Post-Mortem: How the Nemesis System Creates Stories (Patreon)

Hello! This is a quick behind-the-scenes article, looking at the creation of my most recent video: How the Nemesis System Creates Stories.

Idea

The initial idea for this video was to investigate the idea of games having a memory of the player's actions - and then issuing comment or consequences down the line. Things like the chaos system in Dishonored, cross-game choices in Mass Effect, multiple endings in Silent Hill 2, and the Nemesis System in Shadow of Mordor.

Ultimately, I decided that the Nemesis System was so interesting that it deserved a video all to itself so changed focus after a week's worth of work, research, and draft scripts.

The thing was, I've mentioned it many times on GMTK but never elaborated on how it works because… well… I don't know! And if there's one thing that really motivates me to make a video, it's not knowing the answer to something I'm curious about.

So that was the plan: figure out exactly how the Nemesis System is constructed and detail it in a bumper video!

Research

My first step with almost every video is to play the games in question. Its really important that I start here because I don't want knowledge of how the system works to colour or bias my experience. I want to have a normal, pure experience with the game - and then find out how the game delivered those feelings.

After playing a lot of both Shadow of Mordor and War, I looked for research material. Luckily, there's actually quite a lot out there. There are GDC talks about the Nemesis System, a DICE talk, and a number of interviews.

One of the GDC talks was really helpful. One of the things the speaker mentions is the Player Interaction Score, which tracks the number of encounters you have with a specific Orc, which boosts their chance of cheating death or winning out against other orcs. Googling this PIS led me to the game's patent, which was also useful for fleshing out the finer details.

Finally, I did reach out for an interview with the game's designers but unfortunately it didn't happen in time. I made the mistake of going through Warner Bros PR instead of speaking directly to the devs (I couldn't find an email address), which just made the whole process so slow.

Not to worry - I felt I had enough from my playing, the talks, and the patent.

Making the video

I felt like the Nemesis System was a pretty complex thing to explain, so decided to use all of my best explanatory tricks to help get the viewer on the right page.

First up is analogy. Thinking about the Nemesis System as improv helps explain the way story events are layered on top of each other, using each participant's actions as a narrative suggestion. It also helps explain how it differs to typical choice-based narrative.

Structure is also really important. I needed to layer on things slowly. So starting with the basics (Orcs remember your actions and then issue a comment), then adding on more complex stuff like hierarchies and relationships. Once I've explained the story system, I could move on to making good stories.

Graphics are obviously really important. I'm very much a visual learner myself and always use doodles, graphs, and drawings to help turn abstract ideas into something more concrete. So I just used the exact same diagrams for the video itself (though, I made them a bit nicer to look at!)

And finally, example. I wanted to reference a couple Orcs throughout the video as examples of individual mechanics (like cheating death and recruiting). But also use the culmination of their story as an example of a full story in Mordor.

Initially I tried to manufacture the story by purposefully dying to Orcs and trying to force them into an interesting story - but it never happened! However, while I was doing this, an annoying dude called The Stitch wouldn't leave me alone. Soon enough, I realised that I had the perfect narrative - and even better, it was one that emerged naturally!

Post release

The video has received really good comments. People really responded to my stitch story, and appreciated the clarity of the video. It didn't do amazing views at the start, but is slowly gaining traction and is now ranked 4th among my most recent 10 videos, in terms of view growth.

Totally unexpected was the fact that a number of video game news sites ran articles about the fact that the Nemesis System is patented! Or, as it turns out, there's a patent application for the system: it hasn't been accepted yet. In retrospect I should have researched this more and gotten expert advice from an IP lawyer. I just didn't anticipate it being a huge thing!

Overall, I'm really pleased with the video. It's one off the bucket list and I think I did the subject matter proud. And, most importantly, I had a really good time making it!

Thanks for watching. Onto the next one.

Mark.