http://storyshots.tumblr.com/post/25032057278/22-storybasics-ive-picked-up-in-my-time-at-pixar
These are some interesting ideas for writers of narrative. Some of which are applicable for story generation systems.
Showing posts with label Narrative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Narrative. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
Façade and a Rant on Interactive Narrative Systems
http://www.interactivestory.net/
This is an interesting experimental interactive narrative system. The list of pubs looks like some good reading and ends with a bibliography of the same who's who of interactive narrative that I was reading a decade ago.
My first through is... has nothing changed? They seem to still be trying to generate emergent drama involving a set cast of characters in a sterile environment. I find it a bit strange that the product is intended to "appeal to the adult, non-computer geek, movie-and-theater-going public".... probably should have made a movie if this was the point. Sounds like they are fundamentally missing the point of interactive narrative.... if its an art form unlike anything else, then it will need to define its own audience... however, if its an art form that will be defined by an existing audience who already has a well defined taste in a particular media form... why not just stick with that media form? There is no need to replace "movies and theater", which are at their essence an experience of someone elses story... with an art form like interactive fiction which is an art form that requires the consumer to engage and add their essence to the narrative.
One observation I have made with the various interactive fiction examples I have seen is that very few people are capable story tellers. Its a skill that takes a great deal of practice. This is why great writers and poets are celebrated... because they are unusual. Have a look at facebook or twitter for examples of how few people think in narratives. Expecting everyone to be able to "bring the magic" to an intereactive narrative is just not realistic. This will make it a very niche experience for a select few. And one that will not be able to be shared with others unless its recorded.... in which case the whole system becomes an interactive authorship system for creating movies/stories.
On the other hand, if users are expected to suck at creating narratives and instead the system "takes them by the hand and generates a narrative around them... irrespective of the quality of the players interaction... then the player is essentially just being used as a source of randomness which is being fed into and filtered by a narrative engine which does 100% of the narrative creation. In which case.... why bother?
If a user is really along for the ride... then my guess is they will figure it out. The second they do something stupid and the narrative engine "smoothes" it out... they will know they are being "managed". If the engine lets the stupid into the narrative... then the users suspension of disbelief will be shattered.
This is the flaw in a narrative system that expects the player to inject "talent" as part of the experience.
So how can this
This is an interesting experimental interactive narrative system. The list of pubs looks like some good reading and ends with a bibliography of the same who's who of interactive narrative that I was reading a decade ago.
My first through is... has nothing changed? They seem to still be trying to generate emergent drama involving a set cast of characters in a sterile environment. I find it a bit strange that the product is intended to "appeal to the adult, non-computer geek, movie-and-theater-going public".... probably should have made a movie if this was the point. Sounds like they are fundamentally missing the point of interactive narrative.... if its an art form unlike anything else, then it will need to define its own audience... however, if its an art form that will be defined by an existing audience who already has a well defined taste in a particular media form... why not just stick with that media form? There is no need to replace "movies and theater", which are at their essence an experience of someone elses story... with an art form like interactive fiction which is an art form that requires the consumer to engage and add their essence to the narrative.
One observation I have made with the various interactive fiction examples I have seen is that very few people are capable story tellers. Its a skill that takes a great deal of practice. This is why great writers and poets are celebrated... because they are unusual. Have a look at facebook or twitter for examples of how few people think in narratives. Expecting everyone to be able to "bring the magic" to an intereactive narrative is just not realistic. This will make it a very niche experience for a select few. And one that will not be able to be shared with others unless its recorded.... in which case the whole system becomes an interactive authorship system for creating movies/stories.
On the other hand, if users are expected to suck at creating narratives and instead the system "takes them by the hand and generates a narrative around them... irrespective of the quality of the players interaction... then the player is essentially just being used as a source of randomness which is being fed into and filtered by a narrative engine which does 100% of the narrative creation. In which case.... why bother?
If a user is really along for the ride... then my guess is they will figure it out. The second they do something stupid and the narrative engine "smoothes" it out... they will know they are being "managed". If the engine lets the stupid into the narrative... then the users suspension of disbelief will be shattered.
