Eh, I salute anybody for an incredibly didactic entry.

In my opinion, when it comes to interactive storytelling, is you basically have two types. First, you have the cut-scene option. Where basically the story is told in a relativly straight-line basis. Secondly you have the exploration option, where random events, how the world looks, whatever, explain to you the nature of the world itself.

Video games have it rather easy when it comes to storytelling, as because it is a visual medium, it does the second almost all the time its on the screen. You can see the archatecture, or the sci-fi design, and if you like that sort of things, appriciate that..and it's just as much part of the story as any plot twist.

Some games of course, focus on the second. Games such as Fable or Morrowwind have less of a straight line plot, and more of an explore your world feature. This is something I don't particularly enjoy myself.

The second blurb, basically is really limited to RPGs. I mean, how many other games really have "fetch quests"? But yeah, the best RPGs really limit the number of fetch quests there are, and if there are fetch quests, they're #1. essential to the story line, and #2, not a huge trek to get there and back.

The best RPG I've ever...The best story I've ever.....The best game I've ever...ok, the best ANYTHING I've ever seen is Final Fantasy X. Mainly because instead of a whole lot of side-treks and plot twists, for large parts of the game, it's pretty straight ahead, at least with the story itself. It's the characters that have the twists. And that gets the characters over in an immensly personal way that is missed in pretty much all other media.

And why? Because it focuses like a laser-light on the story, and not allowing exploration to get in the way. You are still exploring, but using your eyes and your ears and your brain, not your feet (thumbs).

i believe something new is happening which is a mix of both of these things. In live performance (which is what i do) I pursue a kind of "programming as performance" in which there is narrative structure for certain, but the experience changes each time depending upon the audience.

Reality TV is motivated by this, to some degree (setting up structure and letting live interactions between players create narrative) bt the live comedic stuff I'm doing in "I Look Like An Egg, but I Identify As A Cookie" is as influenced by my experiences with Net and programmers as it is by my years around comedic improv and solo performers like Anna Deveare Smith and Eve Ensler.

Gotta run now, Clive, but I will check out the bookand I have a lot more I want to chat about with you about this idea. It strikes me as a core issue today in creating relevant , engagin experiences for an incredibly media-saturated / gaming-savvy world.

heather

This post echoes an IM conversation we had a few weeks ago Clive (AIM: Sweaterstillfits) about the integration and incorporation of narrative elements in video games.

In the past narrative in games has been contrived by the game developers -- ultimately one can contend that it is Kojima's story in the Metal Gear series. The plot progresses and unfolds in a linear fashion, leaving little to no user-end interaction and effect on the 'narrative.' In this respect it would seem to fall in line with your strict definition of narrative.

Sure, the fun of reading books with narrative is the 'what happens next' element, and ultimately similar sentiments can be iterated on specific types of games.

See, where I fundamentally disagree with you is in this statement from your blog They look at a game and see the dramatic scenes, film-like visuals, and metaphoric consistency, and think: Hey, that's a story! It's not.

As talked about previously, integrating game theory and film theory is dangerous, because it is a sort of cognitive short-cut, but I do think we are seeing the emergence of auteurship in games, while not neccessarily relegated to a specific vision, but instead to a team, or a development company, i.e., Team Ninja, Team Kojima, Bungie, et cetera.

Dramatic scenes, film-like visuals and metaphoric consistencies would seem to make a story, but the idea of narrative as a constricting mono-directional interactivity seems to undermine the very nature of video games. Now the two options one has from that assertion is to either strike the use of narrative when discussing video games, or adapt the definition of narrative, when narrative is strictly defined.

Narrative is not a mono-directional path. It is, for lack of a better phrase, a two way street. The drivers on thish road are the user and the environment, element of play, whatever, being presented by the game. Now, unfortunatey games are not at the point yet where narrative interactivity between user and game is seamless or even more complicated than a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

You remember the books, if you choose A, turn to page X and if you choose B turn to page Y. Page Y and choice B could lead you to death or a conclusion or another series of choices. This is a very primitive matrix of user-dictated narrative, yet because of the oft-primitive nature of user-dictated narrative in video games, I feel its applicable.

