The games represented in the grey zone of other games in this category, it would make little whether theyd benefit from a deeper narrative sense. Story is not what these games are about. The characters serve, again, as iconic representaalso have some shared traits: tions, not personalities. One might argue that the The characters in the games have flat personali- characters in fighting games have a lot of personties, if any. In fighting games theyre closer to the ality, but its vital to separate the fascinating backbasket ball player, and in economic simulation ground stories from the actual fights themselves, games theyre pawns representing the public. as theres no connection between the two. An example from Roller Coaster Tycoon shows that a single character can suddenly desire ice- So the bottom line for these games is that story might cream, which he communicates with an icon, a be applied and deepened, but it wouldnt augment the picture of an ice cream. When the characters can game itself. One exception is Massive Multiplayer Onhardly be described as NPCs its obvious theyll line Games, where there are quests and a lot of story inlack the ability to convey anything more provolved in the vast universe that the players are invited to found, like why they like ice-cream or whether theyll tell their friends to shop as well if they get explore. When a group of players seek to raid a specific dungeon that contains the exact amount of enemies some and so on. each time, just having the computer randomize the Shooters where characters are involved in some sequence and location of these monsters will change way, like Carmageddon or Contra, could have the story the players experience each time. However, deeper story in them, like alternative paths of since there are so many player deciding, as a group, consequence if the player fails to kill a boss or what to do and when to do it, along with the imporfind a secret or disarm a bomb, but, as with the tance of stats in these games, Ive placed the genre in the grey zone. It might be possible to construct a story Non Player Character. The people in the game not controlled by that follows a player wherever he may go in this huge world, but its outside the scope of my model. the player.
Inside: Game genres that could benefit from utilizing my model in order to construct more intriguing stories and characters: First Person Shooters (FPS) (Half Life) Third Person Shooters (Gears of War) Action Adventure (God of War) Role Playing Games (Mass Effect) Real Time Strategy (Command and Conquer) Adventure Games (Broken Sword) Stealth (Tom Clancys Splinter Cell) Survival Horror (Silent Hill)

At the same time, movie audiences all over the world have no problem empathizing with the highly unrealistic characters of e.g. A Pixar-producion like Ice Age. We feel for Manny, the talking, animated mammoth that lost his wife and child. Talking animals have nothing to do with reality, but even though its quite far off were not bothered when asked by the film to invest human traits in them. As Glassner notes, these beasts all have hu- an Italian animated series of about 100 episodes created by Osman personalities, and I believe that good voice- valdo Cavandoli in 1969 acting combined with outstanding animation makes us accept them as characters with real feel A time saving technique in animation making the characters more articulate, often used in facial animation Making the characters lips move to the sounds they utter Actors read the games script into sound files which are in turn linked to the characers in the game
isnt going to do the job. To summarize, there can be no more almost real characters, and using more stylized characters might be the contemporary solution, since video-realistic isnt quite here yet. Either way, its absolutely vital that the character is animated correctly, and that it doesnt give away the mathematical construct under its hood.
1.2.3.2 Stories are not necessary, but highly potent in games.
Some might argue that the video game industry is thriving at the moment, even when having flat characters, clich stories and linear structures. Thats true, and the reason is simple: Games are fun in themselves. Its fun to manoeuvre the athletic and ruthless Kratos in God of War, or to fling an exploding barrel into a group of enemies in Half Life 2. But that doesnt have to be the end of 1.2.3. Braking down a couple of barriers it. Theres much more to explore about games, When surveying my research material I often find and story and narrative structure is definitely one opinions on somewhat obsolete problems that important aspect. Theres no with or without, are coming in the way of actually creating a game its how and when. Even discussing the imporwith an including story. I would like to take a a tance of stories in games is, in my opinion, close couple of paragraphs to voice my own opinion to the famous assumption of Thomas Watson I think there is a world market for maybe five on these issues: computers.