This is the flaw in a narrative system that expects the player to inject "talent" as part of the experience.
So how can this
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
DISCERN discource system
http://cogprints.org/524/
Text and Discourse Understanding: The DISCERN System
Need to follow up on this and have a play.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Types of Zombie and the related strategies
I have been thinking about various strategies that would violate the Zombie appocalyse concept. (Which for all the deep ethical dilemas and fun post appocalyptic narratives can also be a useful analogy for many disaster planning scenarios) I think it all comes down to the nature of the Zombies.
If you look at some of the recent zombie flicks there are quite distinct species.
21 days has the so called "Rage" virus. The sufferes get infected and go apeshit on everyone else. The key points are the same, they are "Unstoppable", mindlessly focused and fast. They have good sight and hearing and display cunning and intelligence.
Contrast this with the Zombie plague in "The Walking Dead". The "Walkers" are generally slow and mostly brainless. Some display rudamentary problem solving (which I think is out of character), some display basic tool use, but generally they are just slow, methodical and persistent with a hunger for man flesh.
So whats the difference? Well in scenario one, they tend to move in packs and as I mentioned above, are fast. The best strategy for this kind of problem neghbour is then something that can deal with fast but direct assults. This would be something like a rabbit run. Put out someone to be bait... run them into a safe spot and lead the Zombies into a trap that they do not have the capacity to avoid. Cattle race, mine field, crusher etc.
In the second scenario ( even though they act out of character every so often) the Zombies are generally slow and uncoordinated. Simply attract them with noise and motion, confine them and then pick them off with a mechanical system like a crusher or blade. The biggest problem is to dispose of the mess safley.
The point is that in both cases the problem is very predictable. A fairly rigid strategy can be developed, with some backups to deal with scaling problems (such as when you get the "over run" scenario. ) simply retreat to safe vehicles, drive around the block until the Zombies disperse then return to the trap and keep on working. Fairly straight forward. This turns the Zombies into a nusance more than a plague.
The origional Day of the Triffids is an interesting variation in that there are multiple layers to the disaster, first in the mass blinding event, then the collapse of the social systems, then the escape of the triffids, then finally plague amoung the survivors. While this added more dimension to the narrative, the actual triffids themselves were fairly straight forward Zombies. Flessh eating, creeps up when the camera is not looking, etc. But again they were quite predictable. They are a preditor that is not fast, so it works from ambush. But they are attracted to sound again. In the book they even talk about building sound based traps and destroying large groups of triffids. The problem is that as the triffids are plants, they can seed a huge population and replenish their numbers. This sets them apart from the more regular Zombie model where a person has to "turn". This adds to the horror dimension of the betrayal and the fear but also acts as a limiting factor on the possible population of Zombies.
Especially the rate at which the population of Zombies in an area can "recover" if they are destroyed. Once all the "easy" victims have been turned to Zombie and then destroyed, there are only the luck and "wise" that remain to replenish the population. They are more dispersed, harder to "turn" and much faster to destroy any turned members of their parties, so the rate of replenishment of your average Zombie hord is probably fairly minimal. Essentially, as long as the Zombies actually break down and physcially collapse, you would expect the average Zombie plage to barely exceed a month. Especially the speed at which the flies would go to work. The only chance of a good Zombie hord getting going would be in th colder months in Austalia as the flies would get in and strip the corpses in a matter of days. The Zombies would physically fall to bits before they had a chance to travel far or "turn" too many others.
In colder countries the Zombies would probably last longer... but they would still have a high failure rate just through wear and tear.
Anyway, the point being that a fixed plague with known transmission method and carriers can be dealt with. Usually the biggest problem is the "people factors" in the narratives where people are not willing to "do what has to be done" and get over run. I think this is mostly for dramatic purpose, as evidence from many of the recent disasters illustates that people generally are pretty fast to "do what needs to be done". Its more a question of consequences. In a severe weather situation, they know that the day after will probably bring law enforcement... so some of the more anti-social choices that some narratives suggest are still not attactive.
