Stories and Games

Adrian HonSix to Start

ARGs

• Games that use multiple media - or media in interesting ways - to tell a story

• Email, blogs, twitter, newspapers, IM, GPS, etc

• The Beast, I Love Bees, Perplex City, World Without Oil

Interactive Stories

• Traditionally a few different ways to do it:

• Story as reward

• Story as experience

• Branching narrative

• Pseudo-AI

• Make your own story

• Dungeon Master / Puppetmaster

In no particular order, not mutually exclusive, etc

Story as Reward• Story generally told through cut-scenes

• e.g. Wing Commander, Command and Conquer

• Gameplay largely unrelated to story

• Last thing you do - paint the car, write the story

• Walkthroughs

• On rails

Story as Experience

• Story told through gameplay

• e.g. Half-Life, Deus Ex, Mass Effect?

• No cut-scenes - or rather, cut-scenes integrated into game

• Story has to be written right at the start

• On rails

Branching Narrative

• Can make choices about the story

• Choose Your Own Adventure

• Gives illusion of choice...

• ...But involves creating ‘wasted’ content

• Sometimes not subtle and/or only at end

• Really annoying

• On rails

Pseudo-AI

• Can completely influence story, within certain parameters

• Facade

• Natural language processing and AI...

• ...or HUGE amount of scripting

• Will be cool, when the Singularity comes

Make your own Story

• No set narrative (but maybe a setting)

• Civilization, The Sims, playground games

• Sort of cheating

• Stories can be better than anything pre-written

• Requires great game design, not for everyone

DM / PM• Somewhat set narrative

• Dungeons and Dragons, ARGs

• Can react to player actions...

• ...but requires real-time responses

• Not replayable or scalable for personal experience

• Sort of on rails

Designing Stories• Interactive stories that aren’t games or

CYOA

• Still on rails

• Google Maps - see context, pacing of story. Play around with medium. Different views, overlays.

• Interaction and presentation must be designed

What do you think?

• More ideas for story types?

• Which do you like?

• Which are most promising?

• www.wetellstories.co.uk

• www.mssv.net