Interactive Story Telling
Z ? What is interactive story telling? Something to do with a story who?s events and outcome can be affected by the player?s actions?
X ? Well yes, but how is such a story constructed? We have seen many games with branching story lines whereby the game essentially consists of a finite number of story segments. At any point in the game, the player can choose from a small list (though the list may be disguised) of actions, each of which will correspond to one of the story segments. The actions and thus the story segments available at any one time, depend on which story segments the player has previously been shown. There is a limit to how interesting such a story can be as an interactive experience. The unique interest in an interactive art work or ?game?, is in seeing the effects of your actions in the game world, and thus learning how better to achieve the desired or set goals within. Furthermore, the player?s natural emotional reactions to being part of the world are affected by their awareness of their agency, as opposed to emotions which may arise when engaging with other art mediums, where the recipient can only experience the emotions which may be conjured upon witnessing the events.
The reason, therefore, for the limit in how interesting such a construction of an interactive story can be, is very simple. The player?s agency in the world is very limited and unsubtle. If the player is only ever presented with, say, 3 choices, then how interesting can the lessons about which choice to make be? Imagine there is a goal; and the player ends up making the correct choice out of the three enough times, in the right places, to ?win?. That?s the solution to that problem then is it? Shall we then apply that to real life and see where that gets us? Or maybe there isn?t a set goal and it?s more about the player acting a role. That means that, in this world, there are only ever 3 types of people. Once again, the player?s agency is extremely limited, and the role they act is very unsubtle. It is still a game and an interactive story, but a very, very boring one.
Besides this fundamental flaw with such a form, it is nigh on impossible to have such a story even make logical sense if it reaches any sort of length. Since each story segment is almost wholly set from the beginning, it won?t be able to take into account the particular set of other story segments which you have previously chosen and will thus likely contradict some of them or at least fail to take them into account. Some games which use this form may offer the player more then 3 choices, in fact it may offer analogue choices, so to speak, thereby presenting infinite variability, but these will not have any effect on the story. The game will be laughably transparent as it decides precisely what variables have an effect on the world at large and which don?t. The choices it (or ?the game designer?) makes are often contradictory to reason.
Now let us compare this to a battle scenario in Halo. The player is given much agency; he can run in any direction, at a number of speeds and at any time he chooses; he can pick up and fire different weapons, in any direction, at any time and in all sorts of different ways; he can get in vehicles and drive in any direction, at any speed at any time, and shoot its weapons; he can throw grenades; he can jump. And how does the game react to this? What affect do his actions have on the game world? The game is largely indiscriminant as to which actions should have an effect. The enemy and ally AI will react to the player?s positioning, they will react convincingly when shots are fired towards them or near them, they will react when they are hit, or when their ally is hit, they will act differently when the player is in a vehicle, and so on. Most importantly though, they will react dynamically to these variables; the way they react to bullets impacting nearby depends on exactly where nearby and what types of bullets; they will react to your exact positioning and so on. This level of player agency cannot be achieved by creating set story segments for each of these reactions because there would be millions of them. The only way to achieve this is by programming the reactions to a set of variables of each character. Now the player may do something which triggers a reaction in one of these characters who will then trigger a reaction in another who the player has not even seen yet, but when he does, he will see that the second character will act as is appropriate to what went on before and the story will be cohesive, dynamic and interesting. ?Now? the player may think, ?what if I did that just a little differently, what would happen then?? and indeed things would pan out differently because his actions have an effect on the events of the story.
With such a template established, it is simply down to the creator to make the world react in interesting and appropriate ways to the variables around them. The creator does not need to decide on an outcome of the story or on many of the events that take place, nor on what lessons the player should learn about how the world works and how to accomplish certain tasks, nor on what emotions should rise in the player as a result of existing in this world. Rather, they should join the players as students of the world they have created.
Halo is a decent example of such a world where elements react dynamically, appropriately and interestingly to a fair set of variables. Just like in the real world much of the time, there is no easy way to complete a task, the player and the creator must engage with the world and gradually become more and more proficient themselves at reacting to the ever-changing game world. The story emerges naturally out of the series of events which occur as all of the elements in the game world act and react. The story of a battle in Halo is a more all encompassing one than that in, say, a battle in Saving Private Ryan. While Saving Private Ryan chooses a focus and constructs only certain bits of the supposed battle for the audience to see, the whole battle exists in Halo. The story is focused on the Master Chief?s, or the player?s role in the battle by use of the camera and the player?s choice of focus, but unlike Saving Private Ryan, the whole battle does actually happen, and in Halo 3, you can actually watch it after, using a player controlled camera.
