An overview of the Marlinspike architecture
A Marlinspike drama takes place within a particular story world--a collection of simulated objects, including locations, props, and characters. The player dictates the actions of one of these characters (the player character, or PC). The other non-player characters (NPCs) are controlled by the drama manager through scenes.
The player interacts with the objects of the story world by selecting one of a number of verbs to perform. Verbs specify simple physical actions, such as taking, dropping, kissing, or talking. Based on the current story context, each verb is then translated into one or more actions that represent what that verb signifies within the current story. For example, a kiss may have different "meanings" depending on the context: it could be an attempt at romance, it could be done simply to break a magical enchantment, or it could be a Judas-like betrayal.
The Marlinspike drama manager (DM) then responds to user actions by selecting the next scene to play. Whenever possible, scenes are selected that refer back to or otherwise build upon earlier user actions. This reincorporation of earlier actions forms a story thread of connected events that makes earlier user actions narratively necessary to the finished story.
While doing all of this, the drama manager deals with only the abstract story structure. All the specific content--including the world objects, characters, verbs, actions, and scenes--is defined separately by a particular implementing game.
The details of each component of the Marlinspike architecture follow below.
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Argax Project : Dissertation :
A Rough Draft Node http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/argax |
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Last Edited: 09 Apr 2011 ©2007 by Z. Tomaszewski. |