iMyth

Category: Interactive Storytelling

  • ChuckleHedz Observations!

    http://mycryengine.com/

    been messing around with this, just to get the feel of incorporating level design
    with the story telling process (or trying to learn level design).
    The last couple of games I’ve played had a open world design, but they still
    guided you along the story.
    FarCry 3 was really good action adventure trying to save your friends
    big huge world, and if you didn’t feel like it you could drive around the island
    all day. (you could play stealth, or balls out call of duty killing machine)
    dishonored – is cool because the moral code says the more people you kill the
    more rats there will be and the plague will spread…so you have to decide
    when and where in order to complete the missions.

    but me I want to go horror with a dark outcome (like farcry) you still may have one the game
    but its still a pretty dark ending.

  • Concerns About Plot-driven devices

    I too have my concerns about a plot-driven device. If you follow just one plot then you’re not really in an interactive story anymore, you’re on rails … such as Uncharted. How could you possibly visualize all the possible plots? It’s like looking at an infinite 4 dimensional hypercube. You could constrain the fourth dimension … isolating your domain to a three dimensional cube within one relative time epoch. Even then you are left with an infinite number of paths traversing the cube; each path representing a unique plot. How could you possibly focus only on the interesting or entertaining plot lines without once again putting yourself on rails?

  • Crawford’s “on Interactive Storytelling”, part I

    I have bee reading, although very slowly, Chris Crawford’s “On Interactive Storytelling. I’m only about half way through the book but I find it very fascinating.

    In particular his “Data-Driven” strategies. He sites references of Aarne-Thompson, Vladimir Propp and Georges Polti. I can’r help but wonder where Joseph Campbell’s system would fit or more particular, Chris Vogler’s interpretation of the Writer’s Journey. When writing screenplays, I would often get ideas by placing Chines Zodiac archetypes in a Vogler situation and let them play against each other. Although the interaction were in my head I could not feel as if I was following a rule based system.

    I’m only part way through the Language-based Strategies, I also find this extremely relative. Before reading this book I had been studying up on compiler design so I might be able to create such a Languages-based system.

    I’ll have more notes as I finish the book.

  • The Link Between Interactivity, Plot and Free Will

    I suppose it was inevitable. I was reading “Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling.” Ironically, many of his thoughts are are the same as mine. Regretfully, I have been at the Interactive Storytelling game for much shorter than Chris Crawford. He’s gone into far greater depths then I have dared enter. It’s really cool reading some of my own thoughts extrapolated in a very intelligent, articulate manner … all with a bit of tongue in cheek 🙂

    Last night I read about the inevitable comparison between interactivity, plot and free will. Ultimately, Chris Crawford(CC) rationalized that you can’t have a fully interactive world and tell an interesting story. Thus Plot and Interactivity are fundamentally at odd with each other. I would agree with this. Although I am no game expert I have played enough to kind of understand this. An open world such Second Life or WOW seem devoid of plot. Sure there are quests, people to meet and objects to collect. However, there is a void of character and theme. I could not help it … I grew bored of these games after a while. On the other hand, a game that is on rails such as “Uncharted” is choked full of character and theme. However, it does feel as if  every real decision has been made in advance for me. Interactive Storytelling must lay somewhere in between.

    Thus we come to the analogy of free will and destiny. Of course there are the myriad of religious holes to fall into. I’ll do my best to avoid those. If there is true free will in the universe then there could be no omniscience or order. And on the other hand, if we are ruled by destiny, why bother living since everything is already in front of us. In a fat nut shell, I see the issue as this. In the largest perspective of the universe, there is no free will, no choice. The universe is ruled by cause and effect. Everything that has or will happen, already has … albeit much if it is in the future which we have no insight  :(. Reality on the other hand is a really complicated thing. There are so many millions of parameters which influence our thoughts and actions we could not possibly keep track of them all. Thus, if one could keep track of all the parameters in the universe then they could see what will happen in the future before it happens. Now that omniscience really would take some omnipotence. To some things up, although there is no free will in the universe, there are just so many parameters needed to accurately see the future that we as humans should not even bother. Live life at hard as you can and make the best decisions you can.

    The same thing applies with Interactive Storytelling. I believe our duty as creators is to be in control of our characters’ plot lines or destinies. However, the true challenge lies in creating a “living” experience that would appear as if the characters are in full control. See? Clear as mud 🙂 Free Will or interactivity is an illusion in the grand perspective of the full story world. Gee, I hope I have not given anything away.