As always, the key is speed of adaption, surviving the event itself is just chance, but adapting to the new environment after the event is usually about "the quick and the dead". Observe, test, adapt, survive.
If you look at some of the recent zombie flicks there are quite distinct species.
21 days has the so called "Rage" virus. The sufferes get infected and go apeshit on everyone else. The key points are the same, they are "Unstoppable", mindlessly focused and fast. They have good sight and hearing and display cunning and intelligence.
Contrast this with the Zombie plague in "The Walking Dead". The "Walkers" are generally slow and mostly brainless. Some display rudamentary problem solving (which I think is out of character), some display basic tool use, but generally they are just slow, methodical and persistent with a hunger for man flesh.
So whats the difference? Well in scenario one, they tend to move in packs and as I mentioned above, are fast. The best strategy for this kind of problem neghbour is then something that can deal with fast but direct assults. This would be something like a rabbit run. Put out someone to be bait... run them into a safe spot and lead the Zombies into a trap that they do not have the capacity to avoid. Cattle race, mine field, crusher etc.
In the second scenario ( even though they act out of character every so often) the Zombies are generally slow and uncoordinated. Simply attract them with noise and motion, confine them and then pick them off with a mechanical system like a crusher or blade. The biggest problem is to dispose of the mess safley.
The point is that in both cases the problem is very predictable. A fairly rigid strategy can be developed, with some backups to deal with scaling problems (such as when you get the "over run" scenario. ) simply retreat to safe vehicles, drive around the block until the Zombies disperse then return to the trap and keep on working. Fairly straight forward. This turns the Zombies into a nusance more than a plague.
The origional Day of the Triffids is an interesting variation in that there are multiple layers to the disaster, first in the mass blinding event, then the collapse of the social systems, then the escape of the triffids, then finally plague amoung the survivors. While this added more dimension to the narrative, the actual triffids themselves were fairly straight forward Zombies. Flessh eating, creeps up when the camera is not looking, etc. But again they were quite predictable. They are a preditor that is not fast, so it works from ambush. But they are attracted to sound again. In the book they even talk about building sound based traps and destroying large groups of triffids. The problem is that as the triffids are plants, they can seed a huge population and replenish their numbers. This sets them apart from the more regular Zombie model where a person has to "turn". This adds to the horror dimension of the betrayal and the fear but also acts as a limiting factor on the possible population of Zombies.
Especially the rate at which the population of Zombies in an area can "recover" if they are destroyed. Once all the "easy" victims have been turned to Zombie and then destroyed, there are only the luck and "wise" that remain to replenish the population. They are more dispersed, harder to "turn" and much faster to destroy any turned members of their parties, so the rate of replenishment of your average Zombie hord is probably fairly minimal. Essentially, as long as the Zombies actually break down and physcially collapse, you would expect the average Zombie plage to barely exceed a month. Especially the speed at which the flies would go to work. The only chance of a good Zombie hord getting going would be in th colder months in Austalia as the flies would get in and strip the corpses in a matter of days. The Zombies would physically fall to bits before they had a chance to travel far or "turn" too many others.
In colder countries the Zombies would probably last longer... but they would still have a high failure rate just through wear and tear.
Anyway, the point being that a fixed plague with known transmission method and carriers can be dealt with. Usually the biggest problem is the "people factors" in the narratives where people are not willing to "do what has to be done" and get over run. I think this is mostly for dramatic purpose, as evidence from many of the recent disasters illustates that people generally are pretty fast to "do what needs to be done". Its more a question of consequences. In a severe weather situation, they know that the day after will probably bring law enforcement... so some of the more anti-social choices that some narratives suggest are still not attactive.
As always, the key is speed of adaption, surviving the event itself is just chance, but adapting to the new environment after the event is usually about "the quick and the dead". Observe, test, adapt, survive.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Movie - The expendables
Just watched the Expendables. While its a fun genre flick that cameos a number of old school action stars, its also very carefully crafted.
