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A New Stab at Interactive Fiction

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the could-also-use-wrench-in-parlour dept.

pamar writes "Dr Dobbs Journal interviews Chris Crawford, the noted game designer, about a new direction for interactive fiction. In the interview, he talks of his new stab at Interactive Fiction, and mentions Storytron, his new company which he hopes will make interactive fiction easier to write, not only for games, but for complex social interactions in general."

2 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Pilot's seat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here's the question though. Is fiction really ment to be interactive? Or is fiction the journey the author leads you on?

  2. Interaction is the Enemy of Narrative by dforsey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The basic problem with interactive fiction is the interactive part... :-)

    A player is extremely unlikely to make the choices and take the actions that lead to a compelling story.

    They won't make the mistakes that lead to King Lear or Hamlet to their tragic ends.

    They won't make the choices that take Luke Skywalker to defeating the death star (not if they have real choices that affect the storyline)

    A good story takes the reader through a series of psychological stages resulting from the characters making choices a player is unlikely to make. (they just look up the "right" answer on the net...)

    I would be more convinced if Crawford had a single example: mockup, text, an animated video - anything - that demonstrated how a working game would play in a (even a 15-minute) gaming session.

    I don't even want a working system at this point - show me a walkthrough so we can get an idea of what game play would be. (it would be nice it that doesn't require the strong AI problem to be solved first as well:-)