Transistor: Narrative Through Optional World Building
Transistor is a video game created by an independent studio called Supergiant Games. Transistor’s strength as a narrative driven video game lies in its use of visuals, music, and gameplay to tell its story and build out its world.
In Transistor, you control Red, a famous singer. Before the game opens, Red is attacked by the Process, a robot army commanded by a group called the Camerata. She escapes to find that she has lost her voice and a man slumped over with a huge glowing sword, called the transistor, buried in his chest. Though the man is dead it seems his consciousness has been absorbed by the Transistor, as he is talking to you through it. The Camerata continues to track Red down using the Process, trying to retrieve the Transistor.
However, none of this is outright explained to you.
The only dialog you get during the first few minutes of the game, and if you attack the man’s dead body is:
“Hey Red, we’re not gonna get away with this are we?”
“What a night, you’re still in one piece, that’s all that matters”
“Can’t feel a thing…”
Followed, when you’re attacked by your first process robot, by
“Looks like they found us.”
This acts as the exposition phase. It gives you the basics of the story: 1) This man knows Red, he was there to protect her, 2) She was in some danger, and is now fleeing and 3) the voice talking to you is the dead man.
The way you learn more of the story is through gameplay, through the visuals around you, and through the music. The dialog in the game is kept at a minimum, the only person talking is the Transistor, and with Red having no voice, and thus there being no way to actually have a back and forth, it evokes a feeling a loneliness.
Transistor also builds its world out by making players experiment with new powers. Whenever you get a new power in the game, you get a short bio of the character it came from. You then unlock more of this bio by using the power in different ways (as an active attack, to upgrade another power, or as a passive skill that constantly runs during battles). This also encourages players to revisit the game and play with their powers more and to unlock new information.
Red being a singer, the game tells a lot of story through it’s lyrical songs. During boss fights, songs with lyrics start playing. While this is a bit difficult to pay attention to during boss fights, the game gives you the ability to listen to them again here and there. You learn some of the backstory of the boss, as well as of how Red is feeling during these fights. The lyrical songs give you more insight into the characters.
Additionally, to help highlight the audio to players who usually don’t tend to listen to it, the game gives you the option to hum. The background will dim and a spotlight will shine on Red as she hums a lyrical track over the song currently being played. This emphasizes to players that you really should be listening to the music in the game, but also, emphasizes not only that Red has no voice and wants to sing, but the feeling of hopelessness and loneliness that Red is feeling as she cradles the only person there for her, a sword.
The game tells much of its story with visuals as well. The image of Red cradling the Transistor while humming, the world falling apart around you as it’s overrun by the Process, and the lack of people. The game doesn’t outright tell you the world is ending, but as you look around you feel it. You grow to understand more about the world. While the profiles of people you unlock through playing the game tell you about the past of the world, the visual design tells you about the present.
Additionally, much like the humming helps to emphasize the audio, the game has a mechanic called frolicking, which serves no purpose other than to make the player pay attention to the visuals more.
Transistor builds out its world in various ways, and chooses to give players the option to refocus themselves on the visuals, the gameplay, or the audio, depending on what the player feels they are missing out on. By giving players the options to hum, or to frolic, Transistor emphasizes its ability to tell its story in nontraditional ways. Additionally the game uses its narrative and world to draw people to replay the game, and experience more pieces of the story. Transistor is a narrative heavy video game that finds interesting ways to tell its story and build its world and for that reason it is regarded as a highly successful narrative driven video game.
