Things in the VR/AR world have been going crazy lately. My website went down recently. However, after many hours of keyboard pounding, my lovely wife was able to get my site back up and running.(Thanks Ha!)
I was very pleasantly surprised to bump into a couple of articles written by a young programmer from Cambridge, UK, Josh Newland. He posted two very nice articles on Gamasutra about procedural world building in Unity and Interactive Storytelling.
Josh’s first article on Procedural World Building in Unity gives a brief description the the techniques Josh utilizes to generate procedural worlds in the Unity game engine. Throughout the article he provides helpful links to explanations of the algorithms he employs and how he integrates them into one system. This is an outstanding example of how GBUs can be generated utilizing basic modern game engines.
Josh’s second article on Games and Interactive Storytelling, provides a wonderful introduction to the currently locked puzzle of Interactive Storytelling. He quickly describes the inevitable contradiction of Player Agency Vs. Linear Narrative. Reduced to a simple sentence, “How does one generate an engaging interactive, linear narrative experience while without constraining the full immersive experience?” He goes on to describe one possible solution to resolve this by employing social agents (Smart NPC’s) to marshal an enriching interactive experience. This is the approach legendary game designer, Chris Crawford, is employing to create Interactive Storytelling.
I find it very refreshing to encounter yet another soul who has paired procedural world building with Interactive Storytelling. Anyone familiar with this blog is aware this is the entire foundation with which this blog is written. Great Job Josh!