The future goal would be a combination of penand-paper RPGs Dungeon Masters and the written executable program that is text-adventures. This future hybrid should be able to render its calculated changes around the player in images and sounds in real time. My model can be viewed Text adventures made a quite visible transition as a higher-level attempt of simulating the DM from pure fiction to graphic adventure-games like in contemporary games, at least to the extent of Kings Quest, Leisure Suite Larry and Monkey Is- planning and sequencing major plot points. land. Text adventures actually co-existed with more contemporary games, as the player could still type in the commands he wanted, but got an animated, visual response to his choices. With the introduc17
1.3.3 Facade (2007 Procedural Arts )
construct within standard English that seems suitable to utter in the given situation. The second is the amazingly life like response given by the two characters. The player may utter something, and they can answer together, their response igniting the next part of the conversation. Theres no doubt that this is a taste of a future to come, and in some ways the idea to Faade is parallel to my own. The major difference is the level of implementation. Faade almost becomes a genre of its own when compared to contemporary games. To me its an inspiring glimpse of what I would love to have under the hood of my model, at the more detailed level of social feedback experienced by the player. My model on the other hand, is in itself about the level above the interaction in Faade, namely the directing of the storys pace and outcome. If using the meeting in the apartment in Faade as an example, the outcome might be that Trip leaves in anger, that they deicide to stay together, or even that the player is thrown out by Trip. When the player arrives at the flat hes in a perfect balance, a zero standpoint as to his relationship to Trip and Grace. Had the scene been part of a greater story the player would have gone through the door with a charge of negative or positive energy, results from his previous decisions. That charge would direct the situation in some sense, and the player would leave the apartment with a new charge. In many ways, Faade makes talking about Poly Linear Storytelling much easier, as its freely available piece of evidence that programs can simulate emotions. It serves as an important first step to a brighter future for video games.

Facade

There are entire papers written about faade. The most obvious way of describing what is is and what is does would be to simply download it and play it. Heres a description from the official website:

a story. The movie makers can make the audience sympathise with a character, and even sympathise with him in a specific way. In some aspects film is more real than reality, because its a distilled and purified version of real life. Theres no interference in the events told, and no waiting between them. The audience often describe the experience of a good movie as being taken for a ride. It lets the audience forget themselves and their physical surroundings in a very real way, and in many ways it can be seen as a mental travel into a fictional world. The characters on screen or in the book or in the radio, are tailored so that the audience is able to project themselves upon them. This means that the spectator, listener or reader uses his own per33
sonality to fill in and understand the characters motives and actions. This is called identification, and also this is a consequence of empathy. The audience never confuses their position towards the character, meaning that they dont think theyre in the film or the story, but their emotional investment makes the spectator protective of the characters they like. If something bad happens to them the audience draws upon memories and experience to understand their suffering, and to a certain point the audience suffer with them. If something bad happens to a likeable character in which the spectator has invested emotions in, and its somebodys fault, the audience will feel anger and negativity towards that other character. The infamous incidents where actors are attacked by certain members of a TV-series or a movies audience proves that the hatred is real and personal, although the vast majority of spectators can tell the difference between the illusion and reality. tween loudness and stillness, between physical action and mental progress. Rising tension means to match the scope of the problem with the scope of the solution, so that the solution to the problem is never evident until the moment its resolved. Plot: According to Aristotles Poetics, a plot is the arrangement of incidents that (ideally) each follow plausibly from the other. Glassner states that the plot is there to create situations for the main character through which hes forced to struggle, and consequently, grow. Every story has a plot outline, containing the events that have an impact on the further story. Well return to the concept when describing my model, as its the fundamental part of the story the player is able to change.

There are many definitions to the concept of play. If one was to simply describe the activity it would involve an agreed state of freedom from seriousness and real consequence. In this state theres an important element of experimentation, and the main goal behind play is learning. Animals play-fight to hone their combat-related abilities, but also to test strength, often resulting in the development of hierarchies within a flock. Children use play to try out roles they see in adults, and adults use play to learn and develop specific skills. Since learning is a rewarding activity, play is also viewed as entertainment, or a past time activity. The aspect of play interesting to this paper is the ordered variation containing rules. These rules form games, and the premises are equal in sports and in video games. Theres a set of limitations to the activity in question, and the goal is to achieve the most efficient outcome within those boundaries. The activity of playing games has always existed with humans, and their complexity has increased during the development of the species. Sports require tools and instruments, word games require a language and so on.
2.2.2 The playful and experimental

New Super Mario

Experience is the product of experimentation. Humans are able to assess a situation based on the outcome of previous experiences. In this sense, play has been used to hone specific skills, some vital for survival. Combat training can be seen as a game, since the participants have a goal and set rules for how to obtain it. When trying out different approaches to a problem, the players learn about each possible attempts strengths and weaknesses. When faced with difficulties or problems in real life the player is able to draw upon a broadened library of knowledge about various solutions. The effectiveness in play can be explained by two factors, the enjoyment of the activity itself (according to Koster, learning new skills is rewarded by the brain with a sensation of happiness), and the other is the competitive nature of man. When one Homo Sapiens sees another accomplish something, he immediately reviews his own possibilities of doing it better. This leads to an escalation in performance, notable in most sports, where the records are being broken at relatively close intervals.

