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Infinite Games?

Posted by michael on from the rediscovering-MUDs dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "BBC is running a story on how US scientists are working on improving AI - with potential benefits for coming games. The system, called Liquid Narrative allows to avoid scripted storylines, and finally gives us, the gamers, full freedom to do whatever we want to do. R. Michael Young, the project coordinator, says: 'Game companies are realising that story telling has a lot of potential that has not been tapped yet.'"

4 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. It's about time by CleverNickedName · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Finally computer game story lines are catching up with pen-and-paper RPGs.

    Now if the graphics and audio could only improve on my imagination...

    --


    Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
  2. Re:I've been playing infinite games for years. by alister667 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep, soon the researchers will have made up enough ground to come up with *ELITE*. Greatest game ever, and totally open ended.

    --
    We ARE the peat bog soldiers.
  3. the desire for telos by ideonode · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A good few years ago, I wrote an MA Thesis on videogame culture. One of the areas that I looked at was the striving towards psychological mastery in videogames through a striving for the end - telos. In psychological terms, videogames insert "the subject into a narrative in which she or he sees herself or himself projected as the hero and potential master" (Peter Buse, 'Nintendo and Telos: Will You Ever Reach the End?' Cultural Critique 34 (1996) 163-84 (p.169))

    The ideas that Liquid Narrative are developing - realtime self-evolving narrative strands, reactive storytelling etc, seem to play interestingly into this notion of psychic development.

    However, one question I ask is: do games need narrative at all? Games are about play - we are all home ludens. Do basketball games need narrative? The most interesting, successful and universally appealing games are those such as Tetris, where there is no end, but no story to get there either.

  4. Slashdot is aiming way too low by RobotWisdom · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This article is a thumbsucker for technical illiterates, and an insult to Slashdot's readership. It gives zero insight into game design that hasn't been an industry cliche since the glory days of Infocom (20 years ago). Self-promoters make these boasts on a weekly basis, so Slashdot editors should know enough to refuse to link stories unless they include usable new content.

    The problem that 'Liquid Narrative' is addressing goes back at least to George Polti's "36 Dramatic Situations" in the year 1900. My AI faq gives infinitely more perspective than this BBC pap, on the important questions. (It's getting a little stale, but I'm currently revising the timeline with lots of rich resources.)