Can we turn the art of story over to the players?

by justingibbs on May 4, 2009

On the surface the concept of interactive story seems simple. All the trouble comes when you try to create one. Not only it is a technical and interface problem, it’s a logic problem (That Darn Conundrum). But beyond even that, as an artist you have no idea where to begin. You know how to move an audience using the various mediums available today but interactive story itself seems completely foreign. That might be because interactive story actually hands the majority of the artistry to the player.

In his book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware, Andy Hunt highlights research that shows we find attractive things to be easier to use. We even learn at a faster pace if it’s attractive.  Seeing the importance of beauty, Hung goes on to quote the famous architect Louis Kahn about the relationship between beauty and design.

Design is not making beauty; beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Hunt explains the quote further.

Kahn explains that beauty emerges from selection. That is, art comes not so much from the act of creation itself but rather from selecting among a near infinite supply of choices.

The musician has a near-infinite palette combining different instruments, rhythms, scale modes, tempo, and the hard-to-define but easy-to-sense “groove”.

Art is a process of selection. What is true for musician is true for writers.

Narrative StoryHowever interactive story hands this selection process over to the player.

Interactive Story

If art is selection, interactive story has less art than traditional narrative. True, interactive story may still allow the artist to narrow the set of choices a player can make, but that is loose selection where traditional story is definite. Plus the choices will likely compound each other, ultimately putting the player in control. The player usurps most of the artistry.

That might also explain why we have yet to see any famous or semi famous artists looking to create interactive story. First they likely don’t know how to start, but more than that they can’t see the artistry.

I’m dealing with much of this today trying to build a dating sim using Ren’Py, which is essentially an interactive story. I continually struggle with the question – is the inclusion of interactivity adding to the entertainment value or would it work just as well or better as a static story? If I hook the user, if I get them to empathise with the characters why would I then want to turn them loose to the player? It isn’t just me being a snob; we see movies made by professionals who have spent years honing their craft. Seeing a movie I don’t want to be the lead character, I want to see what happens to that character.

That said, interactive story does offer a new medium and I’ll continue to plug away at it, if not just for the learning experience. And one day I hope to test the hypothesis using Customer Development. However my intuition tells me that another form of real time story will prove much more successful given time – immersive story.

Immersive StoryFor immersive story to work though you need a highly responsive environment. Virtual worlds are perfect for this however as a platform they are nascent. Plus the costs to creating an immersive story likely increases ten fold over creating interactive story with Ren’Py. But the day will come when there is a viable platform and/or engine for immersive story.

Related posts:

  1. Story isn’t a science, so why does interactive story need AI researchers?

Tagged as: immersive story, Interactive Story

  • I couldn't agree more, I just wish others would see this as well. Too often those of us in Silicon Valley get caught up in the technology. We live and breath it. However for most people the latest technology is just a curiosity and the only way to pull them in is offer some great utility or story, or both. Interactive story is cool, but it has to offer a better way to tell a story or it'll be a passing fad. You don't see many Choose Your Own Adventure books anymore.
  • Great post Justin. I too believe that the power of story can drive an immersive simulation. Why do we sit on the couch and watch movies and TV programs? Because we become engaged in the storyline! Stories are richly coded with meaning and transmit data far more effectively than other mediums. Ultimately, the story is what powers successful simulations and leads the learner to further triumph. The path of the story is what should engage the learner the most!
  • Megan,

    I couldn't agree more. Joseph Campbell probably more than any other showed how story can be used to transmit data. How we improve on current modes of storytelling through real time story is still to be discovered however. I'm really impressed with what you and Visual Purple have been able to do though. My guess is that serious games like the ones you're building will lead the way in the development of real time story. It's about to get very interesting.
  • While at the gym I began to question if I'm still looking at this from too technical of a perspective - at least where interactive story is concerned. As you point out, we commonly know the outcome of a story but continue to watch. We go to super hero movies knowing that they can't lose but get caught up in it, find ourselves on the edge of our seats. Adding the interactivity in the storyline might seem logically to not offer much bang for the buck - I can take path A or B but end up at pretty much the same place. Even if you make it thousand of possibilities I question if the creator can really make the outcomes that different. But then again it might just work. Knowing how a story will turn out doesn't kill the entertainment value, heck we even watch them over and over and still get chills. I just need to keep plugging away on my dating sim, see first hand what is possible. Ren'Py doesn't offer any crazy features so it kind of forces you to concentrate on the basics - which in this case can be great.
  • One other thought: When I watch CSI, I often think I know what is going to happen, know the plot twist (especially with the famous actors usually playing the villains) - but I watch it because it might turn out differently. Usually it is disappointing to find out when it does turn out the way I thought, I expected to be surprised/amazed by an even more clever plot twist. I imagine this is even worse when you /know/ its going to turn out that way because you control the events. I think that is one of the other major issues with interactive storytelling that comes up by determining the level of control the player has over the story (or the actual storytelling).