The two have published several articles suggesting a strong link between video games and learning.

CHAPTER 3

Why game and story can not be combined directly
Story and game are, as mentioned, very differently constructed, and are consumed on different premises. Note that this is most visible when limiting games to classic, pure games that arent already mixed up with a narrative. In other words, Tetris and sports, not Doom 3 and Monkey Island. The following is an abbreviation of the differences as listed by Glassner.
1) Participants dont change over time 2) Games are about themselves, and lack breadth. 3) The rules in games are explicit 4) Uses an impartial judge 5) Spectators are not active in the game 6) A game player seeks mastery 7) Games are about results
1) Participants (cast) changes rapidly 2) Stories are about anything, and have both breadth and depth 3) The rules in stories are implicit 4) Has a moral judge 5) Spectators influence live performances 6) A spectator to a story seeks enlightenment and interpretation. 7) Stories are about process.

Stories

combining story and game into a hybrid
3.1 Merging game and story into a hybrid
Now, lets look a bit closer to these seven differences and see how they may be merged, at the least on a crude level. In order to do so we must again think of video games as the concept is it today, with box art, characters as representations of elements in the game, and the telling of a story along with the actual game. more organic and real experience.
4) The impartial referee Glassner is referring to
is the games programming, or the sports judges. These are to represent the insurance of the games balance and fairness, and function as a tool to separate the game from reality. In stories the judge is the interpreter, in other words the audience. They are the ones who develop an opinion and a verdict about the story theyre told. The audience, often helped by characters in the story, decide whos malignant and whos righteous. In a game based on Emotioneering and PLS there would be an impartial referee, the code, that made sure every action done by the player was handled in the way the developers would see fit, both on the level of immediate feedback (a chair brakes with a crashing sound when thrown off a balcony), social feedback (people get angry when you throw their furniture off a balcony) and long time consequence (you wont be invited to the next party on the balcony). At the same time the developers use visual and audible content controlled by programs to simulate actors, the NPCs. These characters create situations the player, as the audience, would have to interpret, lead along by the opinions of the same characters.
1) The player is not the only participant in a game,
since the cast of NPCs often are there to challenge the player in certain activities. In that sense, theyre closer to cast than players. When trying to join the thieves guild in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the player has to compete with two outspoken NPCs, and, as in stories, these characters then leave the main story of the game.

2) Games are inherently about themselves still.
When stripped from all their make up they are often simplistic exercises in rather basic activities. FPS games are doubtlessly about aiming and calculating trajectories. However, theres the possibility to use the make up, the surrounding storyline, to create a deeper purpose for doing these activities. This is the most important aspect of involving the story into the game play.
3) The rules of the real world are also both explic- 5) The model for constructing PLS is made
it and implicit. Gravity will always pull objects towards the ground at a constant rate, but social interaction changes dramatically across the globe. These are representative for the different challenges a player exploring a game with PLS will have to face. NPCs and plot points simulate the implicit, organic and changing rule set of interaction. The games physics, level of abstraction and rule set (e.g. the player needs to breathe after being under water for a given amount of time) represent the explicit and predictable aspect of the experience. The latter can often be softened up to resemble a
mostly for single player experiences, meaning that there would be only one input to the controls of the game. Theres the possibility to add more players, but they would either way have to act like one unit towards their decisions the game needs to base consequences upon, in order to construct story. However, when viewing the question practically, a game with puzzles can be played by a player and an audience, meaning that the person moving the pieces in the game around (be it characters or pieces of a puzzle) is clearly the participant. The onlooker or helper, is both audience and team player as he presents
his opinions for solutions. Theres no definitive 7) In this part, Id like to reference Glassners answer for this, as there is no necessary role of game-loop, where the player continually assesses spectator in a single player or single unit game. his goals, his performance and their outcome. PLS is about results, as a game, but also about process, 6) Again this is an example of where both crite- as the results form a string of actions, an interpretria are met if only lowered a bit. A game utilizing able pattern the player will enjoy and process as it PLS would offer first and foremost understanding unfolds. His actions are from moment to moment, and insight as a story would, but depending on and they are executed with specific results in mind, the game-element present there would also be the thus the player is focused on results. When having possibility for mastery of a given task. One could enough information available, the player will bealso talk about the possibility of mastering the in- gin to think ahead, to put two and two together teraction with the NPCs, if viewed as a social game and read the plot points. Thus, hes focusing on where the goals or benefits were made clear for process. The player can simultaneously enjoy his the player. However, a large part of the plot-points performance, and the sometimes surprising way purpose is to hide and obscure these goals and they fit into the games universe and story. benefits, as it creates tension and excitement. In the end, PLS is supposed to give the player an experience close to that of a story, but the story gets better if the player masters the game elements that help him manipulate the same story.