The thing that gets me with Halo though (and most videogames), which makes me feel like it?s not quite the most pure form of interactive story telling?
Z ? Hang on a minute, I notice you use the phrase interactive story telling, but I?m not sure that the interactivity is actually the most fundamental part of the medium we are describing. I think that what differentiates it from a story in a book, play or film is that it is not laid out by the creator. A game world which deserves the title sets the scenario up and lets it pan out naturally as the program runs. This could just as easily be made without any mid-game player interactivity.
X ? But is this different from the story in a film, book or play? Does a writer not set up fleshed out characters and let them act and react accordingly to make a story? I think so; only in this case, the programs which govern each character and other world element exist in the writers head instead of in a computer. So indeed it is the interactivity which defines Halo as a game. But now you have raised that point, we surely must question what people mean when they refer to stories in books, films and plays as being linear media in contrast to games; perhaps this is just a misunderstanding. The Writer (assuming they are a good one) did not know most of the events that would occur in their story; rather they acted as a human computer on which the individual programs would run. The story, then, could have panned out very differently had the program rolled a 2 instead of a 4, so to speak, when determining the reaction of one of the characters to a given situation at a significant time. The writer will, of course, decide on certain outside influences on the main characters so as to see how they react, but this is very much a part of games as well, so I don?t see why these should be called linear media any more then games.
I wonder, though, if the method of non interactive story telling you outlined might be an interesting one for ?story tellers? to use. They could spend all their effort on fleshing out their character?s programs and creating scenarios for them to react to, and let the computer do the work of assessing their actions and reactions to the scenario and each other. It seems obvious, however, that if the designer could put into code all of the necessary reactions of their characters, then they wouldn?t have much trouble working out the sequence of events in their own head anyway. That is so for stories more about intellectual/emotional expression of characters, but not necessarily for stories more about physical actions of characters or objects. In most cases, the most convenient method of crafting a non-interactive story is in ones own head because of the effort that is required in programming reactions, and the impossibility of many with existing technology, particularly when it comes to using words, which current computers are pretty hopeless with. This is a serious limitation of games at the moment (except those where a human takes the role of the game processor);we can only make decent games where characters deal with more or less abstract physical actions or logic based puzzles.
Any way, as I was saying before, I think what gets me about games like Halo is that the story ceases to exist when the player fails at their task, simply reverting back to the beginning where they can try again. This may be appropriate for a game where the intention is for the player to learn skills for completing such challenges, but I feel it somehow looses something as an interactive story. I can?t quite put my finger on why, but I think a game might be interesting in a different way if the world went on regardless of what the player did (unless he dropped a giant atom bomb on it or something?). Perhaps the problem is that the game offers a pretty crude message when the world simply ends when the player fails; absolute victory or defeat and nothing in-between.
Z ? No, a game could easily offer various ?endings? depending on precisely how you won or lost, before letting you proceed or try again depending on which of the two categories you fell into. But I don?t think this would satisfy the problem.
X ? Quite right, so perhaps the problem is that we simply don?t get to carry on interacting with the world after the supposed failure. But this doesn?t ring true either. Perhaps it?s that we know the challenge has been designed to be succeeded at, and thus the story ceases to be intriguing because we simply focus on learning the rules and increasing our skill in an attempt to succeed.
So I have an experimental idea for a game, it might be rubbish or it might be a very interesting new experience; either way, it certainly won?t be the most fundamental method for executing its approach to interactive story telling. How about we have a series of completely separate battles in each of which the player?s side may or may not have any chance of winning or loosing and when the player dies, he is quickly shown his dead body with its particular wounds, before being given control of another soldier, while the battle never ceases to continue. Naturally, I would not exactly decide at the beginning of each battle which side would win or what events would take place, rather I would simply program the AI, set goals, craft the terrain and give each side strategic structures, perhaps vehicles, artillery along with handheld guns and so on and then let it run. I?m thinking along the lines of WWII, and so scenarios would be of a similar layout to those we may have seen in films. Because the game wouldn?t be so much about the player learning to succeed, I would be able to make the AI as realistic as possible within the confines of their actions in relation to the battlefield. This means that not only will all of the events be very convincing and dynamic, and the battle pan out very differently each time (since humans probably wouldn?t always re-act in the same way to something, if such a re-happening were possible), but it also means that the player will receive no un-realistic discrimination, helpful or not. Perhaps the player might be hit by a sniper bullet from half a mile away, or he might be mown down as soon as the landing ship?s ramp is lowered, or blown up by artillery fire from miles away. Here we would have a convincing (in that it would be believable) interactive story, which, depending on its execution, might be very subtly involving, without any of the none-too-subtle lessons on how to get better at a certain task.
