Interactive Storytelling

Sarusa writes "Video games are big business. Movies are big business. I hear that people used read a lot of things called books: it seems like there would be a lot of money to be made from a successful merger of what makes books and movies compelling with what makes video games compelling, though we've been trying that for decades with little success. Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction by Andrew Glassner takes a look at what we know about stories, what we know about games, how they work (or don't work) together now, and how they might work together in the future." Read on for the rest of Sarusa's review. Interactive Storytelling author Andrew Glassner pages 500 publisher A. K. Peters rating 7 of 10 reviewer Sarusa ISBN 1568812213 summary A solid look at the elusive merger of movies and video games.

First, this is a book that everybody who wants to make compelling games should read. That said, however, it isn't really a book you would read for fun -- it's more of a textbook. The first half of the text is a necessarily rather dry presentation of concepts: for example, nine pages on 'Narrative Devices.' Glassner uses copious examples from movies that you've probably seen and games that you've probably played, and the text is certainly an easy read and well written, but it's still a very step-by-step presentation. You can't hide the fact that you're supposed to be learning something here. The second half of the book does open up a bit as he goes beyond just priming you on story and game theory.

He starts out by assuming you know almost nothing about storytelling. You might think that this is too obvious, but if you've played enough storytelling abominations like 'Sudeki,' you will know that game creators usually don't make very compelling storywriters. So the first quarter of the book is a crash course on the fundamentals of writing stories -- characters, plot, and techniques. The second, slightly shorter, part of the book examines the mechanisms of games in general. Not video games in specific, but all types of games. The five types of games, scoring rules, structure, and theory.

We're now ready to actually tackle merging stories and games, and at this point our cunning vision falls apart. Glassner's strongly held opinion, which he argues quite coherently, is that a great story is the product of one (or a few) expert storytellers presenting a strong, consistent vision to you, the consumer. The fabled holy grail of gaming is letting the player do whatever they want -- full interactivity. And this is to a point fundamentally incompatible with telling a great story. Conflict drives most stories -- what if the player quite reasonably minimizes conflict? But there's a lot to be learned from where they do contradict each other, and some common ground to be found. In my favorite chapter in the book, 'Common Pitfalls,' he uses specific video games that blatantly demonstrate how to not apply even the simplest rules of good storytelling and user immersion.

Many of the fundamental insights in this part are 'obvious,' yet demonstrably unobvious to most video game designers. For example, that people gravitate toward the entertainment that has the highest fun-to-work ratio. Television is hugely popular since the fun is high to very low, but the work is near zero. They will do more work if it offers a lot more fun. Which means you shouldn't force your players to do stupid, boring, unnecessary work like running through a dozen screens again and again to get between important locations. "A game should offer the fastest and easiest possible way to do everything unless there is some entertaining or informative reason to prevent it." Preach on!

The last part of the book finally deals with the 'interactive storytelling,' slowly building up ever more ambitious plans till we're in the realm of the purely experimental. Several reasonably fleshed out examples are given, and some of them seem quite plausible even with today's technology. The balance between future technology (holograms and AI) and the reality of today is considered. Glassner is quite a skeptic about AI and the holodeck from Star Trek, but explores how tricks such as emergent behavior and setting expectations low and then beating them can work for you. For instance, if your AI is driving an animal (rather than a human), the players will be much more forgiving. Or if you give the user attractive, static graphics up front, they will be projected onto the cruder in-game graphics. Because of the conflict between a great story and complete interactivity, he suggests 'participatory storytelling' is a better goal than fully interactive storytelling.

Particularly interesting is the discussion of 'living masks.' Most people don't like to act, because they know it takes skill and that bad acting is very painful. But what if you could be 'in' a character that would take what you were doing at home and then do it in character on stage, so everyone involved could act to the best of their abilities but still 'be' a good actor? You'd have some control over the gross reactions, but the details would be up to the software. Obviously, we're nowhere near that level of sophistication, but there's a lot of time left in the 21st century. It does mean that a large portion of the book deals with techniques that are right now totally impractical.

My biggest disappointment with this part of the book is that it implicitly seems to assume that all games in the future will be multiplayer, as they're the focus of all the examples. And at this point Glassner has pretty much transcended mere 'games' for his vision of the future of entertainment. But it's easy to see how they could be adapted to the single-player games which will hopefully still be available in 2099.

To summarize, I think anyone with a serious interest in telling stories via video games or interactive fiction should read Interactive Storytelling. It's well written and does a good job of teaching concepts that most people making currently making video games could use a lot of help with. Furthermore, Glassner's vision of the future of storytelling is fascinating, even if it doesn't play out that way. However, I would not recommend that you pick this book up as a casual read. If you're looking for that, you might be better off with Creating Emotion in Games by David Freeman or perhaps The Art of Interactive Design by Chris Crawford. Or, though it somewhat destroys the rigorous chain of thought, skip the first half of Interactive Storytelling, then go back and digest it piece-by-piece later.

You can purchase Interactive Storytelling from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:Interactive novel style game:

[ppz003]

How about the Myst series? OK, the first couple don't exactly let you stray very far at all, but it is kinda nice being able to spend a lot of time to work out the puzzles, and not worrying about dieing all the time.

reality modiciation environments

[dTaylorSingletary]

I've always been interested in interactive storytelling. When I was a creative writing major over at San Francisco State University I was exploring such options, I purchased the excellent StorySpace software thinking that perhaps the web or a hypertext environment was the right way to go, only to be disappointed at the limitations. (The software is excellent for what it is capable of, even if it didn't fit the bill in my aspirations).