Its a study in being very respectful of the key genre conventions while addressing the flaws that plagued the previous movies and defined the worst of the genre. Shall we list them?
* Pithy catch phrases.
These have been a staple of action movies for the past two decades. Although I would have to say that Stalones movies have been free of them, so perhaps its simply his integrity that is at play.
* Disposable friends
One of the common conventions has always been the death of some 2 dimensional friend of the lead character as a pretext for the mayhem and retribution in the movie. As a pleasant suprise, in this movie the friendships are complicated and not cheapened by being used as cannon fodder by the lazy script writers.
* Traitors
A common theme has often been that of the friendship gone bad. While there is a rivalry in this movie between stalone and schwarzenneger, its presented as a rivalry between mature adults rather than petulant teenagers. These people may not like each other but they are not malicious about it.
* Cameos
The appearance of actors from old school movies is both a homage and a different touch. Its a feature of comedy movies not action movies. Usually its only the star of the movie who has a name while all the others (except perhaps the archvillan) are nameless in terms of their careers.
* No character development
Even though there was not a huge amount in this movie and it was far from deep, each character got to present a little set piece at some point to give a tiny little bit of dimension. There was no effort to explain motivation or expectations, the characters are still directionless and aimless in their lives but they are far from the paper thin super soldiers so common in most action movies.
* Frailty
Even though it was a little staged, the man on man fight between stalone and Austin was unconventional because the hero did not get the upper hand. As this was the traditional confrontation where the hero was beaten but not broken, this was fairly conventional but still to voice the fact that the character feels like they were beaten is unusual. Stalone still took the traditional shoulder wound at the end. Its almost a signature.
* BFG
There was a token BFG, in the shape of an automatic shotgun firing some kind of mini-missile. There was very little posing with it and virtually no other posing in the movie. There were a couple of stylalised moved but this was probably more from habit. They are probably in the dna of holywood by now, to the extent that most of the actors probably pose in their sleep. I can forgive a couple of low key ones as there has to be a certain amount of genre material, it cant all be convention breaking. The very fact that there was so few momemts where they symbolically "got out their guns" turned it from the usual cock fest into almost a narrative.
I think the scene where stalone was hanging out the door of the aircraft as they escaped Vilena after their first visit was a little homage to the scene in the second rambo movie where he is dropped from the aircraft and gets hung up with his chute cable. (What would be the actual odds of that happening??) While there are not really that many possible angles to shoot it from, it was very similar. Not the same but just similar.
* minimal gore
The amount of gore was light. Not absent as in some strange movies but basic and just used for set dressing rather than spattered everywhere.
* competent effects
There was really only one effect that I found weak. It was the clean and neat placement of bullet holes in the door of the little truck that stalone was driving when they were ambushed in the street. While it may have been realistic, it was too neat and tidy. The only other bit was the neatness of the fire effects in the final battle. This was just too "neat" but the function was fairly specific so there wasn't a great deal of opportunity for other presentations.
* No token mercy
Another refreshing change was the convention that the hero cannot kill the villan without some sort of token "fair fight" and the villan pulling a secret gun and "cheating". (where apon the hero is ethically free to kill them in self defense) I have always found that particular ethical convolution particularly disturbing. If you follow the logical conclusion, the hero needs to be in a state where they are ready and willing to kill the villan, and are waiting for any excuse, which the script writer then provides for that final cathartic guilt free release of vengence, retribution or whatever justifiable rage has motivated the honerable hero. ( The fact that the hero has guiltlessly slaughtered their way through countless faceless henchmen prior to that point is glossed over in the ethical rationalisation fest)
* Pointless monologues
There were a couple of small monologues but thankfully the script writer as skilled enough to avoid them. There was enough development of the villan characters and enough conflict between them to explain sufficiently what was going on and present the characters without resorting to exposition from the villan on their motivations. There was a small one at the final showdown, but it was short and fairly hard to hear so I will let it pass.