Z ? What is interactive story telling? Something to do with a story who?s events and outcome can be affected by the player?s actions?
X ? Well yes, but how is such a story constructed? We have seen many games with branching story lines whereby the game essentially consists of a finite number of story segments. At any point in the game, the player can choose from a small list (though the list may be disguised) of actions, each of which will correspond to one of the story segments. The actions and thus the story segments available at any one time, depend on which story segments the player has previously been shown. There is a limit to how interesting such a story can be as an interactive experience. The unique interest in an interactive art work or ?game?, is in seeing the effects of your actions in the game world, and thus learning how better to achieve the desired or set goals within. Furthermore, the player?s natural emotional reactions to being part of the world are affected by their awareness of their agency, as opposed to emotions which may arise when engaging with other art mediums, where the recipient can only experience the emotions which may be conjured upon witnessing the events.
The reason, therefore, for the limit in how interesting such a construction of an interactive story can be, is very simple. The player?s agency in the world is very limited and unsubtle. If the player is only ever presented with, say, 3 choices, then how interesting can the lessons about which choice to make be? Imagine there is a goal; and the player ends up making the correct choice out of the three enough times, in the right places, to ?win?. That?s the solution to that problem then is it? Shall we then apply that to real life and see where that gets us? Or maybe there isn?t a set goal and it?s more about the player acting a role. That means that, in this world, there are only ever 3 types of people. Once again, the player?s agency is extremely limited, and the role they act is very unsubtle. It is still a game and an interactive story, but a very, very boring one.
Besides this fundamental flaw with such a form, it is nigh on impossible to have such a story even make logical sense if it reaches any sort of length. Since each story segment is almost wholly set from the beginning, it won?t be able to take into account the particular set of other story segments which you have previously chosen and will thus likely contradict some of them or at least fail to take them into account. Some games which use this form may offer the player more then 3 choices, in fact it may offer analogue choices, so to speak, thereby presenting infinite variability, but these will not have any effect on the story. The game will be laughably transparent as it decides precisely what variables have an effect on the world at large and which don?t. The choices it (or ?the game designer?) makes are often contradictory to reason.
Now let us compare this to a battle scenario in Halo. The player is given much agency; he can run in any direction, at a number of speeds and at any time he chooses; he can pick up and fire different weapons, in any direction, at any time and in all sorts of different ways; he can get in vehicles and drive in any direction, at any speed at any time, and shoot its weapons; he can throw grenades; he can jump. And how does the game react to this? What affect do his actions have on the game world? The game is largely indiscriminant as to which actions should have an effect. The enemy and ally AI will react to the player?s positioning, they will react convincingly when shots are fired towards them or near them, they will react when they are hit, or when their ally is hit, they will act differently when the player is in a vehicle, and so on. Most importantly though, they will react dynamically to these variables; the way they react to bullets impacting nearby depends on exactly where nearby and what types of bullets; they will react to your exact positioning and so on. This level of player agency cannot be achieved by creating set story segments for each of these reactions because there would be millions of them. The only way to achieve this is by programming the reactions to a set of variables of each character. Now the player may do something which triggers a reaction in one of these characters who will then trigger a reaction in another who the player has not even seen yet, but when he does, he will see that the second character will act as is appropriate to what went on before and the story will be cohesive, dynamic and interesting. ?Now? the player may think, ?what if I did that just a little differently, what would happen then?? and indeed things would pan out differently because his actions have an effect on the events of the story.
With such a template established, it is simply down to the creator to make the world react in interesting and appropriate ways to the variables around them. The creator does not need to decide on an outcome of the story or on many of the events that take place, nor on what lessons the player should learn about how the world works and how to accomplish certain tasks, nor on what emotions should rise in the player as a result of existing in this world. Rather, they should join the players as students of the world they have created.
Halo is a decent example of such a world where elements react dynamically, appropriately and interestingly to a fair set of variables. Just like in the real world much of the time, there is no easy way to complete a task, the player and the creator must engage with the world and gradually become more and more proficient themselves at reacting to the ever-changing game world. The story emerges naturally out of the series of events which occur as all of the elements in the game world act and react. The story of a battle in Halo is a more all encompassing one than that in, say, a battle in Saving Private Ryan. While Saving Private Ryan chooses a focus and constructs only certain bits of the supposed battle for the audience to see, the whole battle exists in Halo. The story is focused on the Master Chief?s, or the player?s role in the battle by use of the camera and the player?s choice of focus, but unlike Saving Private Ryan, the whole battle does actually happen, and in Halo 3, you can actually watch it after, using a player controlled camera.