The conclusions that I drew are financially unreachable at this time. As well as the age-old problem that I think any interactive fiction will ever have: lack of interest. What I've always wanted to do is create locations much like Disneyland rides that tell a story interactively with a participant using computer projections and robotics, possibly with the interaction of psychedelic substances to help prime the "reader" for their experience.

Alas, I will probably never feel fufilled creatively as my ideas have no possibility for ever coming into fruition. (More on these ideas here).

It's a chicken/egg problem. Those of us who are but poor artists can't realize their dreams without heavy investment, and cannot get the heavy investment without an interested public to interact with. And an interest public cannot exist until the artistry is to be seen.

Warren Spector

[kin_korn_karn]

All you have to do to learn this art is play every game that Warren Spector has ever touched. The man is the gaming world's Ridley Scott (I almost said Spielberg but that's more Will Wright).

Re:Interactive novel style game:

[RsG]

Planescape Torment is a damn good story and a fine game. It's easily my favorite RPG.

(For those who don't know what I'm talking about, this is a Black Isle game from the late nineties, using the same engine as Baldur's Gate. Great reviews, devoted following, lousy sales).

Re:Well

[dillon_rinker]

Yup. Any grandma who makes up stories is well versed in the technique of reaching a climactic moment and asking "And then what do you think happened?" The child responds, and grandma exclaims "That's exactly right!" Then grandma continues, dramatizing and expounding on the child's answer.

Re:Well

[javaxman]

My 3-year-old son has recently decided that instead of a book at bedtime, I ( or my wife ) will tell him a story. Then he tells us what the story will be about. If the story we tell him at some point doesn't include the things he thinks it should include, he tells us about it.

Sounds like interactive story-telling to me...

Yes, I believe I've found the solution.

[korea]

It involves 20 sided die, mountain dew, cheetos, and a bag of holding.

Re:Should they merge?

[RsG]

Well, I've always said that games are not stories per se, but rather are just plain _games_. Most of us play games for the enjoyable challenge to our brain and reflexes, not for in depth narrative. At it's core every game boils down to pong or chess (an oversimplification to be sure, but still true).

That being said, games with a compelling story, even one that would never work as a book/movie/TV series, are generally better than games that lack story. Story in a game is a nice bonus that fleshes out the universe that you're playing in. It adds much needed substance. But it's not a prerequisite for a good game.

Doom/Quake (all of them) Half Life, UT etc have little in the way of storytelling (HL has plot, but no narrative or character), yet these are highly praises and successful games. On the opposite side, KOTOR, System Shock, Planescape, BG II and the like have very good story, strong character development, and are generally well written, yet also have solid gameplay behind them. Partly it's a genre thing (the "vicarious experience" is definitely a FPS convention), but mostly it's a matter of gameplay first, story second.

Re:Well

[VidEdit]

Ah, so true.

People act as if interactive story telling was some sort of new idea. In fact, it dates back as far as story telling. However, the fact is that their are two kinds of media right now (I forget who coined the terms): Lean back (where we watch passively as the story unfolds, e.g. books, tv and movies) and lean forward (where we interact, eg. computers and games).

There will always be two kinds of media. People will always want lean back media. They want a story told to them and they want the director to do the story telling, to build up the characters and the tension, to create pace. And they don't want to do his work for him.

People always will want to interact with media, so they can be involved, interact and be a part of the action. Which means the pacing and conflicts can't be perfect because the story is now being partially written by the player.

As the summary of the book points out, the idea that lean back media and lean forward media will merge completely is balderdash. The two media have different needs. Futurists be damned...

I once skimmed this book...

[Musenik]

But when it asserted that all interactive fiction was operated by verb/direct-objects controls, I had to put it down. There are other metaphors for controlling a branching narrative. Midnight Stranger let you control the main character's emotions, allowing him or her to react based on the player choice of emotion. Another game to break the verb/target type of adventure game is The Witch's yarn. Instead of controlling the character, the player controls the environment.

Or...

[temojen]

this, this, this, this, this, this, or many others.

A game is a place you go, not a story

[Animats]

The trouble with "storytelling" in games is that it locks the player into a canned plot. This is boring. In the game industry, such games are derisively referred to as "track rides", as in a theme park. It's also the hell game designers used to find themselves in when involved in a Big Name Licensed Title project.

Now that players expect, and developers can deliver, a big, free-play world, plot-oriented games are in decline. Those stupid canned cinematics are disappearing.

Progress is now made by figuring out how to make free-play worlds more interesting, not by locking the user down to a plot track.

Re:A game is a place you go, not a story

[zephiros]

There is a tradition, in chinese and japanese landscape painting, of telling stories by presenting a activity-rich space. While you can stand back and look at an entire painting, it's best experienced by letting the eye wander across the various little vignettes happening in different parts of the work. Here some children are playing with a dog, over there the emporer is receiving guests, etc.

I suspect the way forward with interactive storytelling is to rediscover this notion of spatial storytelling. This requires authors to abandon plot as a mechanism for communicating with the reader. Instead, the author is left with setting and characters.

Traditional authors will balk at this, but as the field matures, I think a new generation of authors will find their voice in creating rich, interactive worlds.