation notes from the session - The playtester's answers to the four questions - An analysis of what landed vs. what did not — specific scenes that worked, specific scenes that did not - A revision plan: what will you change in Level 1 based on this feedback?

🪞 Learning Check-In: The gap between what you intended and what the player received is the most useful data you will gather as a designer. A scene that worked in your head and did not work for the playtester is not necessarily wrong — but it is not yet readable. The revision is where the craft lives.

Exercise 22.11 — Design Two Notes That Recontextualize Each Other

Type: Writing Time: 45 minutes

Write two short notes (under 80 words each) that the player can find in different parts of a level. The notes must: - Stand alone as interesting individually - Together, generate a third story that neither tells alone

Example pattern: Note A is a love letter between two characters. Note B is a death certificate naming one of those characters. Neither note is "about" the love affair; but finding both creates a story about a relationship ended by tragedy.

Deliverables: - Two notes, with placement instructions - A paragraph explaining the third story (the one that only emerges when both are found) - A reflection on how this technique scales — what is the limit to how many "meta-stories" you can layer into one level's notes?

🎓 Advanced: This is the environmental storytelling equivalent of jigsaw puzzling. Each note is a piece; the story is the whole picture. Games that master this (Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, Return of the Obra Dinn) reward dedicated players with emergent stories no single object could tell. The catch is that your pieces must work individually, too — you cannot rely on players finding everything.

Exercise 22.12 — The Worldbuilding Bible

Type: Writing / Design Reference Time: 90 minutes

Write a one-page (500-700 word) world bible for your game. Use this as the canonical reference for all future environmental storytelling and narrative decisions.

Required sections: 1. Setting: Time period, geography, scale of civilization. What kind of world is this? 2. Technology level: What exists and what doesn't. (Critical for prop consistency.) 3. Society: Who lives here? What do they value? What are the class/culture divisions? 4. Recent history: What major event(s) have shaped the world the player sees? When did they happen? 5. Material culture: What are the common objects, tools, clothes, buildings? What would a typical house contain? 6. Conflict or tension: What is the central problem or danger in this world?

Deliverables: - The world bible document - A review of Level 1 asking: "Does anything in my level violate this bible? Does everything in my level follow from this bible?" - A revision list: any inconsistencies you need to fix

✅ Best Practice: The world bible is a living document. Start with a first draft, then update it as you discover new implications in your level design. A good bible is the source of truth for the art team, the narrative team, and the level design team. Even if you are a solo developer, writing the bible forces you to commit to specifics that would otherwise drift.

Exercise 22.13 — Lighting Pass on One Scene

Type: Implementation / Composition Time: 60-90 minutes

Take one environmental scene you created in Exercise 22.6 and do a dedicated lighting pass on it.

Approach: 1. Start with the scene fully illuminated (ambient light at default levels) 2. Reduce the ambient light substantially — the room should feel darker than you think is comfortable 3. Add one or two directional or point lights that highlight the narrative focus 4. Experiment with color temperature — warm light for recent presence, cool for institutional, flickering for decay 5. Iterate until the lighting itself communicates something about the scene's story

Questions: - What did the lighting add that was not there before? - Did any narrative detail get lost in shadow that should have been visible? - If the scene previously had no light direction (flat fill), how did adding direction change what the player would look at first?

Deliverables: - Before/after screenshots of the scene - The light placements and their parameters (color temperature, intensity, falloff) - A paragraph reflecting on what lighting communicated that props alone could not

💡 Intuition: Lighting is the cheapest environmental-storytelling upgrade you can make to an existing scene. The same props, lit differently, can convey entirely different stories. Practice the discipline of using light as narrative, not just as visibility.

Exercise 22.14 — A Palimpsest Object

Type: Design / Writing Time: 60 minutes

Design a single object in your game that is a palimpsest — layered evidence of multiple uses across time. Examples: a map with annotations in different handwriting; a prison wall with carvings across decades; a signpost with successive layers of paint and graffiti; a scholar's desk with notes in the margins of texts that themselves are marginalia on older texts.

Requirements: - At least three distinct temporal layers (three eras, three users, three phases) - Each layer must be visible or readable in some way - The layers together must tell a story that no single layer tells alone - The object must be placed in your level with context that makes the palimpsest meaningful

Deliverables: - Description of the object and its layers - The narrative that emerges from the layering - Placement notes: where in your level does this object live, and why? - Optional: a concept sketch or mockup

✅ Best Practice: Palimpsest objects are labor-intensive to create — each layer requires its own authored content — but they reward attentive players with a sense that your world has real temporal depth. Use them at one or two key moments rather than everywhere. A single well-crafted palimpsest can do more worldbuilding than a dozen notes.

Exercise 22.15 — The Routine Trace

Type: Design Time: 45-60 minutes

Design a single room that shows the daily routine of a person who is not present. The room must make the absent person feel like a specific, specific human whose life had particular shape.

Requirements: - The absent person must be implied, never named or shown - Their routine should be visible through the arrangement of objects (work, leisure, domestic) - At least five distinct props, each contributing to the sense of a specific life - The room should feel lived in, not staged

Prompts: - What did this person do for work? What evidence remains? - What did they do for leisure? What small pleasures had they developed? - What were their morning and evening habits? Can the player see them in the room? - What is missing now that they are gone? What trace of absence exists?

Deliverables: - A detailed room description - A list of the five-to-ten props with their placement and significance - A one-paragraph character sketch of the implied absent person — who they were, distilled from their room

🎯 Tradeoff Spotlight: Specificity is the cost of this exercise. Generic routine-traces produce generic absent people. To make the person specific, you must commit to specific hobbies, specific jobs, specific domestic rhythms. Resist the temptation to stay abstract. Decide: this person was a bookbinder, or a radio hobbyist, or a caretaker for an elderly parent. The commitment produces the specificity; the specificity produces the emotional weight.

Where to Go Next

If you completed exercises 22.4, 22.6, and 22.10, you have now added environmental storytelling to Level 1, tested it with a real player, and revised based on what you learned. That is the full practice cycle.

If you completed exercises 22.1, 22.3, 22.7, 22.9, 22.11, and 22.12, you have also built the writerly muscle that environmental storytelling requires — composition, worldbuilding, restraint, and trust in the player.

If you completed 22.13, 22.14, and 22.15, you have begun the finer-grained work of lighting, temporal layering, and specific-human implication — the sub-disciplines that elevate competent environmental storytelling to craft.

Chapter 23 turns to cutscenes and in-engine cinematics — the narrative technique that coexists uneasily with environmental storytelling. When do you show the player the story directly, versus letting them discover it? The answer, as you will see, is that the two techniques are complementary, not opposed. A great narrative game uses both.