Intelligent Artifice

I believe that one of the problems with “interactive storytelling” is that it does not refer to any specific present or future genre, and that hence neither does it refer to any specific set of problems to be solved.

What do you mean by interactive storytelling?

I personally suspect the idea of interactive storytelling is a waste of time. To be certain I’d need to know what you mean by the phrase though.

Is it at its most generic a system where some story is outlined and controlled by the creator? Thats what it sounds like anyway… :)

“That we’re still debating definitions of terms after all this time says it all.”

Says what, exactly?

But yes, it really IS an undiscovered country, so it’s easy to imagine some shape in there that you don’t like, or to feel protective about your own vision and get upset when someone else has a different one. And then of course there are always the Gameplay First people who stare at you when you even mention story… Frustrating as it is, we have made some progress: the chasm between ’storytellers’ and ‘engineers’ is not as big as it was ten years ago.

Interactive storytelling, as much as I like to use the term as short-hand for my own fog-shrouded Grail, probably won’t ever be narrowly defined, and I suspect it shouldn’t be. Attempts to do so are likely to be political exercises.

My personal definition of interactive storytelling as a general direction (!) is quite simple:
- Reacting to what the player is doing (the interactive).
- Integrating the fictional and the mechanical aspects (the storytelling).
If you take these two elements beyond what is common in games today, you will get something that I would call interactive storytelling. Right now, we’re on a local maximum. (Note that I’m not saying there’s something inherently wrong with games today, just that there’s more we can do.)

Of course, this is still very broad, and I suspect I will need more than these few lines to make a convincing case.

Broad as it is, it has me nodding in agreement.

I’m just currently (and persistantly) frustrated that despite many people having inklings of the right idea in terms of IS, the market tends not to appreciate our efforts, to the point that we’re considered “selfish” for not making standard fare. The connaitation that IS undermines, or is in any way opposed to the standard fare, equally, shows how much understanding and convincing we have to do before we can practically broaded games out.

I’m in the unfortunate position of having been able to reason various stabs toward IS within internal projects - “unfortunate” because every time I’m told I “done good”, I pessimistically wonder what I must have compromised for an idea to fly! Perhaps this is a hint that IS is becoming more of a natural progression, and less of a leap of faith with every passing day? Or perhaps our rebellion is slowly becoming the state of the art?

Aubrey,

>>I’m in the unfortunate position of having been able to reason various stabs toward IS within internal projects - “unfortunate” because every time I’m told I “done good”, I pessimistically wonder what I must have compromised for an idea to fly!>Perhaps this is a hint that IS is becoming more of a natural progression, and less of a leap of faith with every passing day? Or perhaps our rebellion is slowly becoming the state of the art?<<

In Chris’s evolutionist/revolutionist dichotomy, I used to tend more towards the evolutionist side (me being an unreasonable optimist). My opinion has changed a bit. Bigger steps are necessary to counter the pressure of increasing risk avoidance.

I still think we’ll get there.

I don’t know why your comment didn’t show up well, the text was all there. I’ve changed the formatting, leaving the ranting… I mean, insightful commentary ;) untouched. I’ve also deleted the second comment.

I will deploy my rapier-like wit later :)

But IS is just gameplay.

Well seriously though, what is the difference?

How do you mean: “you must build your gameworld from the ground up with storytelling”

Are the players themselves telling a story? Or by interactive storytelling to you just mean mechanics which allow the player to create a defined story? In which case isn’t it just game mechanics which force the writers happy ending upon players?

Lee,

“I sort of believe ducks should be called ducks. We have a lot of ducks calling themselves writers. I’m not sure it helps.”

I think you’re saying writers in game teams aren’t good writers - I’m saying it’s good if a team has a full-time writer at all, just like it’s good we have full-time game designers, project managers, and QA, all of which was not at all given a mere ten years ago.

I’m sure more bright persons will discover branching again, and more passive entertainment writers will blunder into games, but overall I’ve noticed that the irritating phenomena that we used to complain about five years ago have been replaced by new irritating phenomena. That sounds like progress to me! Of course, your mileage may vary, I’m just talking about my impression.