3.4 Factors to consider regarding the implementation of PLS
3.4.1 Actions over descriptions
When writing for a game there are certain tools the writers will have to do without. One on the most important ones is description. In a book a skilled writer can make the reader taste, feel and see almost anything. In a movie the director may position his cameras to invoke a certain perception of a situation, and at the same time use dialogue or voice-over to emphasise a certain emotional highlight in the story. Games are so vastly different I decided not to base any of my ideas on content not usually in games. Like text descriptions, voice-over and fixed cameras. To make the player read shows a lazy attitude towards what games are capable of. Voice over just doesnt fit into most games, as theres no logical narrator. Usually, the player is given control of the camera, or the camera is objective towards showing the players character as well as possible. That doesnt mean these techniques cant be used in games, only that its unconventional or doesnt perform well within games. tional games the level of abstraction is somewhat confused, distorting the games sense of attachment to reality. If the player is wounded in an action game the remedy is to pick up a large, blinking heath-kit. The health-kit is blinking to prevent the player from overlooking it, as it would make the player feel as if the game designers are working against him, creating an unfair situation. But why are there health-kits in the first place? Many shooters where player injury is important and unavoidable use this kind of unrealistic abstraction, like Resident Evil. Other games with almost identical features and game mechanics have started using a system of regeneration where the player can cool down and regain his health if he stays out of harm way for a short period of time, like Gears of War or Call of Duty 2. These games are also absent of a health-meter, substituting it with a sensation of peril. Often this is accomplished by blotting the players view in a red colour mixed with audible heavy breathing, creating the sensation of the player bleeding to death. Further from the rather machine-like health meter and magic medical kits is Medal of Honour Pacific Assault, where the player has a field-doctor in his troop, who comes to the players aid a limited amount of times should he be shot down. These solutions to the specific problems still present in game design are favoured when creating a game with PLS.

Technical terms:

Throughout the description Ill use a few terms , all describing elements of PLS. The following is an explanation of each:

Player-Action:

Every action performed by the player that has a consequence at some point. These player actions are not limited to a single action performed by the player, like locking a door or changing appearance, but normally a group of such actions leading to a certain outcome. In that way dialogue can also result in player actions, like saying something insulting to a character will have a certain consequence. A PA can then be described as just be kind to given character or appear threatening, while there can be a large number of actual actions contributing to such a player action.

PLS Walkthrough

Relationship map (RM):
will also take action should Laura be in need or go Every character and location is linked to a number through something extrordinary, like a birthday. of other people and places in the storys universe. They will also be intemate with Laura, and hear The RMs are unique to each location or character, her secrets or notice abnormalities. In italics Ive and contain names of story-items the given object added to location she will be linked to, in this is linked to, grouped into three levels of intemicy case her home. Had she been someone spending or priority. Our example for this explaination is a lot of time at work, that location might also be added to this priority group. called Laura, a 20 year old girl:

RM Laura

Father John Mother Mary Brother Billy Best friend Alicw Lauras Home Friend Claire Friend Paula Friend Danny Friend George Friend Doug Aunt Ness School Friend Georges house Aunt Ness house Class at school Soccer team Teacher Bentley Teacher Thacher Teacher Brown Sister Sarah Closest neighbours Neighbours houses
In the second group we find the rest of Lauras friends along with any other person she sees a lot, in this case her aunt Ness. In this example Laura is very fond of her aunt, and goes to visit her several times per week, just as she visits the rest of her friends. These people will know Laura well, and also spend a lot of time with her. They will be interested in her, and by that they will eventually find out about all dramatic or extordinary events in her life. They are not as intimate as the rest, though, but that is not necessarely visible should there not be some sort of drama involved. Furthermore Ive added Lauras school, her friend Georges house and her aunts home as locations Laura will be linked to, but maybe not in a personal level. Major events happening in these places will reach Laura, but shes not as informed about the events taking place here as she is about her own house.
In the third group we find everyone who might show up in Lauras funeral, cut an article about her from a newspaper or have a personal opinion about her actions. These people are not aware of the day-to-day life of Laura, but theyll have a general idea about who she is and what she might be doing. Certain kinds of actions might become known to them. Ive added Lauras sister Sarah to In the first group theres Lauras family and clos- this category, to emphasize that water is thicker est friends. These are the ones that will be affected than blood in this list. All family are not automatiby almost every action Laura makes, and certainly cally in the first category, and all strangers are not anything dramatic that might happen to her. They necessarely in the last. Laura might have a stalker, a person she doesnt know but who knows and

