UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Curating Simulated Storyworlds Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1340j5h2 Author Ryan, James Publication Date 2018 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ CURATING SIMULATED STORYWORLDS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in COMPUTATIONAL MEDIA by James Ryan December 2018 The Dissertation of James Ryan is approved: Michael Mateas, Chair Noah Wardrip-Fruin Ian Horswill Jonathan Lessard Lori Kletzer Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by James Ryan 2018 Table of Contents List of Figures viii List of Tables xi Abstract xii Dedication xiv Acknowledgments xv 1 Introduction 1 I Why and How 16 2 Defining Emergent Narrative 17 2.1 A Definition . 17 2.2 Origins of the Term . 27 2.3 Brief Overview . 34 3 The Pleasure of Emergent Narrative 37 3.1 Analogous Forms . 38 3.1.1 Analogy to Nonfiction . 38 3.1.2 Analogy to Stories of Lived Experience . 75 3.1.3 Analogy to Worldbuilding . 83 3.1.4 Analogy to Art Brut . 87 3.2 The Aesthetics of Emergent Narrative . 92 3.2.1 Aesthetics of the Actual . 92 3.2.2 Aesthetics of the Personal . 93 3.2.3 Aesthetics of a Larger Context . 93 3.2.4 Aesthetics of the Uncanny . 93 3.2.5 Aesthetics of the Unauthored . 94 iii 3.2.6 Aesthetics of the Coauthored . 94 3.2.7 Aesthetics of the Uncovered . 95 3.2.8 Aesthetics of the Improbable . 96 3.2.9 Aesthetics of the Vast . 98 3.2.10 Aesthetics of the Ephemeral . 98 4 The Pain of Emergent Narrative 99 4.1 Simulation Pains . 100 4.1.1 Boringness . 100 4.1.2 Granularity Extremes . 117 4.1.3 Low Modularity . 125 4.1.4 Lack of Abstraction . 135 4.1.5 Modeling Gaps . 145 4.1.6 Causality Issues . 154 4.2 Curation Pains . 166 4.2.1 No Telling . 166 4.2.2 No Curation . 175 4.2.3 Poor Curation . 183 4.2.4 Poor Presentation . 195 4.2.5 Failure to Mount . 202 4.2.6 Aesthetic Posturing . 207 5 Refining Emergent Narrative 218 5.1 Intellectual Position . 218 5.2 Technical Approach . 224 5.3 Curationist Architecture . 232 5.3.1 Components . 234 5.3.2 Variants . 241 5.4 Additional Concepts . 245 5.5 Intellectual Development . 250 II How and Why 257 6 James Ryan Generator 258 7 World 267 7.1 Preamble: Islanders .......................... 273 7.2 Modeling . 275 7.2.1 Time . 276 7.2.2 Characters . 276 7.2.3 Other Entities . 284 7.3 Simulation . 292 iv 7.3.1 Setting Up a World . 292 7.3.2 Simulation Loop . 293 7.3.3 Birth and Death . 294 7.3.4 Social Simulation . 295 7.3.5 Marriage and Divorce . 298 7.3.6 Foot Travel . 298 7.3.7 House Construction . 300 7.3.8 Settlement Establishment . 300 7.3.9 Settlement Growth, Consolidation, Abandonment . 300 7.3.10 Shipbuilding . 301 7.3.11 Nautical Travel . 303 7.3.12 Crime and Punishment . 305 7.3.13 Artifact Phenomena . 307 7.3.14 Character Knowledge . 308 7.3.15 Character Internal Worlds . 310 7.3.16 Character Language . 312 7.3.17 Whale Life . 327 7.4 Emergent Phenomena . 328 8 Case Study: Diol/Diel/Dial 337 8.1 Overview . 343 8.2 Encyclopedia Generation . 343 8.3 The Pleasure of Diol/Diel/Dial ................... 348 8.4 The Pain of Diol/Diel/Dial ..................... 355 8.5 Curationism and Diol/Diel/Dial ................... 366 9 Talk of the Town 371 9.1 Modeling . 378 9.1.1 Time . 379 9.1.2 Characters . 380 9.1.3 Other Entities . 385 9.2 Simulation . 396 9.2.1 Setting Up a Town . 396 9.2.2 Simulation Loop . 399 9.2.3 Birth and Death . 400 9.2.4 Character Routines . 402 9.2.5 Social Simulation . 404 9.2.6 Marriage and Divorce . 417 9.2.7 Business Operations . 418 9.2.8 Real Estate . 423 9.2.9 Education . 424 9.2.10 Departing the Town . 425 v 9.2.11 Artifacts . 425 9.2.12 Character Knowledge . 426 9.3 Emergent Phenomena . 448 10 Case Study: Bad News 461 10.1 Overview . 467 10.2 Installation and Experience . 473 10.2.1 Premise . 473 10.2.2 Personnel . 474 10.2.3 Installation . 476 10.2.4 Experience . 479 10.2.5 Variants . 492 10.3 A Curation Example . 496 10.4 The Pleasure of Bad News ...................... 519 10.5 The Pain of Bad News ........................ 530 10.6 Curationism and Bad News ..................... 532 11 Hennepin 540 11.1 Modeling . 553 11.1.1 Time . 554 11.1.2 Characters . 554 11.1.3 Other Entities . 573 11.2 Simulation . 578 11.2.1 Setting Up a County . 578 11.2.2 Simulation Loop . 579 11.2.3 Infrastructural Evolution . 580 11.2.4 Character Routines . 582 11.2.5 Character Relationships . 583 11.2.6 Character Values . 583 11.2.7 Character Actions . 588 11.2.8 Character Aspirations . 625 11.2.9 Character Knowledge . 627 11.2.10 Character Internal Worlds . 630 11.2.11 Artifact Phenomena . 632 11.3 Emergent Phenomena . 635 12 Looking Ahead: Sheldon County 647 12.1 Vision . 657 12.2 Background: Expressionist ...................... 663 12.3 Podcast Generation . 669 12.3.1 Storyworld . 669 12.3.2 Nuggets . 670 12.3.3 Episode Spaces . 674 vi 12.3.4 Audio . 679 12.3.5 Delivery . 681 12.4 Curationism and Sheldon County .................. 681 13 Conclusion 686 Bibliography 695 vii List of Figures 2.1 Images associated with the invention of the term ‘emergent narra- tive’ in the 1990s. 31 3.1 An excerpt from Oilfurnace (2010), a narrative comic by Tim Denee that recounts the emergent events of a Dwarf Fortress gameplay session. 55 3.2 Scenes from the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City mission “Psycho Killer”. 77 3.3 Minneapolis artist Dietrich Sieling’s Shirt Off Geoff (2014) juxta- posed.