We can talk about the glass being half full or half empty, but the real questions are: are we dying of thirst? How do we fill that glass?

“Jurie! I’m glad you reached that inevitable conclusion, but sheesh! I’ve heard trying various approaches for achieving good programming don’t work very well either. Best to have a full-time programmer on the team. ;)”

Either I don’t understand what you’re trying to say or you’re contradicting what you said about ducks. The reason I favored working with free-lance writers is so I could work with top people like you and Mark. If I work with a full-time writer, it is much, much harder to find the right person. But anyway, this is a pretty big subject, related to some projects I’ve been involved in the last few years and my conclusions about what went right and what didn’t. I think we pretty much agree.

I see what you mean, Jurie.
Your way is probably easier than mine. Since I want to start from what you call the “dynamic system”, it could take me much longer to get a tunable game.

I too feel that all the tools we need already exist. There’s no IS secret somebody needs to discover. Actually, it’s very close to what I think about GTA: somebody just had to do it right.
I also think that we just need to spend a lot of time creating a design process adapted to IS, what most companies can’t afford or won’t do. IMO, the problem is less in the difficulty of the task than in the will to do it.

Aubrey,

“So, as I understand it, I.S. has been about making the natural game play (story) that emerges from game systems into something that is percievably story-like.”

Exactly. Any game that is not completely abstract is already an IS system - it’s just that the stories it ‘generates’ are bad (that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad games).

Your approach to doing this sounds decent to me, although perhaps as a general approach to turning a story into a game (without the IS bit).

And by the way, I think KD is more coherent than most games, storytelling-wise. But that’s beside the point.

Jurie:
“Exactly. Any game that is not completely abstract is already an IS system - it’s just that the stories it ‘generates’ are bad (that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad games).

After thirty minutes of getting this right I erase it all because Jurie already responded to Aubrey. Thank God I previewed, huh?

“But at least for me there are conceptual problems as well. Although maybe these are caused by the need to explain to others what I want to do, instead of just doing it…”

I think what is being discussed actually is a quantitative difference. One that will assumedly lead to a qualitative one. And it’s here where I take issue with your dismissal of Spore as, while genius, not what’s needed. Spore as I understand it does with geometric content what needs to be done with narrative content. The breaking up of content into chunks of narrative that can be woven into the larger storyline at reaction to the player. Just as Spore adds geometric content procedurally, we need to find a way to do the same for storytelling. Talk about back to the drawing board. (And I know it’s apples to oranges, but they’re both fruits in this case. While done differently, the effect of what we want to happen is the same.)

To do so would mean that most predetermined narrative is useless save in tandem with IS to lead the player to desired outcomes/reactions. Typical narrative just pushes the player in a general direction in the form of outside pressures (like having to get somewhere in a city by a certain time,) at the developer’s discretion. It’s the ‘Dungeon Master’-ing. The actual story would have to be added all in reaction to the player.

“Your approach to doing this sounds decent to me, although perhaps as a general approach to turning a story into a game (without the IS bit).”

Ahk. Yes. I definately agree. The systems that form as a result often have great similitude to I.S., purely because we’re working around modelling the same kinds of systems.

The approach (hell, i wouldn’t even call it that!) is really just down to how my position has worked out within our studio. Recently, I’ve been more of a “game-ifyer” - a game design consultant of sorts. I’m not really allowed on the concept side of things, since concepts nowadays seem to be created out of licensing opportunities. *Sigh*. I’m sure you feel this pinch too - that we’re rarely given free reign on such things, unless they are our side projects.

Still, dealing with limitations is part of being creative, eh?

Jurie

“Exactly. Any game that is not completely abstract is already an IS system - it’s just that the stories it ‘generates’ are bad (that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad games).”

From this sentence we can realize that what you’re looking for is better stories, not different game mechanics.

I completely agree with that. Any game that tries to tell a story will use interactivity to develop a shared process with the player to drive story progression in game. So, it’s nothing else than an Interactive Storytelling experience.

Jeffool,

“Just as Spore adds geometric content procedurally, we need to find a way to do the same for storytelling.”