wathces her closely. Or a sister that ran away from home and spends her days under the heavy influence of heroin on the other side of the country. In this third category Ive also added the neighbours house, where Laura has never been, doesnt know anything about, but will be told about should anything dramatic occur there. The relationship map is a handy tool when examining all the possible outcomes of a situation. It simplefies the task of understanding who might give a reaction to a player-actoin, and to which extent the reaction will play out. Should Laura do drugs at a party and overdose, her parents, Teacher Brown and her sister Sarah might all react since theyre in the RM, but they will react in very different ways. Her parents will be hands on, occupied, involved and distressed, teacher Brown might think it sad, and utter an opinion on drugs in general to his collegues, and Sarah might rethink her own life and excistence, possibly blaming herself for setting such a negative example. Furthermore, the RM is good for coming up with interesting and surprising links between characters, making the gamess universe a bit less predictable. Letting a character from the third group get involved in a problem based on previousely unknown facts, for instance.

Action Radius:

This is an indication for how long into the timeline and how deep into the relationship maps an event will endure. This only counts for player-actions, ruling out lesser actions (stopping someone on the street to ask for the time). Theres no numerical values to this expression, but a factor that should be described or formulated for every PA in the script. To continue to use our example from the previous paragraphs, Laura has an argument with her parents. If they just argue, the consequences in the story might end the same night, when they reach an agreement and become friends again. Should Lauras father hit Laura the expanded AR would ensure that Laura would tell her best friend Alice about the incident, Lauras mother might tell Lauras Aunt. The consequences would last for weeks. If the punch left a black eye it would have an even broader AR, making the entire school and Lauras soccer practice aware of the problem, instegating rumours or nick-names lasting for years.

Plot point:

The points in the story where it branches off into different directions. This is usually caused by direct a direct PA, but can also be a turning point based on an accumulated value. For instance there might be several plot points where Lauras friend Finally, making RM for locations makes it easy to Alice can lose her patience with Laura and abanunderstand who will be involved with the out- don her, a descicion based on the Alices gathered come of actions should they occur in that area. value towards Laura. Should something happen at Lauras school the students, the teachers, the janitor, the head mas- NPC-relationship: ter, all could have something to do with the fol- One vital value that should be constantly mapped lowing narrative. is the NPC-Player-relationship. This indicates how an NPC should behave towards the player based RMs are dynamic, and will need several versions on the player actionss. In the PLS-Program (dethroughout the scripts as characters continue to scription in chapter 6) this value can be set and meet each other, become enimies, leave, arrive, traced as the script is written. Its most important, and so on.