The thing that gets me with Halo though (and most videogames), which makes me feel like it?s not quite the most pure form of interactive story telling?
Z ? Hang on a minute, I notice you use the phrase interactive story telling, but I?m not sure that the interactivity is actually the most fundamental part of the medium we are describing. I think that what differentiates it from a story in a book, play or film is that it is not laid out by the creator. A game world which deserves the title sets the scenario up and lets it pan out naturally as the program runs. This could just as easily be made without any mid-game player interactivity.
X ? But is this different from the story in a film, book or play? Does a writer not set up fleshed out characters and let them act and react accordingly to make a story? I think so; only in this case, the programs which govern each character and other world element exist in the writers head instead of in a computer. So indeed it is the interactivity which defines Halo as a game. But now you have raised that point, we surely must question what people mean when they refer to stories in books, films and plays as being linear media in contrast to games; perhaps this is just a misunderstanding. The Writer (assuming they are a good one) did not know most of the events that would occur in their story; rather they acted as a human computer on which the individual programs would run. The story, then, could have panned out very differently had the program rolled a 2 instead of a 4, so to speak, when determining the reaction of one of the characters to a given situation at a significant time. The writer will, of course, decide on certain outside influences on the main characters so as to see how they react, but this is very much a part of games as well, so I don?t see why these should be called linear media any more then games.
I wonder, though, if the method of non interactive story telling you outlined might be an interesting one for ?story tellers? to use. They could spend all their effort on fleshing out their character?s programs and creating scenarios for them to react to, and let the computer do the work of assessing their actions and reactions to the scenario and each other. It seems obvious, however, that if the designer could put into code all of the necessary reactions of their characters, then they wouldn?t have much trouble working out the sequence of events in their own head anyway. That is so for stories more about intellectual/emotional expression of characters, but not necessarily for stories more about physical actions of characters or objects. In most cases, the most convenient method of crafting a non-interactive story is in ones own head because of the effort that is required in programming reactions, and the impossibility of many with existing technology, particularly when it comes to using words, which current computers are pretty hopeless with. This is a serious limitation of games at the moment (except those where a human takes the role of the game processor);we can only make decent games where characters deal with more or less abstract physical actions or logic based puzzles.
Any way, as I was saying before, I think what gets me about games like Halo is that the story ceases to exist when the player fails at their task, simply reverting back to the beginning where they can try again. This may be appropriate for a game where the intention is for the player to learn skills for completing such challenges, but I feel it somehow looses something as an interactive story. I can?t quite put my finger on why, but I think a game might be interesting in a different way if the world went on regardless of what the player did (unless he dropped a giant atom bomb on it or something?). Perhaps the problem is that the game offers a pretty crude message when the world simply ends when the player fails; absolute victory or defeat and nothing in-between.
Z ? No, a game could easily offer various ?endings? depending on precisely how you won or lost, before letting you proceed or try again depending on which of the two categories you fell into. But I don?t think this would satisfy the problem.
X ? Quite right, so perhaps the problem is that we simply don?t get to carry on interacting with the world after the supposed failure. But this doesn?t ring true either. Perhaps it?s that we know the challenge has been designed to be succeeded at, and thus the story ceases to be intriguing because we simply focus on learning the rules and increasing our skill in an attempt to succeed.
So I have an experimental idea for a game, it might be rubbish or it might be a very interesting new experience; either way, it certainly won?t be the most fundamental method for executing its approach to interactive story telling. How about we have a series of completely separate battles in each of which the player?s side may or may not have any chance of winning or loosing and when the player dies, he is quickly shown his dead body with its particular wounds, before being given control of another soldier, while the battle never ceases to continue. Naturally, I would not exactly decide at the beginning of each battle which side would win or what events would take place, rather I would simply program the AI, set goals, craft the terrain and give each side strategic structures, perhaps vehicles, artillery along with handheld guns and so on and then let it run. I?m thinking along the lines of WWII, and so scenarios would be of a similar layout to those we may have seen in films. Because the game wouldn?t be so much about the player learning to succeed, I would be able to make the AI as realistic as possible within the confines of their actions in relation to the battlefield. This means that not only will all of the events be very convincing and dynamic, and the battle pan out very differently each time (since humans probably wouldn?t always re-act in the same way to something, if such a re-happening were possible), but it also means that the player will receive no un-realistic discrimination, helpful or not. Perhaps the player might be hit by a sniper bullet from half a mile away, or he might be mown down as soon as the landing ship?s ramp is lowered, or blown up by artillery fire from miles away. Here we would have a convincing (in that it would be believable) interactive story, which, depending on its execution, might be very subtly involving, without any of the none-too-subtle lessons on how to get better at a certain task.