Yes, putting things like this can be a good way to think about it. But as you said before, we are talking about quantitative not qualitative. Storytelling is not really a quantifiable matter. Storytelling stands for the art of developing meaning in the mind player through the creation of events grouping. Putting the player in the position of the events grouping creation and not of the meaning developing is changing completely his role in the relation with the artefact.

At http://www.gamespy.com/articles/595/595975p1.html they said : «”Owning” the content in this way means that all the stories that the gamer creates are much more meaningful. Putting two and two together, Wright concluded that there had to be some way where users could create content, instead of armies of developers, and a way to make a game craft itself around the user’s contribution. »

This is far from true. People want significant stories delivered by others. They are looking for surprise, for learning new visions, different social approaches. The “doing” can’t be mixed with the “receiving”. Most humans “do” things firstly to show to the others and then feel great for the feedback of these others, with the exception of narcissists. People want to interact with the thing, people want to feel like being part of the thing, and so people don’t want to have to build the thing.

Aubrey

“You watch a story wondering what you’d do in the same situation, and throw around what-if scenarios… we never get to play out our own choices, however. That’s where interactivity steps in…”

The problem with answering to the “what you’d do” is the number of what if scenarios needed to end the cycle. If you were able to create such a system and so give such an option in a game, player curiosity wouldn’t rest till he had followed all the “what if” scenarios, that the system would permit. In the end player would be so worried with all the variations just for one scene that he wouldn’t care for the overall story. Just think about “Back to the Future”, and hypothesize an IS like that for it. Player would like to try infinite variations to see results, forgetting completely any possible story goal. The story reception would be transformed into story new events sets construction, having the player feeling gratification and reward from the different rationalizations about the event he built upon than from the story itself.
The interesting is that this seems to be like a real game, like chess making use of strategy in every new move, with almost infinite possibilities in every match we play. The big difference and so big problem is that chess only needs one board and the plastic pieces, and so this becomes possible because chess is not worried about telling stories.

Going back to the actual IS games, we can see that we have already interactivity and storytelling. That we can interact with the artefact and at the same time feel surprising sensation of learning new ideas, of being surprised by story content.

Sure, we can improve on this. Having better stories, invest in characters expressivity, invest in virtual body interactions among characters and invest in the developing of new technologies like natural speech.

Jeffool,

“Or the Sims equivalent would be her talking a picture of the other two Sim women with big red X’s over their heads after I invited her in the second night as well.”

Yep. It’s just that it’s a very complex problem:

- Understanding context
- Knowing what a character likes or dislikes about a context (and, even harder, how to make plans to generate satisfaction and avoid disappointment)
- Memory, relationships
- Creating relevant messages (which image? what do the X’s mean? where do you put them?)
- Displaying message at the right time
- Reacting to message (i.e. reacting to info about the world instead of reacting to events)

Jurie,

“there’s a steadily growing conflict between presentational complexity and functional complexity”

We’re digging the Uncanny Valley.

Yikes. I was going to write one sentance!

Jurie

“doing more simulation, giving the player more true choices, and reacting appropriately. This can emerge semi-spontaenously”

Aubrey
“Assuming there MUST be a “story goal” (which *is* an assumption!)… The point is not to lead the player in anything by the most vague terms (nudging, rather than dragging), but have such a turbulent/dynamic world that opportunities for conflict and resolution keep cropping up emergently, often (ideally!) due to the long term consequence of your own actions.
”

This is what the theoretical concept of Emergent Narratives (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/michaelm/www/nidocs/Aylett.html ) is all about. The problem is, what to do when the story doesn’t emerge :-)

Can you imagine someone buying a game for 100 euros/dollars (possible price of the next generation games), and then after some playing hours still nothing happens?

Emergence is amazing, is delicious but we can’t forget the drawbacks. I believe it’ll evolve more and more, get used more and more in games and IS, but IMHO you’ll need to have a story line to give them. You can’t bet everything in the emergence.

In the end this comes to the mixing everyone was and still looking for: Sims + GTA III. San Andreas tried that a lot more with the character management within the game. However, if you had no missions at all, could the character really evolve his “respect” without doing some predefined missions, based in what? In the number of killings performed, number of robbed cars, number of insane car manoeuvres arbitrarily like in real life? What would be the goal for the player, live a virtual life of crime in a virtual copy of our world? With what purpose? What would be the fun of that? Would people really find any reward for playing it?

