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Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling SECOND EDITION Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, Second Edition Chris Crawford

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Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling SECOND EDITION Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, Second Edition Chris Crawford chris crawford on interactive storytelling SECOND EDITION Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, Second Edition Chris Crawford New Riders www.newriders.com To report errors, please send a note to [email protected] New Riders is an imprint of Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education. Copyright © 2013 Chris Crawford Senior Editor: Karyn Johnson Development Editor: Robyn Thomas Production Editor: Cory Borman Technical Editor: Michael F. Lynch, Ph.D. Copyeditor: Kelly Kordes Anton Proofreader: Scout Festa Composition: Danielle Foster Indexer: Jack Lewis Cover design: Aren Howell Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact [email protected]. Notice of Liability The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it. Trademarks Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-86497-0 ISBN-10: 0-321-86497-2 987654321 I dedicate this book to the Storytron development team: Louis Dargin, Facundo Dominguez, and Laura Mixon, who pushed the technology of interactive storytelling to new heights. Bio Chris Crawford earned a Master of Science degree in Physics from the University of Missouri in 1975. After teaching physics for several years, he joined Atari as a game designer in 1979. There he created a number of games: Energy Czar, an educational simulation about the energy crisis; Scram, a nuclear power plant simulation; Eastern Front (1941), a wargame; Gossip, a social interaction game; and Excalibur, an Arthurian game. Following the collapse of Atari in 1984, Crawford took up the Macintosh. He created Balance of Power, a game about diplomacy; Patton Versus Rommel, a wargame; Trust & Betrayal, a social interaction game; Balance of the Planet, an environmental simulation game; and Patton Strikes Back, a wargame. In 1992, Crawford decided to leave game design and concentrate his energies on interac- tive storytelling, a field that he believed would become important. He created a major technology for interactive storytelling systems, patenting it in 1997. He is now commercializing his technology at his company website at storytron.com. Crawford has written five published books: The Art of Computer Game Design, now recognized as a classic in the field, in 1982; Balance of Power in 1986; The Art of Interactive Design in 2002; Chris Crawford on Game Design in 2003; and Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling in 2004. He created the first periodical on game design, the Journal of Computer Game Design, in 1987. He founded and served as Chairman of the Computer Game Developers’ Conference, now known as the Game Developers’ Conference. Crawford has given hundreds of lectures at conferences and universities around the world, and published dozens of magazine articles and academic papers. Crawford served as computer system designer and observer for the 1999 and 2002 NASA Leonid MAC airborne missions; he also has done some analysis of the resulting data. He lives in southern Oregon with his wife, 3 dogs, 7 cats, and 16 ducks. You can read more about him on his website at www.erasmatazz.com. Table of Contents Introduction ..................................xi PART I The Basics............................................1 Chapter 1 Storytelling ....................................3 The History of Storytelling. 4 Two Mechanisms of Thinking ............................... 6 The Tyranny of the Visual .................................22 Spatial Thinking .........................................24 Temporal Discontinuity ...................................26 Conclusions .............................................26 Chapter 2 Interactivity ..................................27 My Definition of Interactivity ..............................28 Second-Person Insight ....................................30 A Model for Human Understanding .........................32 Ego Control .............................................35 Degrees of Interactivity ....................................37 So What? ................................................42 Conclusions .............................................44 Chapter 3 Interactive Storytelling .........................45 Extrapolation from Games .................................47 Interactivized Movies .....................................50 Plot vs. Interactivity ......................................50 Interactive Storytelling Is Unique ...........................54 vi Table of Contents Individuation ............................................61 What Can’t Be Part of Interactive Storytelling? ................62 Conclusions .............................................64 PART II Mentalities...........................................65 Chapter 4 Abstraction ...................................67 Justice ..................................................68 Science .................................................70 Finance .................................................71 The Moral of These Stories ................................74 Playing God .............................................76 Translating Principle into Instance ..........................78 Conclusions .............................................80 Chapter 5 Verb Thinking ................................81 Verb vs. Noun ...........................................82 Case in Point: Multimedia .................................88 Getting Started with Verb Thinking .........................90 Conclusions .............................................92 Chapter 6 The Agony of Math ............................93 Embracing Mathematics ...................................94 Causal Relationships ......................................96 Modeling as a Metaphor ...................................98 Conclusions ............................................102 Chapter 7 Two Cultures, No Hits, No Runs ................103 Neurophysiological Basis .................................105 History of Games and Stories .............................106 Exhortations and Prognostications .........................108 Conclusions ............................................111 Table of Contents vii PART III Evolutionary Strategies ................................113 Chapter 8 Branching Trees ..............................115 Overall Game Structure ..................................118 The Solution: State Variables ..............................123 Conclusions ............................................126 Chapter 9 Interactive Fiction ............................127 Text Adventures .........................................128 Graphic Adventures ......................................128 IF: Son of Text Adventure .................................129 Puzzles ................................................130 A Real Example .........................................131 Under the Hood ........................................133 Is It Interactive Storytelling?. 138 The Future of IF ........................................140 Conclusion .............................................140 Chapter 10 Role-Playing Games ..........................141 The Verbs ..............................................142 Little Room for Creativity ................................143 The Dangers of Overspecialization: Koalas vs. Goats ..........145 What About MMORPGs? .................................147 The Audience ...........................................149 Conclusions ............................................150 Chapter 11 Video Games ................................151 Constipated Stories ......................................152 Multiple Endings ........................................153 Branching Trees .........................................154 Open-Ended Stories .....................................155 Fully Player-Driven Stories ................................156 Cost vs. Storytelling ......................................156 Conclusions ............................................158 viii Table of Contents PART IV Component Technologies ..............................159 Chapter 12 Modeling ...................................161 The Medium ...........................................162 Basics .................................................163 Adding More Complexity .................................166 Abstracting the Process ...................................169 Fine Points .............................................172 Conclusions ............................................175 Chapter 13 Bounded
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