Shakey-Lo on 14/2/2009 at 15:02
Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with the term "ludonarrative dissonance" but if you ain't you should read up on it quicksmart, as it's the fancypants term of the moment. And a very important concept too!
Qooper on 14/2/2009 at 15:23
Aerothorn,
I recently took a course called Interactive Storytelling. It consisted of looking at different methods of generating narrative either using a plot agent (author centric approach) or autonomous agents (character centric approach). I thought you might be interested in examining some of the material we studied:
(
http://www.storytron.com/) Storytron - An interactive storytelling application by Chris Crawford.
(
http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/showcase/The%20Virtual%20Storyteller) Virtual Storyteller - Another software that uses semi-autonomous agents along with a plot agent to generate narrative.
Tonamel on 15/2/2009 at 01:46
Quote Posted by Shakey-Lo
Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with the term "ludonarrative dissonance" but if you ain't you should read up on it quicksmart, as it's
the fancypants term of the moment. And a very important concept too!
Though he doesn't use that term, Jonathan Blow (
Braid guy) has a (
http://braid-game.com/news/?p=385) lecture downloadable from his blog about that.
Aerothorn on 15/2/2009 at 18:53
Thanks for the pointers!
Wormrat: Good point. We need to define our terms. Frankly, the other student has the better background in narrative, so I'm going to try to get him to work on that part.
Everyone: As far as the Storytron goes, where would that fit? Is that player-created narrative?
Chade on 15/2/2009 at 22:10
Storytron is a bit of everything ... it's probably more up to the author then anything. It's basically a framework for building character driven plot*, where the player is just another character. But iirc, they also have a character called Fate that the author can use to tinker with the plot of he wants to.
(On another note, they couldn't have called it "ludonarritive conflict" now, could they :p)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Deciding to build a framework was the most stupid idea I've ever heard of ... trying to walk before they can crawl ... this decision has relegated Chris to the wilderness for almost 20 years now, only to create something which makes a whole bunch of assumptions about the way IS will work (turn based, a particular interface, etc etc ...) which the audience may not even like all that much ...
Aerothorn on 16/2/2009 at 23:18
Yeah, I have to admit, I had a hostile reaction when reading Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, at least the part on Interactive Fiction - it made a horrible arguement (this one game isn't interactive therefore all IF isn't interactive) and was SO smug. Our textbook offers a view opposite to his - essentially, that traditional narrative devices have a place in video games. We'll read a bit of both to get both viewpoints, though.
gunsmoke on 17/2/2009 at 00:56
Chris Crawford...:tsktsk:. Ugh. Remember the Dragon Speech?
That guy is weird.
That said, I still can't figure out what the heck StoryTron is exactly.
demagogue on 17/2/2009 at 03:20
It's basically formalizing and beefing up an old trend in IF experimenting with making autonomous NPCs with their own motivations, that do their own thing, and have a lot more interactive-links with the PC according to different verbs.
The main pieces are NPCs that have their own properties and motivations, stages (like rooms) where the action goes on, and the PC that (in turns) selects from a set of verbs to do some action on some stage that NPCs will/won't react to according to what information they get and their motivation. The author can try to structure what events are possible by tweaking the NPC properties and event-triggers ... but it's basically opened ended from there, depending on how the author connects the mechanics it can be more or less goal oriented, with more or less interesting scenarios that play out.
I think it has some good ideas and potential.
If I had a criticism/suggestion with my limited experience, I wish it would have a bigger role for "world" modeling, like (game relevant) world-states that evolve according to the events that happen, as well as following their own rules ... That way it's not just NPCs acting in a vacuum, but there's a real world that pushes back with some boundaries (things like economic factors, the price of stuff, you have a fixed income, events being sensitive to environment, if you consume something or burn it you take it out of the world and the world notices, even simple things like weather, traffic, and diseases etc...) ... That would open up goals that have more teeth to them, more economic/ tactical/ strategic gameplay, another way to interact with NPCs, not just appealing to their motivations directly or indirectly, but also changing world-states in ways they'll respond to. The mechanics of "stages" (rooms) and "fate" as a special NPC are there and do some clever things, but they also have limits in providing the "world" in which the action happens. Anyway, there are pros and cons to different approaches; that's just one area where I see some interesting potential left open.
It also reminded me a little of (
http://www.onr.com/user/bturner/far_colony/fc_matrix.html) Matrix Gaming , which is a great game to explore the game-narrative connection (some other stuff like it on the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_game) Storytelling Game wiki page) but is a face2face game, not a computer game (although if it were to be digitalized, it might be in a form like StoryTron). There's a lot of thoughts I have on that, but I don't want to go off. (Interesting, I never heard of
Universalis before ... another mechanic that has untapped potential in a digital medium. Matrix probability + Universalis economy + IF/StoryTron verb parsing = all sorts of possibilities...)
I also think there's some interesting potential for getting some of these mechanics with autonomous NPC-motivations, and more forms of NPC-interaction into FPSs -- all the stuff being experimented on in IF, StoryTron, and storytelling RPGs... Another big tangent that I could go off on but will leave it at that.
Chade on 17/2/2009 at 03:41
Chris's heart is in the right place, but he has become obsessed with this idea that his interactive storytelling is going to be a REVOLUTION that rocks the (non)gaming world.
The ideas behind Storytron are very interesting, but I think it's incredibly foolish to try and create a framework for making interactive stories, when you haven't even achieved an interactive story worthy of the name to begin with. All that he has to go on when designing the framework is a bunch of hunches about what interactive stories are going to be. He should be experimenting and making interactive stories before he formalizes the concept. It's like putting the cart before the donkey.
Wormrat on 19/2/2009 at 05:17
Fourteen textbooks! I only see a couple mentioned in the syllabus; care to drop a few titles? I'd be hard-pressed to come up with fourteen notable articles on the subject, let alone books.