Saved by Fayde when staying in hospital Location: The Hospital The doctors then approach the player, strapping him down to a table and leaving him there. Among them is the doctor from before, and the last thing he says before leaving the room is an order to the nurse about which drug she should prepare and how much. The young nurse protests, but the The text is written to resemble the level of detail doctor explodes again, telling her to do her job, described in a script thats being written into PLS not worry about him doing his. for the first time, and Ive concentrated on one scene in particular, marked by fig 6 in the il- Then Fayde comes in through the door, unstraplustration. ping the player. He tells him that they dont have much time, and the player must follow him out Waking up of the room. From there the two work together Location: The Mental Hospital to get out of the hospital, mostly by Fayde dis74
tracting guards to allow the player to pass out of sight. for a single character is limited to the stuff he or she says throughout the story. In games that same character may have the same string of dialog going from the beginning of the game to the end, only conveying important information. In order to deepen characters and make them seem responsive, however, the writers of video games will have to come up with all the small things they might say should they be exposed to a certain kind of input, like being pushed or altered physically, if the player is inactive for a period of time, if the player does something out of place and so on. On top of that comes the much larger bulk of dialog needed because of the branching of PLS. The player may move through the same scene in several different ways, and the NPCs will at times have to perform the same dilaog in several different tones of voice in order to seem responsive to the players actions.
15 Deciding dialog Dialog is not expensive in itself, at least not when compared to the development of graphical or technical aspects of the game. Still, should the process be taken as seriously as required by PLS, it can take a long time to write, record, tune, organize and implement spoken dialog into the game. Depending on the games design theres normally a link between NPCs and the phrases they utter, meaning that the production of believable animations is tied to the amount of conversation needed in the script. Large companies will have different budgets then smaller ones, the method of animation should have been considered at this stage (motion capture, by hand or both), and also the characters ability to express themselves. Are they planned to be simple hand-drawn stick figures or highly detailed and elaborately realistic Since there hasnt been any productions of exactly characters? this kind before, at least not to my knowledge, its hard to make an estimate of the number of people How many minutes or hours of dialog the pro- usually involved in the writing of a PLS document, duction can handle should be decided before but apart from dividing the work load by number moving on to the next stage. of lines of dialog, it could have been interesting to have each writer become responsible for a few 16 Writing out dialog in teams characters and all their dialog each. As mentioned before, the amount of text needed to be processed when designing for PLS makes 17 Re-insertion into PLS program teams of writers the most likely solution to get- At this point the dialogs are in separate files orting a script done as fast as possible. There can dered by scenes, the locations and characters also be several members working on the main should have received more detail, and the story script to make sure their joint style is kept from sequence (thus the storys events in the PLS prothe start of the writing progress, although its gram) might have been re-arranged or at least very much possible for one single person to con- modified. The data is again spread across the floor, ceive, write and implement a script into the PLS and its time to re-insert it into the PLS program program. The main reason there would have to be for the same reasons as before. Although it has more than one writer on the character dialog is not been realized in the demo of the PLS program that writing for games differs from writing any there would have to be possibilities for importing other kind of fiction on this point. In films, books external files into the database, automatically addor comic books the text needed to be conceived ing e.g. dialog in its appropriate place automati75

Final Words

Theres no doubt in my mind that stories will play an increasingly important role in the future of video games. My hope is that a more practical approach to the problem of merging game and story in a meaningful way will spawn a less academic and more realistic debate surrounding the challenges ahead. and product will have to shrink, a responsibility one might point towards the gaming industry. From a gamers point of view there seems to be a common agreement that the audience of today is mostly concerned about the visual appeal of the games, and that resources should be fed to the technical aspects of production. Story, however, does not cost much. Words on paper, even when I found it necessary to apply my own terms to composed by skilled writers, are free when comcertain factors within the model Ive created, as pared to the money spent on developing graphic there is still a lot of confusion not only towards engines and multi-core graphical CPUs. Even a the final goal or product, but also towards the lengthy and possibly complicated script utilizing practical limitations one opens up when trying PLS would be a minor stain on the entire producto let the player have more meaningful choices tion budget. that affect the story in the game. My hope is that a language and a common understanding about Furthermore, the impact of a good story is bigger the challenges the implementation of a deeper than the impact of good visual qualities. I agree narrative in video games offers can be set by a that aesthetics are important in all main stream more open dialog between academics, research- art, but when the audience discards two year old ers, game producers and the audience. The first products as not up to date visually, one can start step towards such a dialog is to address the need to wonder how far and for how long the graphifor more intelligent and mature content in video cal improvements will have to stretch before the games, as a large portion of the potential audi- audience is content? My answer, as stated in this ence must have a large difficulty relating to the paper, is that the necessary visual quality, also current titles featuring violence and other forms when considering PLS, has already been reached. of extreme action. Should one move away from the attempts on mirroring our reality and rather let the medium be as Video games have a lot to offer as a medium, and I free and innovative it can be in stead, one would believe 2008 will introduce titles which are prod- end up with lower production costs, more titles ucts of a slightly different approach to design. Its per year and NPCs the player can invest emotions about time the possibilities within interactive sto- in more easily, possibly resulting in higher sales ries merged with the increasingly popular market to a wider audience. of video games. Because people arent shy about consuming good During the writing of this paper my biggest chal- stories. Escapisms is at its best when inviting lenge was definitely coming up with the formal the audience into a different world. Movies can model itself. The main reason for this is that there make you forget where you are for a while, as can really havent been too many practical attempts novels and theater. Games have the potential to on bringing a more challenging aspect of story let you go to different worlds and explore them. into games, even thought the possibility has been PLS and other techniques for making stories for debated among academics within both fields for games are tools for making those worlds much quite some time. The divide between research more interesting.