* Ham fisted exposition
While there were a couple of minor points of exposition, they were not painful. At some point the audience needs to pick up enough background to understand the key relationships and motivations, so while its effective, thankfully it was in very small does.The conflict between the villans served as a useful device to develop those characters. I twas an interesting scenario to have two villain characters openly conflicting and having their relationship moving toward a showdown. This is an interesting technique. Usually the villian only has a couple of henchmen to act as foils for exposition to defiine their character.
* endless bullets
One of the chronic problems with this genre is the shear amount of ammo that the hero can not only chew through but apparently carry and fit into one magazine. This movie was fairly good about sticking to the bullet limit and not testing the credibility of people who can count.
* weapon choice
The wild mix of armlaments made the usual mistakes of all movie armorers who go for variety rather than consistnecy. Just about every weapon used by the "heros" was of a different type. Some of the pistols were similar but the larger weapons where a wild mix. No wonder when they ran out of rounds, they had to stop, simpy because they could not scavange amo. The henchmen has the standard issue AK-47's The favorite of every amourer in holywood apparently. The selection of knives was fairly competent however the choice of loose holsters for the throwing knives was just amature.
More later. All in all, I think there was a great deal of subtly in the movie, as a Genre flick and as a very well crafted movie by a cleaver and mature director. They were not trying to make high art, but they were definitly masters of the craft and understood how to speak the genre language and say something new.
It will be interesting to see the followup movie. I think its obvious that the stage has been set for a series. ( I should probably check IMDB if I really wanted to know, but I'm happy to speculate) without being nasty, its like a retirement home for action stars. A warm familiar genre that they call all come back to, but done by a master script writer and competent cinematographer. For a movie buff, its a gift that keeps on giving.
Its a study in being very respectful of the key genre conventions while addressing the flaws that plagued the previous movies and defined the worst of the genre. Shall we list them?
* Pithy catch phrases.
These have been a staple of action movies for the past two decades. Although I would have to say that Stalones movies have been free of them, so perhaps its simply his integrity that is at play.
* Disposable friends
One of the common conventions has always been the death of some 2 dimensional friend of the lead character as a pretext for the mayhem and retribution in the movie. As a pleasant suprise, in this movie the friendships are complicated and not cheapened by being used as cannon fodder by the lazy script writers.
* Traitors
A common theme has often been that of the friendship gone bad. While there is a rivalry in this movie between stalone and schwarzenneger, its presented as a rivalry between mature adults rather than petulant teenagers. These people may not like each other but they are not malicious about it.
* Cameos
The appearance of actors from old school movies is both a homage and a different touch. Its a feature of comedy movies not action movies. Usually its only the star of the movie who has a name while all the others (except perhaps the archvillan) are nameless in terms of their careers.
* No character development
Even though there was not a huge amount in this movie and it was far from deep, each character got to present a little set piece at some point to give a tiny little bit of dimension. There was no effort to explain motivation or expectations, the characters are still directionless and aimless in their lives but they are far from the paper thin super soldiers so common in most action movies.
* Frailty
Even though it was a little staged, the man on man fight between stalone and Austin was unconventional because the hero did not get the upper hand. As this was the traditional confrontation where the hero was beaten but not broken, this was fairly conventional but still to voice the fact that the character feels like they were beaten is unusual. Stalone still took the traditional shoulder wound at the end. Its almost a signature.
* BFG
There was a token BFG, in the shape of an automatic shotgun firing some kind of mini-missile. There was very little posing with it and virtually no other posing in the movie. There were a couple of stylalised moved but this was probably more from habit. They are probably in the dna of holywood by now, to the extent that most of the actors probably pose in their sleep. I can forgive a couple of low key ones as there has to be a certain amount of genre material, it cant all be convention breaking. The very fact that there was so few momemts where they symbolically "got out their guns" turned it from the usual cock fest into almost a narrative.
I think the scene where stalone was hanging out the door of the aircraft as they escaped Vilena after their first visit was a little homage to the scene in the second rambo movie where he is dropped from the aircraft and gets hung up with his chute cable. (What would be the actual odds of that happening??) While there are not really that many possible angles to shoot it from, it was very similar. Not the same but just similar.
