Notes from The Pleasures of Immersion and Interaction: Schemas, Scripts, and the Fifth Business by J. Yellowlees Douglas and Andrew Hargadon

Questions to tackle when writing a first person video game
“How much freedom do users want when it comes to plotting strategy or getting acquainted with characters?”
“Is a cut-scene that signifies closure a reward for working your way through a videogame’s myriad of firefights, kung fu contests, and puzzles? Or do cut-scenes nullify the openness of both narrative and plot seemingly promised by the entire concept of interactivity?” (Yellowless Douglas and Hargadon, 193)
Fallout 3 – no cut-scenes
Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 – some cut scenes
Final Fantasy – More cut scenes than game play in the first few hours of the game
Heavy Rain – Interactive cut-scene
What are Schemas and why are they important?
“Schemas enable us to perceive objects and occurrences around us and to make sense of them efficiently by consulting our ready-made store of similar occurrences and understandings, which we gain from reading, personal experience, and even advice we receive from others” (Yellowlees Douglas and Hargadon, 194)
“Schemas are, moreover, such vital perceptual tools that, when objects or works violate long-held conventions, we become frustrated and fail to understand them” (Yellowlees Douglas and Hargadon, 195)
“When aesthetic objects invite us to rely on certain schemas, they are not, however, necessarily guaranteeing us an entirely predictable experience” (Yellowlees Douglas and Hargadon, 195)
“Whether by accident or design, early game developers had hit digital paydirt by founding their first ventures on the bedrock of two essentials: a recipe for interaction that all but guaranteed a deeply immersive experience and strong, normative schemas borrowed from already familiar forms of entertainment” (Yellowlees Douglas and Hargadon, 197)
By creating a game around rules or storylines that users would already be familiar with, they are easier to grasp and get into
Interactions beyond the Shoot Out – the Hunt-Quest
“Before we so much as glimpse the title screens of your typical hunt-quest, we already know we need to listen intently, collect everything we can lay our mitts on, and put together our tools and clues to solve the local challenges that confront us, which, in turn, will enable us to solve the interactive’s grand challenge – usually something on the order of liberating a prisoner, altering the course of history, or saving the planet” (Yellowless Douglas and Hargadon, 198)
Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3 all follow these guidelines