Searching Playtrace Data to Identify and Evaluate Dramatic Arcs in Game Systems

Dramatic arcs have long served as a critical lens for understanding narratives, charting rises and falls in tension and emotion throughout plot progression. Video games are unique in that the dramatic arcs present in their narrative are driven not only by aesthetics but also by the interaction and feedback produced by diverse interactive systems. Player actions, emergent outcomes, and systemic changes in game state create experiential arcs that dovetail with more straightforward narrative approaches. These arcs often take on forms more abstract than those found in conventional storytelling. This abstraction, combined with the unpredictability of emergent game systems, complicates a designer’s critical work of tuning such systems for desired dramatic arcs in their games. This work introduces an iterative design process using Playtrace Arc Search (PAS), a tool that leverages gameplay traces and designer-defined metrics to visualize and evaluate dramatic arcs. Using a turn-based RPG simulation testbed as a case study, we show how designers can rapidly identify global systemic arc patterns and search for local narrative structures. Our method also helps reconcile quantitative gameplay data with qualitative player feedback. Our approach highlights actionable design strategies for balancing game system-driven narrative against common dramatic arc patterns.