Aubrey
“it makes the player feel as if a story really is playing out, rather than being crank-worked, even though the events are merely the nth degree of feedback of a complex deterministic system. It’s believable feedback, rather than hamstringing our play so that their own involvements are trivial.”

Storytelling goal is not to be life like, but to be a slice of life. Storytelling is not a window to life that you can try to enlarge through IS. I believe that IS is more like a bridge to that slice, something that can bring it closer to me, making me feeling it more intensely. Interacting with that slice is in IMHO the goal.

Storytelling is well cared event selections of the real world, expressively worked upon. Life is boring :-), stories are not boring it’s not their goal :-). Sure a system like that can turn to be believable, but not in story like framing but in a life like framing. We should then change the name from Interactive Storytelling (IS) to Interactive Life-Like (ILL) :-)

My position regarding IS is more in consonance with

Andrew view (http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2003/10/03/taking-bernsteins-bait#comment-383)

“Without well-formed experiences — efficient pacing, filtering out the ‘boring bits’ — games may not breakthrough to a mass audience. Most people just don’t have the time to spend hours and hours playing a game for a few moments of meaningful drama. Games will need to be as “efficient” as movies, TV and books in this regard.”

Aubrey
“One could say that the believability of HalfLife’s story is that you’re never in a position to affect the overall invasion. Implied higher level machinations go on without you, and you can accept it, because the opening to change such things is never given to you.”

Exactly. You have a story-line that supports everything else, that maintain story goal, and so player believability, player interest to proceed and then willing to find is reward. What we need is to augment the interaction between our playing character and the NPCs, among other things.

Aubrey
“”Edge Metaphor”. It’s a precievably logical reason why the player can’t leave the designated world space. Understandable reasoning for limitations [..] like Halflife 2’s [..] force fields [..] GTA3 [..] islands. It applies not just to world space, but to game system space [..] and story space.”

“Edge metaphor” can be translated into storytelling by the story-line. Like HL2 “you’re never in a position to affect the overall invasion” :-). This sentence is your story edge metaphor. You can’t break it, if you do the world will become uncontrollable, story will disappear, and it will only rest a playground to be used by players as they like, waiting for some emergent story that can never occur

Aubrey
“If every piece on the chess board were fully characterized, visually and emotionally, and interactions were more involved - less abstract (think battlechess times a thousand), you could definately create an interesting story. It’s not quite as simple as that, obviously.”

Yes chess has a sort of buried story in a very deep meaning level. But it’s so deep that trying to bring it on top would not be easy as you acknowledge :). All of us have played computer chess versions with pieces “characterized visually and emotionally” and you know that the fun of that comes from the novelty. After some time, you start playing with the rules in mind, forgetting any characterization of the Queen or Bishop, because your worry in that moment is not what your Queen will do to the Bishop morally or in actions, but how to strategically arrive there based in the rules you have. You don’t have a story goal interest, you’re not supposed to learn or be surprised by anything about the outcome of the King death, about his kingdom. You have a predefined know goal that will take you to the end of the experience, the death of the king is not significant and so not surprising to the player, and only the winning/loosing condition has significant value. This is a game, not a story, :)
We can even think about the strategy used to kill the king, which can be surprising, emotionally rewarding but this is more of a form matter than content and so more of a gameplay appreciation than story comprehension pleasure.

I’m not trying to knock-out IS, on the contrary I’m also looking for it, however I don’t agree or better I don’t believe in all the paths to arrive there, firstly because I believe that we have already some types of IS, so we’re not discovering the wheel. Also I’m not a believer for “branching”, “intelligent automate story managers”, “emergence only” or “build your own story”. I’m looking for interactive mechanics transparency that can carry an authored story directly into the player “heart”. Looking for interactive mechanics that can give the player a feeling of participation in the telling, of sharing and helping in the act of telling with the “storyteller”, not sharing the act of story creation with the story writer or even to be the writer himself.

Yes, I do! Wow, long time ago :)

Judicious use of boring bits is done quite regularly in MMOs (think gryphon flights in WoW) to encourage socialising.