* minimal gore
The amount of gore was light. Not absent as in some strange movies but basic and just used for set dressing rather than spattered everywhere.
* competent effects
There was really only one effect that I found weak. It was the clean and neat placement of bullet holes in the door of the little truck that stalone was driving when they were ambushed in the street. While it may have been realistic, it was too neat and tidy. The only other bit was the neatness of the fire effects in the final battle. This was just too "neat" but the function was fairly specific so there wasn't a great deal of opportunity for other presentations.
* No token mercy
Another refreshing change was the convention that the hero cannot kill the villan without some sort of token "fair fight" and the villan pulling a secret gun and "cheating". (where apon the hero is ethically free to kill them in self defense) I have always found that particular ethical convolution particularly disturbing. If you follow the logical conclusion, the hero needs to be in a state where they are ready and willing to kill the villan, and are waiting for any excuse, which the script writer then provides for that final cathartic guilt free release of vengence, retribution or whatever justifiable rage has motivated the honerable hero. ( The fact that the hero has guiltlessly slaughtered their way through countless faceless henchmen prior to that point is glossed over in the ethical rationalisation fest)
* Pointless monologues
There were a couple of small monologues but thankfully the script writer as skilled enough to avoid them. There was enough development of the villan characters and enough conflict between them to explain sufficiently what was going on and present the characters without resorting to exposition from the villan on their motivations. There was a small one at the final showdown, but it was short and fairly hard to hear so I will let it pass.
* Ham fisted exposition
While there were a couple of minor points of exposition, they were not painful. At some point the audience needs to pick up enough background to understand the key relationships and motivations, so while its effective, thankfully it was in very small does.The conflict between the villans served as a useful device to develop those characters. I twas an interesting scenario to have two villain characters openly conflicting and having their relationship moving toward a showdown. This is an interesting technique. Usually the villian only has a couple of henchmen to act as foils for exposition to defiine their character.
* endless bullets
One of the chronic problems with this genre is the shear amount of ammo that the hero can not only chew through but apparently carry and fit into one magazine. This movie was fairly good about sticking to the bullet limit and not testing the credibility of people who can count.
* weapon choice
The wild mix of armlaments made the usual mistakes of all movie armorers who go for variety rather than consistnecy. Just about every weapon used by the "heros" was of a different type. Some of the pistols were similar but the larger weapons where a wild mix. No wonder when they ran out of rounds, they had to stop, simpy because they could not scavange amo. The henchmen has the standard issue AK-47's The favorite of every amourer in holywood apparently. The selection of knives was fairly competent however the choice of loose holsters for the throwing knives was just amature.
More later. All in all, I think there was a great deal of subtly in the movie, as a Genre flick and as a very well crafted movie by a cleaver and mature director. They were not trying to make high art, but they were definitly masters of the craft and understood how to speak the genre language and say something new.
It will be interesting to see the followup movie. I think its obvious that the stage has been set for a series. ( I should probably check IMDB if I really wanted to know, but I'm happy to speculate) without being nasty, its like a retirement home for action stars. A warm familiar genre that they call all come back to, but done by a master script writer and competent cinematographer. For a movie buff, its a gift that keeps on giving.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Dialog Game Mechanics
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8898-L-A-Noire-Review
Just read a review of LA Noir and the same problem has again shown up. How to run character-player dialog that can follow the narrative while being convincing and functional. This problem has been around since CRPG's were first cracked out of the shrink wrap.
You want to talk to a character about something... so the current state of the art is a canned dialog tree or some sort of horrible natural language parser. Both of which suck for very real and insurmountable reasons.
The canned dialog tree is incredibly restrictive and breaks the players immersion immediately because its never a good fit for what they actually want to say/ask/scream. The natural language parser systems I have used always turn into a game of twenty questions just to find something the character will respond to. Hardly a "conversation"; in reality a kind of torture that I just could not find entertainment in.