Crysis - an upcoming science fiction first-person
shooter computer game that is currently in development by German developer Crytek

People Quoted:

Elie Wiesel
a Romania-born American-Jewish novelist, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of over 40 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several concentration camps.

Books Read:

Chris Crawford - On Interactive Storytelling
[ISBN 0-321-27890-9] is probably the one Ive strayed the farthest from. Crawford is considered a veteran in the business of Video Games, and he has also written The Art of Computer Game Design. Unfortunately, some might say, he has retreated from the industry due to his thinning patience with the immature content found in contemporary games. He also expresses some rather ruthless opinions on stagnated designers and a sell-out tendencies. His book is not about games, but interactive stories. Ill be sure to explain the difference. Ive mostly used him as a counterpart for my own theories, as hes quite against my model and the idea behind it.

Reynolds Price

an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price has had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Johan Huizinga

a Dutch historian, was one of the founders of modern cultural history. Born in Groningen, he started out as a student of Comparative linguistics, gaining a good command of Sanskrit
Andrew Glassner - Interactive Storytelling
[ISBN 1-56881-221-3] is a very thorough excavation of the main principles in both stories and games. Glassner is quite academic in his approach, and in my opinion this rigor seems to contradict the flexibility needed to even begin merging the two concepts together. Especially stories and their basic principles are heavily defended by Glassner, and Ill contradict him on several issues. The book offers a great deal of rather unique insight, however, and has served me well.

Warren Spector

a veteran computer game designer. He is known for having worked to merge elements of role-playing games and first-person shooters. He currently resides in Austin, Texas

Andrew Glassner

a writer-director, and a consultant in story structure, interactive fiction, and computer graphics. He started working in 3D computer graphics in 1978, and has carried out research at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, Case Western Reserve University, the IBM TJ Watson Research Lab, the Delft University of Technology, Bell Communications Research, Xerox PARC, and Microsoft Research
David Freeman - Creating Emotion In Games

Foundations of Interactive Game Design (80K)

week six, lecture two

TBA readings still. & more papers @ front Multi-game analysis essay More games and ction recapping prior

lecture and adding more

Can games and ction work together? How do games and ction work together? How could games and ction work

together?

Presentations of Mass Effect and Heavy Rain

Multi-game analysis

Your next major assignment, due in

two weeks in section

Pick three games to compare, focusing on
some aspect of their design, and connect this to their mechanics
One of these games must come from the
S&E Librarys game collection (see syllabus page on the multi-game analysis for links)

Comparing games

Choose something about the game design

to compare

You might look at changes in ction
(e.g., different stories/mechanics), procedural rhetoric (e.g., simulated pollution), basic mechanics (e.g., jumping mechanics and challenges), etc differences and support with specics!
Explicitly state your views on the
The most common type of comparison is
is encouraged (e.g., the original Prince of Persia, PoP: Sands of Time, and the recent Forgotten Sands) in the same genre and/or series (its easier to compare jumping across platformers)
Choosing three games from different eras With permission of your TA, you can
choose a different dimension and grouping

Creative groupings

Some Bogost essays
are multi-game analysis examples. analyzes playing weakness in 3 games In-Game Ad Design looks at unlicensed branding in 3 games
Games Phone Home Turning the Tables on

Questions?

Games and fiction
Games are complex systems
Play creates many emergent possibilities
Stories are linear arrangements
One arrangement is carefully selected
Stories are inherently linear. Indeed, this is a strength; the author chose precisely those characters, those events, those decisions, and that outcome, because it made for the strongest story. Games are inherently non-linear. They depend on decision making. To the degree that you make a game more like a story more linear, fewer real options you make it less like a game. Greg Costikian, 2000
There is some evidence for this
Great-looking graphics: aka movies
"Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story
Not enough movies for dynamic gameplay or story
"Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story "Play" Story
We have better cinematic models
Tells an action movie story

Play Story

With gameplay challenges: running, jumping, climbing, shooting, using cover
Games can do what movies can do
Setting up character tensions

Making tensions clearer

Setting some tensions aside
Games can do what movies cant do
Cant run, jump, or climb; only pistol
Hard-won victory made meaningless

X <

Does bad things in a separate world Does bad things in a world impelled by my gameplay
But traditionally cinematic games are just one approach
We can connect gameplay and fiction more deeply
. and a deeper connection between game and fiction doesnt require a huge team

Shade by Andrew Plotkin

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The game system provides a space, objects,

and a mystery

The player and the character both explore
the space, use the objects, and uncover the mystery only experiences intellectual curiosity about the ctional world, but must experiment with the world actively curiosity in action same time the characters ction climaxes
Unlike a traditional ction, the audience not The player understands the world at the
Or you could control the world at a different level
Storytelling with The Sims
Alice and Kev by Robin Burkinshaw

Alice and Kev

A story about poverty, with the choices of the player implicating the
audience in a way The Bicycle Thief couldnt,
told through a simulation game. It works because both game and story are

about resources.

