Skald: An Affordance-Based User Interface
for Interactive Fiction

Zach Tomaszewski
Masters Thesis Defense
27 Feb 2015

Outline

Interactive Fiction

Colossal Cave Adventure

Adventure screenshot

Zork

Zork screenshot
A PC release of Zork I by Infocom

Commercial Boom

Gateway II: Homeworld

Gateway II: Homeworld screenshot

Interactive Fiction

Serious Applications of IF

Essence of IF

Borders of IF

Experience of IF

Can consider as (or compare to):

IF's UI Limitations

Often unclear:

Essence of IF's UI Limitations

Venn diagram

The author (and IF system) can't support everything the user might want to do

System Image and Affordances

Designer model, system image, and user's model

Norman, Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002)

Poetics for Interactive Narrative

Poetics

Tomaszewski & Binsted (2006)
Based on Mateas (2004), Laurel (1991), Smiley (1971), and Aristotle

Skald

Clearly Affording Objects + Actions

Designs considered:

design mockup

Clearly Affording Objects + Actions

Designs considered:

design mockup

Clearly Affording Objects + Actions

Designs considered:

design mockup

Clearly Affording Objects + Actions

Designs considered:

design mockup

Clearly Affording Objects + Actions

Designs considered:

design mockup

Skald

(demo) popup menu popup menu results action menu results

Skald Implementation

Effects on IF Experience?

Evaluation

Experimental Setup

Response Survey Questions

Response Survey Questions

Comparison Survey Questions

Which interface...

Scale: CLI (definitely) - CLI (slightly) - No Pref - Skald (slightly) - Skald (definitely)

Results

IF is not for everyone

Traditional IF UI has high error rate

Skald is easier to use

Skald encourages more exploration

Skald does not signficantly affect play time

Skald does not eliminate affordance issues

World-level agency requires more than material affordances

The game matters

UI has only subtle effects on story experience

Skald not a clear winner overall

User background has some effect

Conclusions

Future Work

Questions?

Adventure screenshot


ztomasze@hawaii.edu

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/argax/slides/