I also think turning the heat off is great, cause then you can turn it on again (think good dance DJs).

I consider this good practice, not hippie talk. But then, Berkeley is one of my favorite places in the world.

Aubrey wrote:
>>I’m just currently (and persistantly) frustrated that despite many people having inklings of the right idea in terms of IS, the market tends not to appreciate our efforts, to the point that we’re considered “selfish” for not making standard fare.

Consumers aren’t going to buy IS until it’s as entertaining and accessible as linear storytelling. Game producers aren’t going to incorporate IS unless they think it will pay off (in higher sales or lower development costs). The IS tools and methods I’m familiar with are more difficult and time consuming than linear storytelling and more difficult for the average person to understand.

This doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing. The potential rewards of IS are huge. But progress will be made by hobbyist, academics, and a few advocates in the industry. The good news is that the IS techniques from 10 or even 20 years ago (which have been refined and “proven” in less popular titles) are finally making their way into mainstream games (sometimes for the second time).

Jurie wrote:
>>I still think game developers don’t understand writing enough, but I think it has now become a problem of integration.

Lee wrote:
>I sort of believe ducks should be called ducks. We have a lot of ducks calling themselves writers. I’m not sure it helps.

It’s not always a lack of understanding or being waterfowl. Frankly, writing is not the most important thing in most games. If the plot sucks, most players won’t care. If the game doesn’t run, has last year’s graphics, or boring gameplay, players will send death threats to your inbox.

I worked in the game industry for seven years. I wrote a few dozen novels worth of (mostly linear) text and dialogue. It wasn’t very good text, not because I’m a duck (although that’s debatable), but because I had to design and implement 300 quests in 3 months or 50 books in 2 weeks. Sometimes I had to write whatever passed for a story while working full-time on code or level design that had a higher priority.

Narrative is a luxury, even in roleplaying and adventure games. IS is an even bigger luxury unless it somehow becomes cheaper than linear storytelling. I think narrative will get more attention in the future. Not because games require narrative or IS, but because game companies will finally be able to afford a full-time writer. If budgets and teams continue to grow, a good, full-time writer will be a small expense that will give some companies a slight competitive advantage. If procedural content, better content creation tools, or more re-usable content make game development “cheap” again, more companies will be able to put money into neglected fields, such as writing. The future looks brighter either way.

Jurie wrote:
>>We are increasingly using more realistic depictions and more realistic settings, but the underlying game mechanics, NPC AI, mission logic, etc. remain very simple.

I think you may be underestimating the progress in game AI. There’s a big difference between preset patterns and rules (ghosts in Pac-Man, aliens in Galaga) and BDI or even FuSMs. There’s a big difference between A* with a sparse pathgrid and framed quadtree vector fields. There’s a big difference between “shoot everything to get from point A to point B” and “to get to point B, you need to use stealth and small-unit tactics, solve two logic puzzles, collect three items, and intimidate or persuade four NPCs.”

nelson wrote:
>>After some time, you start playing with the rules in mind, forgetting any characterization of the Queen or Bishop, because your worry in that moment is not what your Queen will do to the Bishop morally or in actions, but how to strategically arrive there based in the rules you have.

The games that have succeeded with limited IS techniques, such as branching, made the interaction part of the gameplay. A story on top of chess is window dressing. Having to talk to people to win/advance the game (i.e. The Last Express) makes IS part of the gameplay. Meaningful narrative choices that affect your avatar (Planescape, KotOR, Discworld Noir) make these choices part of the gameplay.

And now for some blatant self-promotion. I’ve been writing a review of the Living Games Symposium. One of the panels there discussed procedural narrative. While alot of it won’t be new to anyone here, you might find it interesting:

http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=263

AFFA:

“It’s not always a lack of understanding or being waterfowl. Frankly, writing is not the most important thing in most games. If the plot sucks, most players won’t care. If the game doesn’t run, has last year’s graphics, or boring gameplay, players will send death threats to your inbox.”

I absolutely agree, however:

1) With all due respect, you’re committing the same sin politicians do when trying to legislate our content. You’ve lumped all gamers into a narrow subset that may seem astronomical by some developers’ standards, but is a far cry from mass market. There are actually quite a few gamers or potential gamers (consumers of more enlightened media) out there who actually enjoy well-crafted stories.

