http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/argax
©2007 by Z. Tomaszewski.
Computer games include a number of narrative forms. For instance, interactive fiction games--though frequently puzzle-based--can still offer a simple story structure. Because it is text-based, interactive fiction supports experiments with language and literary form.
A successor to early interactive fiction was the adventure game, as represented by Sierra's King's Quest and Space Quest series. These graphical games also presented a linear story revealed through a series of puzzles to solve. Occasionally, these games would provide multiple possible endings--such as in Dynamix's Rise of the Dragon.
Adventure games eventually evolved into computer roleplaying games, which have a greater focus on character abilities, controlling parties of characters, and combat over puzzles. These games have also tended to be more freeform, providing a large simulated world that can be explored. When the game includes a storyline or quests, they can be followed in various orders or completely ignored by the player. Good examples of this are the Elder Scrolls and Grand Theft Auto series of games.
First-person shooter games--such as Doom, Quake, and Half-Life--and their second-person variants--such as Tomb Raider--offer detailed control of a character in a fictional world. However, despite a basic context-providing storyline, there are rarely significant story choices to be made during gameplay itself.
With the introduction of networked gaming and shared virtual spaces, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft, have introduced a new genre. Here, though presenting a massive simulated world and a number of possible quests, some of the more interesting narratives emerge from interactions between human players and the formation of communities within the virtual space.
Finally, some users claim that detailed simulation games such as The Sims can be attributed with emergent narrative properties. Although The Sims is not intentionally designed to generate stories, story-like events occur as the autonomous characters follow their various inclinations.
Along with the multimedia capabilities of digital media comes the potential for interactivity. Yet many interactive digital works are so story-focused that they do not seem to quite qualify as games. For example, Romp.com's adult-themed series Booty Call was a graphical version of a CYOA book. Implemented in Flash, each episode presented a number of animated segments. At the end of each segment, the viewer could select which choice the main character, Jake, should pursue. From a single starting point, each play through an episode revealed a single path through a branching tree of possibilities.
Hypertext fiction also presents a kind of interactive narrative. These works can be completely textual, or include various multimedia. In some hypertext works, the path the reader takes though a series of successive choices determine the underlying story--just as in a CYOA book. As an example of even greater interactivity, some sites allow readers to become writers, extending storylines when they reach the end of a branch. In other hypertext works, the underlying story is static. The links the reader follows simply changes the order in which a single story is revealed.
Hypertext fiction is an example of a larger digital literature movement, which uses the processing, multimedia, and interactivity capabilities of the digital medium to produce novel literary works. While digital literature nearly always includes some textual component, not all examples are narratives nor are all interactive.
While not interactive, story generation projects also inform interactive narrative. Both endeavors fall under the larger field of narrative intelligence--building artificial intelligence systems that can either understand or generate new stories. However, an interactive user fundamentally changes the problem. Many story generation systems build complete stories at once in a way that does not tolerate new inputs halfway through the generation process.
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Argax Project : Dissertation :
A Rough Draft Node http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/argax |
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Last Edited: 24 Dec 2007 ©2007 by Z. Tomaszewski. |