My solution would be the same as that used for the light gem in Thief-the dark project. (Being too cryptic am I? You should read my honors thesis.) Its simply an abstract representation of otherwise impossible to aquire game knowledge. The player gets a narrative artifice that, once they suspend disbelief, allows them access to information that cannot otherwise be communicated from the third person POV. It also provides a way to project the knowledge back to the players space. So in essence it actually engages the player even more. There is a great deal to learn from this simple interface design exercise.
The question about dialog is... does is have to be concrete language passing between the player and their avatar and from the Avatar to the Character. The answer is no and yes.So how would I design an immersive dialog system suitable for a free flowing game vs one with a strong narrative?
Firstly a free-flowing game does not have the requirements for structured, topical dialog that a narrative game has... but the point is still valid. I feel that I have a solution for both situations. In general though the free flowing games simply has less objective to a dialog situation so there are less ways to evaluate success or failure. (Makes it easier to be right.) CRPG's that allow the player to wander around and talk to anyone (Morrowind et al) turn dialog into more of a random treasure hunt. If you are on a mission then the same rules apply as in a strongly narrative game.
A strong narrative game usually has structure and intent in a dialog. Its not that dialog tree's didn't contain information, its just that the mechanic of picking a dialog option from a list is horribly crude.
Seems like an easy problem to solve. But that's me. Now the question is to turn it into a PhD or go commercial with it? Decisions decisions
Just read a review of LA Noir and the same problem has again shown up. How to run character-player dialog that can follow the narrative while being convincing and functional. This problem has been around since CRPG's were first cracked out of the shrink wrap.
You want to talk to a character about something... so the current state of the art is a canned dialog tree or some sort of horrible natural language parser. Both of which suck for very real and insurmountable reasons.
The canned dialog tree is incredibly restrictive and breaks the players immersion immediately because its never a good fit for what they actually want to say/ask/scream. The natural language parser systems I have used always turn into a game of twenty questions just to find something the character will respond to. Hardly a "conversation"; in reality a kind of torture that I just could not find entertainment in.
My solution would be the same as that used for the light gem in Thief-the dark project. (Being too cryptic am I? You should read my honors thesis.) Its simply an abstract representation of otherwise impossible to aquire game knowledge. The player gets a narrative artifice that, once they suspend disbelief, allows them access to information that cannot otherwise be communicated from the third person POV. It also provides a way to project the knowledge back to the players space. So in essence it actually engages the player even more. There is a great deal to learn from this simple interface design exercise.
The question about dialog is... does is have to be concrete language passing between the player and their avatar and from the Avatar to the Character. The answer is no and yes.So how would I design an immersive dialog system suitable for a free flowing game vs one with a strong narrative?
Firstly a free-flowing game does not have the requirements for structured, topical dialog that a narrative game has... but the point is still valid. I feel that I have a solution for both situations. In general though the free flowing games simply has less objective to a dialog situation so there are less ways to evaluate success or failure. (Makes it easier to be right.) CRPG's that allow the player to wander around and talk to anyone (Morrowind et al) turn dialog into more of a random treasure hunt. If you are on a mission then the same rules apply as in a strongly narrative game.
A strong narrative game usually has structure and intent in a dialog. Its not that dialog tree's didn't contain information, its just that the mechanic of picking a dialog option from a list is horribly crude.
Seems like an easy problem to solve. But that's me. Now the question is to turn it into a PhD or go commercial with it? Decisions decisions
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
nanolaw fiction
http://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw.html
This is a nice piece of speculative fiction. Short, sweet... bit rough in the finish. It looks at the intersection between the online micropayments model and the American legal model and how that may play out in a connected world in the near future.
This is a nice piece of speculative fiction. Short, sweet... bit rough in the finish. It looks at the intersection between the online micropayments model and the American legal model and how that may play out in a connected world in the near future.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Yet another Zombie metaphore
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_303/8816-What-Purpose-Minecraft-Zombies
I like this article. Still trying to articulate why.
I like this article. Still trying to articulate why.
Zombie training for Post-appocalyptic narrative crafting
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_303/8818-How-Games-Get-Zombies-Wrong
This is a pointed article about Zombies and their narrative function. It ties into my thinking on post-appocalyptic narratives.
