Proceedings of the Fifth Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference Bringing Interactive Storytelling to Industry: Designing a Reactive Narrative Encounter System Daniel Kline Crystal Dynamics 1300 Seaport Blvd Suite 100 Redwood City, CA 94063
[email protected] The Author Current Storytelling Methods Daniel Kline is a Lead Game Engineer at Crystal Dynamics. Video games have relied on two proven storytelling He's been an AI game programmer and designer since 2001, methods, structured narrative and simulation. Structured when he received a BA from Vassar College's Mathematics narratives, frequently called branching, rely on linear pre- program. In that time, Dan has worked with companies across the authored scripts, sometimes broken up with limited player games industry, including Activision, Blizzard North, LucasArts, choice. These static tales can achieve strong drama and and Midway. His work spans 9 titles, including Star Wars: Force characterization, as exemplified in games like Mass Effect Unleashed, Diablo 3, and Call of Duty: Finest Hour. Between his or Metal Gear Solid IV. However, branching sidelines the design and management roles, he's specialized in AI characters, player's input into the narrative, which can only be AI-design collaboration, and drama management. overcome through large amounts of expensive content. Simulation games take the reverse approach. They focus on simulating a world, and give the player maximal Introduction space to find their own stories (Wright 2007). Although The commercial games industry is struggling to find a they promote player creativity, simulation games like form of narrative for single-player story-based games that Civilization 4 and Mercenaries 2 lack the narrative takes advantage of the medium.