2) Since none of us have ever played a video game with writing at the level of artistry other media can provide, there is no way to determine how even the soul-deadened individuals you cite would react when faced with something like that.

“I worked in the game industry for seven years. I wrote a few dozen novels worth of (mostly linear) text and dialogue. It wasn’t very good text, not because I’m a duck (although that’s debatable), but because I had to design and implement 300 quests in 3 months or 50 books in 2 weeks. Sometimes I had to write whatever passed for a story while working full-time on code or level design that had a higher priority.”

I can commiserate. You were doing the job of three people. When all I had to do was look over the producer’s shoulder, help cast actors, meet with directors, churn out 500 pages of original story and dialogue a month; and edit the work of three other writers for a daytime soap that required new content five days a week every week of the year, year after year, I was doing the work of only about 2 people. But I never used it as an excuse-with myself or anybody else-for the quality or lack thereof of the content. (I was also getting paid a hell of a lot of money to have no life of course.)

“Narrative is a luxury, even in roleplaying and adventure games.”

It is a necessity (for games that want to include it). And the first games that get it right will prove it.

“IS is an even bigger luxury unless it somehow becomes cheaper than linear storytelling.”

Neither is particularly expensive if attention is paid from day one of the development cycle; if the engine is developed with writer input; and if those responsible for the writing actually know what they’re doing.

“I think narrative will get more attention in the future. Not because games require narrative or IS, but because game companies will finally be able to afford a full-time writer. If budgets and teams continue to grow, a good, full-time writer will be a small expense that will give some companies a slight competitive advantage.”

Boy, I wish that were true, but I’ve been dabbling in this stuff on and off since the early 80s. I remember when a production manager and I proposed a budget for a game to EA at around $40,000 (and we were giving them incredible bang for the buck) and they began to quiver in their polished mahogany chairs. If an indie film production made for under a million dollars can afford to hire a real writer, why can’t 10-20-30 million dollar games? Top dollar writers have been known to take huge cuts in compensation just like top actors to be a part of something special. Could it be we have nothing special to offer?

“If procedural content, better content creation tools, or more re-usable content make game development “cheap” again, more companies will be able to put money into neglected fields, such as writing. The future looks brighter either way.”

The problem for me isn’t in the cost of games, it’s the cost to our products when decision makers have no idea how to find good writers who can think non-linearly, and cull them from the gaggles of wannabes who took a couple of composition classes in college.

[Jurie, I had another -really- long rant here which you’ll be happy to know I excised. ;)]

Lee

“Also, I need to change my site layout, so there’s more space for the text…”

Yeah, it feels a little like KotOR’s inventory screen at the moment. *kniw*

I found a link to this article over at grand text auto yesterday:
http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=87

It looks like we’re not the only ones who think the industry isn’t going to be the breeding ground for innovation. This is the topic of many a conversation between my business partner and myself. I keep stressing that we’re not going to find a publisher for our game unless we bring an already existing participant base along with us. Fortunately, we’re at a point where digital distribution is quite feasible. Now, finding funding becomes the interesting part.

Also, writers aren’t going to solve our problems. We need storytellers. Storytellers who have the vision of a director, the insight of a psychologist, the empathy of a religious leader, the logic of a politician, and the leadership and multitasking skills of a elementary school teacher.

Oh, and they need to be non-linear thinkers while we’re at it…

I believe the Greek’s called those “boredom spaces” katharsis, small moments of relief from the tension of the drama. Like with any well crafted story, the audience has to be given a chance to breath. Incessant tension leads to desensitization.

I actually have a game moment that exemplifies this quite nicely. In the first System Shock, I exultant that I had finally managed to get the elevator running, thereby finally completing the first level. I was super tense (having been playing for hours into the morning). The music, the dark atmosphere, the eeriness of having spent all that time listening to dead people’s voice logs. I was not ready to quit, but my nerves wouldn’t take much more. I got on the elevator, only to have the mood completely changed due to the change in soundtrack. Instead of spooky ambient sounding muttering, I was treated to… elevator music of course! It lightened the mood considerably and I went on to play the second level feeling quite refreshed.

