Today I started at Visual Purple and in case you’re not familiar with SLO, it’s San Luis Obispo. I discovered Visual Purple a few months back and I have to say, working there is almost a dream come true. Most of the time I’ll be working directly on real time story and virtual worlds so you can understand why I jumped at the opportunity.
The company’s roots are actually in interactive story or better known in the 90′s as interactive movies, producing such hits as Silent Steel and Blue Force. That history also gives them a unique perspective in the field of virtual worlds training and serious games. Namely that it’s all about the story.
Besides the great team what excites me most about the position is trying to solve a common problem in virtual worlds, how to get players to engage and lead them through an experience without being heavy handed? Being a big fan of the teaching of Eric Ries and The Lean Startup it’s also nice to be doing all this with paying customers. There is nothing better to validate your learning than having a paying customer. To top it off I also get to experiment with virtual characters.
It’s also great to work for a company that includes in it’s stated goals – world domination. Considering what I envision for the future of entertainment world domination would just about sum it up.
I’ve been waiting for interactive story to take off for years and I’m relatively new to the field, Chris Crawford has been plugging away at it for over a decade. Originally I thought the games industry would lead the way in developing interactive story, however the defining feature of games is of course the game – not the story. The industry has also famously been conservative as Wagner James Au put it, The game industry is Hollywood for Lost Boys.
It’s a business comprised almost entirely of young gamer dudes, serving an audience of young gamer dudes, covered by a gaming press of young gamer dudes, all of whom are only interested in creating, playing, and covering games that interest young gamer dudes—which they believe to be the pinnacle of entertainment.
Seeing virtual worlds though I thought it was a second chance for interactive story. However most are struggling just to find a business model and the technology is nascent. There’s still a lot of opportunity in virtual worlds but what has captured my attention is serious games. For one they have a business model. Secondly, their educational value is increased the more immersive they are and incorporating story will only help that.
Over the weekend I spent some time going through examples from Visual Purple. They specialize in serious games and simulations for training and education. What impressed me most was their incorporation of movie techniques. In Winning in Wireless: Year 1, they incorporate a virtual world but also utilize great cut scenes to pull the player into the story. Exposition is the bane of storytellers and especially in training materials, but WiW does a great job by putting it over an action sequence.
Seeing examples from Visual Purple I can say that serious games are the best application of interactive story yet. And Visual Purple isn’t the only pioneering company in this space.
It will be interesting to see what these companies come up with in way of tools, innovations, and conventions. It also won’t be much of a stretch apply these to interactive stories aimed at more entertainment than educational pursuits. Just check out the Power of Story: Driven to get an idea of where it can go.
Over the years interactive story has captured the imagination of many. Hollywood even tried to create one – Mr. Payback. But nothing has caught on with mainstream audiences. Most people’s exposure to it probably consists of Choose Your Own Adventure books, seeing the Holodeck on Star Trek, and if you’re lucky dating sims or a serious game. If you’ve ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book you’ll know it’s full of questions. Interactive stories to date are just a series of decisions, of which Mr. Payback is a great example.
For me it’s really difficult to watch, forced to make decision after decision. Needless to say Mr. Payback was also a complete failure. The problem is story isn’t just about decisions. James Bond doesn’t really have a choice to accept a mission or not, he has too. The story comes out of his skills and audacity of the master villain. The only decisions James Bond really makes is how to subdue the master villain. Trying to incorporate that will inevitably lead the interactive story down a path to becoming a game with resource management, strategy, and all that. Soon the story will be taking a seat in the back to the game aspects.
Decision points can actually hurt immersion
The creators of Mr. Payback could have done a better job integrating the decision points but it also demonstrates the problem of relying solely on them for interactivity.
Interactive stories typically proceed like Mr. Payback. A cut scene followed by a decision point, followed by another cut scene and decision point. Most of these decision points are directed at the player as if he was the protagonist in the story. The player is asked to dawn the role of the protagonist. However that presents a few problems of its own.
Michael Hauge, the screenwriting guru, explains that stories are interactive by their very nature. To enjoy them we already have to see ourselves as the protagonist.
Movies, screenplays, and novels are participatory events. In order to experience the emotional roller coaster they offer, audiences can’t just observe the action, they must become the hero as she faces all the obstacles standing between her and her goal. In other words, they must empathize and identify with the hero.
Empathy is the key, however it’s difficult to empathize when the character is yourself. If you’re like me you’ll answer the questions as yourself rather than as the character. Every decision point is actually a point to just play around. Let’s go this way and see what happens. Where this might be good for educational purposes (serious games) it kind of falls flat for entertainment as demonstrated by Mr. Payback.
We need to expand the interactive story tool-set
Story is about more than just decision points. Interactive story will need to expand it’s tool-set if it hopes to attract a mainstream audience and expand beyond serious games. If you’re hoping to create an interactive drama all you can rely on is the power of story – you have to create empathy organically from the story. Serious games can more or less expect the player to take on the role of the protagonist simply for the instructional value. Games on the other hand are about simple play and rarely care if you take on the role or not. We play just to see the explosions, for the challenge, etc. That said, serious games and games themselves would be greatly improved by incorporating more pure story.
Eventually the conventions and techniques of the new medium will emerge. It took years for film pioneers to discover continuity editing. Prior to that they were accustomed to just filming Vaudevilleacts and trains. Continuity editing unlocked films story potential, perhaps we’ll find an equivalent technique for interactive story.
If you’ve seen other techniques that work well, please let me know by leaving a comment. In a future post I discuss some of the techniques I’m experimenting with.
Today I started at Visual Purple and in case you’re not familiar with SLO, it’s San Luis Obispo. I discovered Visual Purple a few months back and I have to say, working there is almost a dream come true. Most of the time I’ll be working directly on real time story and virtual worlds so you can understand why I jumped at the opportunity.