The Sims is an amazing if somewhat

abstract metastory.

Or a simulated world might not be a goal

Screen

A collaboration with Josh Carroll, Robert
Coover, Shawn Greenlee, Andrew McClain, and Ben Sascha Shine
Played in the Cave at Brown University Texts of memory as a virtual experience The language of memory as game material,
in relation to the body, made almost tangible
Words peel loose, hit back with the hand.
Or the boundary between worlds could be questioned

The Beast

Circles: Evan Chan was murdered Squares: Jeanine was the key

This is not a game

Elan Lee (puzzles),
Sean Stewart (writing), and Jordan Weisman (concept) own existence; spread through internet text, movies (and phone, fax, USPS, bathroom walls, live events) player collaboration (Cloudmakers had 7,500 members) Nearly 150 characters, nearly 4,000 documents, four languages, nightmare database, Enigma code, etc.

First ARG; denied its

Required massive
Launched the alternate reality game genre Fictions uncovered/performed as a group Taking roles in ctions that blur boundaries Game system provides a framework and goal
for social interaction in ctional/real world (even if not visible to players)
Pushing back on plans of game/story authors
Or you could make choices for characters that branch the plot
Role-Playing Games (RPGs)
Maybe this is starting to sound familiar?
Quest structures enable choice states and possible future states
Dialogue trees enable choice options of what to say, followed by NPC responses, choices are gameplay decisions

Mass Effect

Presentation by Alexander Schneider
Or you could inhabit multiple characters

Heavy Rain

Expressive Intelligence Studio eis.ucsc.edu

http://

Presentation by Alexander McCaleb

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We could say that we are giving our souls to the game as weve abandon our role as the player of a game & become the protagonist Scott Shelby. The sense of immersion brought about from this game is much more prevalent throughout the remainder of the story. The rst time I played through the game, I completed it from beginning to end (including DLC) in one 15 hour sitting. Why? Thats how immersed into the game I was.
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We are Scott Shelby, a private detective investigating the case of the Origami Killer. Lauren Winter is a prostitute whos son Johnny was a victim of the Origami Killer. Currently, Lauren Winter lives in a sleazy apartment complex & is well-known amongst that community. This could possibly be the end result of her dead son. Troy is an ex-client of Laurens who has violent urges & thinks he owns Lauren. This premise seems familiar to that of Omikron except were a private detective in the near future versus a futuristic cop.
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Gameplay & ction merge here as every aspect of the gameplay available to me was driven by previous choices I made in the story. In particular, every time that Troy was able to hit me, Ill sustain those injuries throughout the game. Likewise, with any RPG, the ways that Ive been talking with Lauren affect her relationship with me, which drives her reactions later in the level.
Analyzing this from an outside perspective, during our quick time sequences, the story would often imply that I would be able to strike Troy in some particular manner with button presses or joystick movements that came intuitively with what was occurring on screen. This may be a nitty-gritty detail, but still applicable to our discussion
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Microscenes are used to show discussion between characters as well as small acts that characters are doing. For example, when Scott needed his inhaler, a microscene was shown where he pulls the inhaler from his pocket & leans up against the wall to use it. This particular usage aids story-telling as it tells the player through their interactions & watching that Scott has breathing problems. In addition to this, microscenes are also utilized during Scott & Laurens conversation to give emphasis onto what exactly is being said. Without microscenes in this context, directly telling the story would be a much more difficult task.
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Or you could gesturally perform the characters

Motion controls

Gestures control everyday actions
Motion control in Heavy Rain
Enacting ctional roles, taking multiple POVs Motion control for ction high-level
puppeteering, rather than full-body enacting taking emotionally powerful stances, making emotionally laden movements
Raises question of the alternative
We can do exciting things with games and fiction
Doing things with game fictions
Accomplishment, emotional interpellation Unraveling mysteries with active engagement Interrogating our responsibilities Making play material of ctions language Play enacting ctional themes metaphorically Creating new social connections via ctions Physically enacting ctional roles Experiencing choice in a possibility landscape
Its a great time to be working on games and fictions