Here are a few of my rules for use of cut scenes:

1) If the cut scene has the central character performing actions the player can perform during regular gameplay, it shouldn’t be a cut scene.

I created this rule in reaction to one of the Soul Reaver games (I think it was the latest) where it seemed like they used a cut scene every other minute to show you where you needed to go, or to actually move the character across the room to a specific spot for you. It was jarring and inexcusable. I felt as if I spent more time watching the developers play the game, than playing it myself. If players aren’t understanding where they need to go, the solution ought to be found in the level design.

2) If you do need to force an event to happen, it is better to put it in a cut scene than to take absolute control of the character.

I’ve played games where suddenly the character is running in a direction I didn’t intend, or performing actions I didn’t dictate. This is frustrating and unforgivable. Switching to a cut scene, indicated by removal of interface, letter boxing, different art, or what have you, is always preferable to wrenching control away from the player.

3) If a players’ input during a forced event is minimal, keep it in the cut scene.

Examples: In the ruins on Dantooine (in the first KotOR) you are treated to a cut scene of a door opening, control is returned to the player, you walk through the door, only to find another cut scene, showing you walking the rest of the way into the room and seeing the *spoiler*. Why bother returning control for two steps? You’re already in a cut scene, stay there! Also, in NWN, NPCs will run up on you and engage you in conversation, which is fine (although I sometimes see how long I can run and avoid them), but once in conversation I find myself clicking, “1, 1, 1, 1, 1, ” through pages of non-branching text. I’d rather have the whole monologue in a skip-enabled cut scene.

4) If you need to force your players to experience certain things, try to give them the incentive and direction through use of level design, color, music, and/or in game rewards.

…and finally

5) If you find the only way to tell the story is via cut scenes, you should consider going into animation instead of games.

CorvusE Wrote:
>>When people refer to great AI in games, they are typically referring to more intelligent seeming combatants.

That is one of the things that has drastically improved. From enemies that have very simple behaviors (stand in one place, chase the player), we went through less simple behaviors (if state is 1 then do attack pattern 1), and now we have enemies that hide, ambush, call for help, use terrain, etc.

NPC tactics have improved, but NPC acting has not. They still can’t interact much in terms of speech/text or have believable emotions. I don’t think this is because of a conspiracy against writers, but because natural language, procedural narrative, and emotion modelling are much tougher problems.

>>Marketing departments, and therefore publishers, don’t feel they can sell a good story, because you can’t put a screenshot of a good story on the back of a box. As long as hardware manufacturers continue to need showcase games, the industry isn’t going to change its focus.

I think this criticism is misplaced. Games have been pushing hardware limits because of the market (gamers like graphics). I never worked on any cutting-edge games, but the only interaction I saw with hardware makers (even on big projects, like Morrowind) addressed compatibility issues (i.e. shader code for a particular video card, X-Box specific optimizations, etc). I never heard anyone say we needed to double the polygon count. Hardware people seem to be trying to catch up to the developers, not the other way around.

You can sell stories, even in games. You can’t take a screenshot of “story,” but you can put “so-and-so says this game has a great story!” on the box. “Story” has been one of the major (only in some cases) selling points for many RPGs and Adventure games. But they’re usually linear stories.

>>It looks like we’re not the only ones who think the industry isn’t going to be the breeding ground for innovation.

I find it amusing that people declare the death of innovation (among other things) every couple years. I find it particularly amusing this year, right after the release of Katamari Damacy and the Spore demo. Not to mention lots of good independent games in the last couple years (which actually got some attention for a change), and several hardware innovations (Eyetoy, etc).

Also, catharsis isn’t quite the right word. Catharsis is… hm. The release of tension. The feeling you get when a game is over, not the feeling you get in-between the interesting parts. You could say the moment immediately following an exciting part is catharsis, but this is a feeling that passes quickly.

Changing the mood is important to avoid boredom. You don’t want to go from the potential boredom of constant action to the known boredom of counting sheep. You need to go from one non-boring mood to another.