A game such as Fable (flawed- but still holds merit for its design elements) offers bits of this if A then X mentality. With the selection of quests, which result in accumulation of renown (either positive or negative 'points). That renown ultimately shapes the relationship of the characters in Albion (Fable's fictional world).

The very nature of Fable, (and where the game ultimately fails) indicates the desire to tell a story through its open-ended-ness, but from a design standpoint the onus of the narrator is being shifted, not from the game itself, but rather to the player of the game. The player would've ultimately been the narrator of the 'Fable' had that ambitious element suceeded.

Another example of this would be the notion of punitive character death in Fire Emblem for the GBA. link: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6086323/p-3.html. Editor Greg Kasavin talks about the use of character death as a design element here.

Now what all of this is doing is shifting the narrative from a mono-directional experience to a dual-directional experience. That interactivity, that play, that ludological experience is beginning to shape narrative.

Now this is obviously in its fetal phases. "Emergent" games like GTA3 don't tell stories based on what the player-character does that does not tie into the storyline. And Fire Emblem's punitive character death system ultimately doesn't change the story too deeply, but these games are a jumping-off point. A point where narrative in video games will be shaped by the users in addition to being shaped by the developers. It will ultimately strengthen that relationship between developer and player.

Talk about didactic. Hopefully we can continue this discussion.

LM Smith

I love the reference to Northrop Frye, as I know you are a UofT graduate. A Vic student too, perhaps?

I think one of the reasons that games make you trek across a virtual world over and over is the addictive value in this work. Think about the Sims. Why is it that something that replicates the real world so well that you end up spending a good deal of time every day cleaning up the mess you left in the kitchen and going to the washroom is soo addictive? Why would something so trivial be so fun, given our need for low work-to-fun ratios?

As a psychology/neuroscience student, I think it's because of the payoff schedule associated with these mondane gaming details. If all of the components of a problem I hadn't solved 1000 times already I could just teleport to, would it be as rewarding to solve? By spreading the time out, and the level of work required, the reward value becomes greater; and as we know from gambling, when we spread out the rewards over time, with the possibility of the next reward being just around the corner, the next pull of the handle (or the next 5 hours of gaming) seems like so much more fun than just handing the deed of your house to the doorman at the casino.

Stephen, yes, that's an excellent point about the payoff schedule on difficult or arduous tasks. That's definitely why I feel so triumphant after doing well in a game that is kicking my ass! And by the way, yes, I did go to Victoria College at the University of Toronto, and in fact took Northrop Frye's course on the mythological framework of western civilization.

Heather, great point about performance: I think that improv and interactive theater have a *lot* to tell us about what makes a role-playing or immersive-world game powerful and interesting.

L.M., this latter point is sort of what I'm getting at when I urge people to stop trying to use narrative as a way to understand games. I simply don't think narrative -- as it's traditionally defined -- applies. On the other hand, an interactive environment like an evening of improv might have a lot more to tell us! Rather than trying to take the theory of narrative or film and use them to understand games, we ought to be looking further afield to entire other areas of theory: Architecture, drama, city planning, sports, economic game theory, psychology, mythology. All of these fields, and many others, are infinitely more useful at explaining why we play games -- and, perhaps more importantly, why game-makers create them.

Let me hammer that latter point home more directly: I do not think any successful game designer sits down and intends to tell a story. If they honestly wanted to do that, they'd shoot a movie or write a play or a novel, places where stories are most suitably told. No, they want to create a *game*, and designing a successful game requires an enormous bouquet of skills, of which "telling a story" is either a rather minor one, and sometimes a completely irrelevant one.

You quite fairly point out that my definition of narrative is pretty narrow -- and you're right, it is -- and you suggest that we need a broader definition of narrative. So let me ask: How precisely do you define narrative? What *is* narrative?

