Plot, Spectacle, and Experience Contributions to the Design and Evaluation of Interactive Storytelling Jarmo Laaksolahti ©Jarmo Laaksolahti, Stockholm 2008 DSV Report series No. 08-001 ISBN 978-91-7155-521-2 ISSN 1101-8526 ISRN SU-KTH/DSV/R--08/1—SE SICS Dissertation Series 48 ISSN 1101-1335 ISRN SICS-D--48--SE Printed in Sweden by USAB, Stockholm 2008 Distributor: Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University In loving memory of my parents Rauha and Matti i Table of contents Table of contents.......................................................................................................................................... iii 1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Research questions.....................................................................................................................4 1.1.1 Story construction............................................................................................................5 1.1.2 Story presentation............................................................................................................6 1.1.3 Story evaluation................................................................................................................8 1.1.4 What this thesis does not deal with........................................................................9 1.2 Method......................................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 Contributions .............................................................................................................................12 1.4 Outline ..........................................................................................................................................13 Part I Interactive Storytelling ........................................................................................................................14 2 Stories ....................................................................................................................................................15 2.1 Story structure .......................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Plot ..................................................................................................................................................17 2.3 Setting and genre...................................................................................................................... 19 2.4 Interactive Stories.................................................................................................................... 19 2.5 Believable Characters..............................................................................................................21 2.6 Dramatic Stories........................................................................................................................23 2.7 Challenges to interactive stories ........................................................................................24 3 Experiencing Stories........................................................................................................................25 3.1 Characteristic pleasures of interactive stories .............................................................26 3.2 Aristotelian drama....................................................................................................................28 3.3 Experiencing stories.................................................................................................................31 4 Computational Storytelling .........................................................................................................32 4.1 Basic approaches .......................................................................................................................33 4.2 TALE-SPIN.................................................................................................................................34 4.3 ID-Tension...................................................................................................................................35 4.4 MOE.............................................................................................................................................. 36 4.5 Façade ............................................................................................................................................37 4.6 MIMESIS..................................................................................................................................... 38 4.7 Interactive Drama Architecture ....................................................................................... 39 4.8 Erasmatron...................................................................................................................................41 Part II Developing an Interactive Story...................................................................................................43 iii Table of contents 5 The Party: Creating a Scenario for an Interactive Story................................................. 44 5.1 The Party Scenario................................................................................................................... 44 5.1.1 The abstract story.......................................................................................................... 45 5.1.2 Several implementations............................................................................................46 5.2 Evolution of the scenario......................................................................................................48 5.2.1 Intended user-group.....................................................................................................49 5.2.2 Creating Characters......................................................................................................49 5.2.3 Multiple characters....................................................................................................... 51 5.2.4 Setting the scene ............................................................................................................ 51 5.2.5 Being yourself or playing a role................................................................................52 5.2.6 Means of interaction .................................................................................................... 54 5.3 Designing experiences............................................................................................................56 6 Anticipatory Plot Guidance........................................................................................................58 6.1 Plot guidance..............................................................................................................................59 6.2 A Scenario .................................................................................................................................. 60 6.3 System overview ......................................................................................................................61 6.3.1 Implementation..............................................................................................................62 6.3.2 An example......................................................................................................................67 6.4 Anticipatory system................................................................................................................68 6.4.1 The model M...................................................................................................................68 6.5 The set of effectors E............................................................................................................. 71 6.6 Top down design of automata............................................................................................72 7 Extra-Diegetic Story Support ....................................................................................................75 7.1 Making emotions visible....................................................................................................... 75 7.2 From believability to expressivity.................................................................................... 77 7.3 Cinematography, colour, shape and comics ................................................................79 7.4 A second attempt: expressiveness with shape and colour................................... 80 7.4.1 An architecture overview..........................................................................................81 7.4.2 The cinematographer...................................................................................................81 7.5 Expressiveness using dynamic shapes.............................................................................85 Part III Evaluating Interactive Storytelling Experiences .................................................................87 8 Dramatic Evaluation.......................................................................................................................88 8.1 Evaluating Experiences..........................................................................................................89 8.2 Criteria for evaluating interactive stories....................................................................