Lee wrote:
>>With all due respect, you’re committing the same sin politicians do when trying to legislate our content. You’ve lumped all gamers into a narrow subset that may seem astronomical by some developers’ standards, but is a far cry from mass market. There are actually quite a few gamers or potential gamers (consumers of more enlightened media) out there who actually enjoy well-crafted stories.

I am assuming that gamers will continue to be gamers. I see alot of potential for interactive fiction in games. I don’t see much potential for it outside of games. Frankly, I suspect most people, even gamers, prefer story content in more passive, linear media. I’ve enjoyed some game stories, but if it was just story I was after, I’d get a book.

In games, good stories sell… but only a little. Graphics sell alot more, which makes me suspect the market for good stories is currently smaller than the market for eye candy. This does not surprise me, given which movies (usually not the “great story” ones) sell the most tickets. While it’s possible that there’s a huge, untapped market for interactive stories among non-gamers, I just don’t see the evidence for it.

I’d buy them. But I’m weird. And I’m already a gamer.

>>If an indie film production made for under a million dollars can afford to hire a real writer, why can’t 10-20-30 million dollar games? Top dollar writers have been known to take huge cuts in compensation just like top actors to be a part of something special. Could it be we have nothing special to offer?

I’m not saying they can’t already afford it. I’m saying that they’re getting a better return on their investment elsewhere. When/if the costs of graphics come down or it’s no longer possible to push graphics any further, game companies will have to look at other ways to improve their product. Currently, graphics and non-story content are the better investment. But graphics have improved so much that there’s not much room to grow. Narrative has only improved a tiny bit, and has alot more potential.

CorvusE

Yes, AI scripting is very complex. Today we have a lot of technics for creating pretty AI, but customers desires perfect graphics and high FPS (what eats a tons of machine resources), hence AI get just low priority in the games :(

Can you give some insight as to whether Full Sail and or DIGIPEN are good choices for someone wanting to get into the career?

Lee, please don’t assume you know what Digipen is like if you obviously haven’t researched or even visited it. Comparing it to Fullsail is like [making me feel slightly annoyed].

Give Digipen a call, stop by sometime, look at the games they put out, talk to their graduates, but please– don’t [ruffle my feathers] again.

Cheers!

[Unnecessary profanities censored by site owner]

Many Full Sail students don’t try very hard to find a job. They had a reputation of whining about not having a job rather than looking or trying.

Others I know from Full Sail now have jobs making games ranging from cell-phone games to “AAA” titles.

And there’s people like me who haven’t found a job, and have tried not to make a deal out of it on blogs. Yeah, I came from Full Sail and don’t have a job in games. And I’ve talked to a person or two on the Net about job leads, and I’d hope I’ve not made a nuisance of myself. And while job-hunting I’ve fallen back on what I did before going to Full Sail, studio manager of a TV station.

So take from that what you will. Full Sail students are just like any other kind. You have those who fail, those who succeed, and those who haven’t succeeded, and are too hard headed to fail just yet.

Of course, there are some things about the school ‘I’ didn’t like while I was there. It wasn’t perfect by a long shot. Some things were downright wrong in my opinion. That said I’m curious to know what about the school didn’t meet your standards when you visited.

But to be personally offended that (assumedly) your school was compared to Full Sail? Aren’t were all in this to make good games?

[Edited at request of author]

Done :)

I guess Chris teaches at Digipen then - are they in Washington? Whichever one is close to Oregon :)

Hi-

Can anyone tell me where Mr. Crawford got “&emdash” (?), it just don’t compute.

The bit about engineers (I come from a long line there-of, back to when they were called ‘mechanics’)- Mr. Carwaford in his KIMtanktics could not figure out, for ten months, how to let a player pick the tank he (no she’s then,l anyway) wanted to order motion/action first (2nd, 3rd). You (or, correctly, “one”) had to start with tank #1, then #2 on thru to 8.

He eventually found the way. The lesson, so much like in AA, keep putting one front in front of the other and you will get to where you thought you were headed.

He did. Big time.

There is another lesson in AA (not that I ascribe to any step): apolo9gize for past mistakes to clear your heart/mind/head/soul or what gots ya.

To me he should be 1) pulling Ms Minn