My chief concern with narrativologists in the area of video game is that they seem to interpret "a bunch of things happening to a character" as narrative. And I really don't think that's a good definition. It certainly isn't a *useful* definition, from a game design standpoint, because it's incredibly vague. Games have a) wonderfully rich characters we identify with; b) have worlds that are persisent and evolving, yes; c) quests with goals, yes. But is the mere presence of these things "narrative"? Again, I'd say "no". It's just as easy -- and from a design standpoint, potentially far more useful -- to think about each of these domains as being about visual design, psychology, the mechanics of body language, symbology, artificial intelligence (a few areas that directly apply to creating a believable character), city planning, network theory, environmental studies, architecture (areas that directly apply to creating a good world), or ludology, economic game theory, philosophy and psychology (areas that are crucial to think about when constructing the goals and "purpose" of the game). Narrative, in the sense of providing a backstory for the game, fits into each of these slots, too. But once the game is up and running, theories of narrative have really nothing to tell us about why the person is playing the game or what their experience is like.

Another excellent book on this topic:

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
by Janet H. Murray
Amazon

Another excellent book on this topic:

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
by Janet H. Murray
Amazon

Clive: First, on the game designers -- I think that there are indeed game designers who choose to tell stories through games. Ultimately, games like Final Fantasies VII and forward (with the exceptions of Tactics and XI) are games driven by narrative and story. Though instead of the narrative unfolding as though it would were it a film, these narratives unfold and are revealed to the user when set tasks are completed.

Whether it's finding out about Seymour or Sin in FFX (an above poster's favorite game) when the user completes task X, they learn story element A. Et cetera. Now this seems like narrative interaction in both of our respective opinions.

One could splice together the clips of FFX and have a short film, or perform similar feats with Kojima's Metal Gear games, splicing Codec sequences in with action sequences and recutting it together to show it as a movie -- yet, you are right, were Kojima-san interested in making moves he likely would/could. So why are these stories being told as games, rather than films, books on tape, books, whatever?

I would guess that it is somehow related to immersion in other worlds. The experiences these games offer effectively sucks the player into Midgar (were it FF7) or the alaskan tundra (be it Metal Gear Solid) . This immersion factor is critical in the element of narrative I am talking about.

Narrative is simply put, a story that is being told. The nature of that storytelling is not so clearly defineable. Whether it is a story around a campfire or the relaying of deeds committed in Fable by a bard, these are forms of narrative.

Now, I am not a narrativologist, nor a ludist. I would guess I would fall somewhere in between the two. Games like Super Mario Brothers 3 have no narrative really built into the game play -- no one would really argue that Mario hopping on a Koopa or a Gomba is going to be much of a story element. Or that in the hopping, there is going to be a story to be told.

What I working toward in referencing Fire Emblem, and I suppose I could include The Sims (and 2) is the ability of the game itself to be used as a storytelling medium. Take the Sims blogs that pop up or the new camera angles that are included in Sims 2 where effectively one could screen grab a frame or record one and then write a script to accompany it.

Aburptly, I realized that I am suggesting that the game itself is justified as narrative because it can be used as a narrative tool, that's not the case. I equate that to saying my keyboard has a story to tell because I am using it to type. I'm being hyperbolic.

The stories games tell about fictional worlds have become critically important to the video game as a medium. These stories are essential to the medium.

I wish that I had a more precise definition of narrative than the blase 'storytelling' I offered earlier, but I think that with games and new media in general these 'old' words are going to take on new meanings and find new applicability across the medium.

Clearly I have to continue thinking and reading about all of this.

You make an excellent point when mention architecture in the original post, as well as incorporating the smaller elements of design, 'mechanics of body language' with some of the larger elements of the design side 'visual design' and 'artificial intelligence.' All of these aid to the creation of the game and the stronger these and the other mentioned elements are, the deeper the player immersion will be.

Which transitions nicely to the psychological elements of playing games and perhaps why people play these games and why developers are making these games. If a dev like Kojima isn't creating Metal Gear to tell a story, what is he creating it for? Itagaki is on record saying he wants Ninja Gaiden to be the greatest action game ever, and Bungie has to have some impelling force spurring them along with the now-finished Halo 2.

And moreover what is it that is prompting us the gamer to play? Or are the reasons to widespread to make a single declaration? Hypotheses, perhaps?

Best,
LMSmith

PS Previous poster, thx for the book rec. I'll add it to my list. Clearly I need to read more on all of this :0)

Gamemakers Do Want to Tell Stories.

Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia, has said that when he began working on POP, it wasn't to create a video game. It was to create an interactive movie. And most importantly, to tell a story.