    As for Comic Sans: http://vimeo.com/1994310 ;-)
  • While at the gym I began to question if I'm still looking at this from too technical of a perspective - at least where interactive story is concerned. As you point out, we commonly know the outcome of a story but continue to watch. We go to super hero movies knowing that they can't lose but get caught up in it, find ourselves on the edge of our seats. Adding the interactivity in the storyline might seem logically to not offer much bang for the buck - I can take path A or B but end up at pretty much the same place. Even if you make it thousand of possibilities I question if the creator can really make the outcomes that different. But then again it might just work. Knowing how a story will turn out doesn't kill the entertainment value, heck we even watch them over and over and still get chills. I just need to keep plugging away on my dating sim, see first hand what is possible. Ren'Py doesn't offer any crazy features so it kind of forces you to concentrate on the basics - which in this case can be great.
  • Example: If event A destroys the island, this removes possibility 'B' 'C' and 'D' in the second stage if they were all dependant on something on that same island - and all their logical followups as real options. So in order to have 5 choices in 5 stages, you actually need 5x5x5x5x5 options = 3000 events over 5 stages, not 25.

    Writing out 3000 possible events is a big difference from writing 25 events - which would probably need an acedemic to even keep track of this interactive story :) - though as a reader it would be a seamless story, but how would you know if this was actually a better story than the one designed by a professional writer.
  • I tried to create the diagrams from the perspective of a writer and incorporating a storyline. It's possible to create interactive story using a different model but for me that gets too technical - I simply can't wrap my head around it. As a consumer or player I can but as a writer it seems impossible to create. Chris Crawford built Storytron using a different model and I have no idea how I would weave a story into that. It seems to be more of a storyworld than story but I haven't had that much experience with it.

    Speaking of Chris Crawford however, he has a great piece on a lot of what you brought up - Flawed Methods
  • Looking back, I think one of the big problems with handing the narrative to players in the way you might be thinking of is how your vizualisation is 'wrong' (not really, but I get the feeling from your search for a true interactive story, you need a different model).

    Your visualisation makes it look like, at every stage the player would have 5 choices, making 25 events to pick from throughout the story - which seems like a fair amount of control over a story, and an overseeable amount of writing. But thats not really the case, as the story still has to progress in a linear way in order for this to be true. At ever stage things pretty much have to have a static ending condition on order to allow the next series of events to 'click' into place in the story.
  • Cool insight, thanks for posting :)

    It made think about how games, other than a few alternative endings, are interactive, immersive, but hardly allow you to determine the real path of the story. Even largely ' free world' realms such as the Morrowind universe tells you to follow a certain path between events, but changes the itneraction with the events itself.

    IE The vulcano outburst (event A) always happens, and always leads to event B, but how it affects the characters ability to progress to event C is different. (longer, harder, different techniques). This is away of keeping story interactive, immersive, while not handing over controlls of the string of events itself to the player. Players who I think expect to be told a story rather then to write their own in many ways, even in these 'free worlds'.

    And I do wish you would stop using Comic Sans in your visuals :P
  • Yeah, most narrative games don't go beyond a traditional narrative with obstacles put in the way. Are developers just being lazy or did they find that story interactivity didn't offer much value over traditional narrative? I know Chris Klug, of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment said expressly, "Mention interactive fiction and they'll think you're an academic." He went on to say that developers would never let you waste time on content that might never be seen by the player. Interactive story is a tough one.

    And what's with the hatred of comic sans? I would switch but I use a great program Balsamiq to quickly create the diagrams and all it offers is comic sans.
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