Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Narrative Flowchart
Welcome to the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 narrative flowchart! This was an exercise I did in my free time to study video game narrative—more specifically, how a video game's narrative intersects with its gameplay. Unlike the one I made for Octopath Traveler II, this didn't take me hundreds of hours—mostly because the game is much shorter, but also because I was more efficient in how I made this. It's not my first rodeo. As usual, the intent of this flowchart is to illustrate how player input pushes the story from one plot point to the next.
Understanding the format
I've taken a lot of inspiration from this Earthbound narrative flowchart. Each cell is split into three parts: situation, solution, and conclusion. The situation is the problem presented by the game's story, the solution is the player action required to resolve the problem, and the conclusion is the result of the player action as it impacts the story.
Why did I do this?
Because it was fun.
No, really. I love video games, and I love thinking about them as a storytelling device and art form. This is fun for me.
It also helped reshape the way I thought about video game stories, since I was really struggling with writing my own (yeah, I'm working on a game lol...). I highly recommend doing a study like this if you're working on your own game, or just want to gain a better understanding of game narrative and game design!
I actually have some rather complicated feelings about Expedition 33's story. You can read all about it in my Backloggd review (warning for spoilers). Vague TL;DR - it had some very glaring issues that I couldn't forgive, even if I enjoyed a lot of it.
Other Notes
- Obviously, not every little thing that happens in the story is going to be notated in here. The point isn't to give a comprehensive description of the story, but to examine Expedition 33's narrative structure and how player input serves as a connector between beats
- ...Thus, I tried not to go too into depth with any narrative bits that aren't directly connected by gameplay
- If you notice any problems with the chart or have any questions, feel free to reach out on any of my social media!
The flowchart!
This flowchart was made using draw.io. In case you don't want to use the on-screen UI for navigation...If you're on a PC, you can CTRL+SCROLL to zoom in and out, and navigate the zoomed-in chart by clicking and dragging. Mobile users should be able to pinch to zoom and drag to navigate. All parts of the story are separated into their own tabs, for the most part.