He was a college student with a minimal budget, creating the game on his computer was the best means for the job. It allowed him to create a story where the user was told it through the game play. So, it did become a video game out of necessity.

Jordan worked on a couple more of the POP series games, but left to work on a film in france. Filmmaking was always his love from the start.

The team who created Sands of Time actually got the reluctant to-work-on-games Jordan back on the team to write the game's story.

"Jordan began as a creative consultant, working with the team to make this game an artistic and critical success. He ended up writing the script, directing all of the dialogue, and actually moved to Montreal for several months to work with the team on a daily basis. He became an integral member of the team, and brought an incredible amount of experience and knowledge to the table -- his strength as a designer and a filmmaker is telling a story within the game itself, not just in the cutscenes, and he was instrumental in helping us create a game in which everything is intertwined. The story drives the gameplay and the gameplay drives the story, so players become completely immersed in every aspect of the experience."

Read the whole story here: http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/november03/poppostmortem/

lev manovich and chris crawford have written a lot about the relationship between database and narrative :D

http://www.manovich.net/TEXTS_04.HTM
("Database as a Symbolic Form," 1998)

http://www.erasmatazz.com/Library.html
(didasm galore!)

i kinda think it's like the anecdote vs. the statistic. one is being able to relate an experience, the other is the visceral feel of being able to "roll the bones" -- as your friend at culture raven might say. so like in baseball for instance, there's playing (being at bat, throwing someone out etc.) and playing along (following player stats, engaging in subjunctive what-ifs etc.)

anecdote lends itself to exploit. statistic lends itself to analysis. narrative. database.

they're both about being "up against the odds," just that narrative is context sensitive as witnessed and instructional in the choices made and the consequences thereof thru identification.

database opens up the possibility space -- as will wright might say; the context, or at least the permutations thereof, are near endless. database, by allowing nonmonotonic reasoning, is more about the game behind the game, the art of stacking the deck as it were.

so within database, it's easier to implement tight feedback loops (interactivity), which introduces elements of nonlinearity that narrative has a hard time dealing with; it's too 'meta' in the house of mirrors. it's easier to identify with a narrative tho, hence its extensive use of characterization, archetypes (cf. joseph campbell) and, indeed, language... which is why choose-your-own-adventure books never took off as classical literature :D

it's also why fish-out-of-water stories are funny, because it's a database operation on a narrative. like, what if we took an inner-city kid from philly and sent him to live with his hoity-toity relatives in bel-air?

but you can only go so far and tinker so much with narrative before it starts getting awkward. like, why does neal stephenson have such a hard time ending his stories? they're brittle because they rely a lot on heuristic memory, which is short-hand for lacking in error correction. that's the beauty and limitation of language; its ambiguity and openness to translation. or as brian greene might say, mathematical thinking isn't the same as exposition (viz. notation); it imposes order of a different nature.

wrt RPGs (turn-based or RTS) i think the operative paradigm is the database, because they're time reversible. you can roll back the game and replay it performing operations differently if you don't find the outcome satisfactory in the first place. successful game design emphasizes "world-building" within which many participatory narrative lines might occur. so in the mutability of decision-making, it becomes performance rather than passive spectatorship.

however, therein lies a trap. thru clever artifice a skilled author can evoke that elusive transcendence that transports one to empathize with something or someone greater than oneself. a hero is rarely risk-averse, as glassner might say. whereas, within the maze of the database one tends to stay resolutely within one's own sphere, as one makes one's own moves afterall; they're your actions, which may end up just reifying what you already are and perhaps not what you might be truly capable of. like a good coach then, i'd submit the game designer's task is to stretch the player into who they might become. narrative elements, one might say meaning or propaganda, might be part of that training.

cheers!

I think you are too readily accepting the notion that narrative and interactivity are incompatible. Your reasoning boils down to "everything we know about narrative is incompatible with interactivity" -- but overlooks the fact that everything we know about narrative is about non-interactive narrative. It's rather like suggesting that pocket calculators are theoretically impossible because every calculation we have seen prior to pocket calculators was carried out on paper, and since there are an infinite number of possible calculations, and no pocket calculator can provide an infinite amount of paper, pocket calculators must be impossible.

I present a thorough debunking of the narrative-versus-interactivity conundrum in my book, Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling.

Chris