Zombies represent death personified. They are just faster and more obvious than all the other things that can kill you in an environment stripped of the modern luxuries like healthcare, farming, law, running water etc.
Its hard to make a narrative work that uses a slow decay into hunger and desperation. Its boring and tedious and hard to convey to the reader/viewer.
Its easier to user a device like a zombie horde to represent the inevitable surprises and the effects of fear and paranoia on survivors. Zombies give a visual, physical reality that has the same effect as the unseen forces that can turn a survivor or group of survivors into a self-destructive mob and pretty soon after... roadkill.
Try watching a movie like "The Road". While its an incredibly moving experience and rates in my top 10 of post-apocalyptic movies; its still trying to convey subtle emotional transformations that are just difficult to communicate due to the limits of the medium. The sense of time and the effects of that time on the characters in the movie is limited. The narrative has an imperative to keep moving and keep the viewer engaged. Its impossible to take a long period of screen time, to convey a long period of narrative time. The viewers, reviewers and execs will not or cannot take that journey.
So how can a writer/producer communicate these difficult issues. Perhaps not verbatim, rather by creating a narrative artifice such as a Zombie horde. The horde acts to poison and destroy everything that previously supported and nurtured the characters. So rather than having a fine old time living in a city full of resources ( such as in "Tommorow when the world ended") the characters are forced to avoid cities and any places that seem inhabited or habitable. The comfort of strangers suddenly has the obvious risk of the stranger turning on the character. Seeing a figure moving in the distance becomes the cue to run in the opposite direction rather than move in and say "Hi". Zombies are a narrative artifice that wraps all of these difficult concepts up into a personification that can be seen and shot-at and run away from. But is, in the end, everywhere. Its only a matter of time.....
This is a pointed article about Zombies and their narrative function. It ties into my thinking on post-appocalyptic narratives.
Zombies represent death personified. They are just faster and more obvious than all the other things that can kill you in an environment stripped of the modern luxuries like healthcare, farming, law, running water etc.
Its hard to make a narrative work that uses a slow decay into hunger and desperation. Its boring and tedious and hard to convey to the reader/viewer.
Its easier to user a device like a zombie horde to represent the inevitable surprises and the effects of fear and paranoia on survivors. Zombies give a visual, physical reality that has the same effect as the unseen forces that can turn a survivor or group of survivors into a self-destructive mob and pretty soon after... roadkill.
Try watching a movie like "The Road". While its an incredibly moving experience and rates in my top 10 of post-apocalyptic movies; its still trying to convey subtle emotional transformations that are just difficult to communicate due to the limits of the medium. The sense of time and the effects of that time on the characters in the movie is limited. The narrative has an imperative to keep moving and keep the viewer engaged. Its impossible to take a long period of screen time, to convey a long period of narrative time. The viewers, reviewers and execs will not or cannot take that journey.
So how can a writer/producer communicate these difficult issues. Perhaps not verbatim, rather by creating a narrative artifice such as a Zombie horde. The horde acts to poison and destroy everything that previously supported and nurtured the characters. So rather than having a fine old time living in a city full of resources ( such as in "Tommorow when the world ended") the characters are forced to avoid cities and any places that seem inhabited or habitable. The comfort of strangers suddenly has the obvious risk of the stranger turning on the character. Seeing a figure moving in the distance becomes the cue to run in the opposite direction rather than move in and say "Hi". Zombies are a narrative artifice that wraps all of these difficult concepts up into a personification that can be seen and shot-at and run away from. But is, in the end, everywhere. Its only a matter of time.....
Friday, February 11, 2011
Libertarian Sci fi Fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_science_fiction
Never realized this existed. Makes sense. Wonder what the parallels with dystopian and post-apocalyptic genres are?
Never realized this existed. Makes sense. Wonder what the parallels with dystopian and post-apocalyptic genres are?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Character differences between WRPG's and JRPG's
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_279/8295-United-We-Stand
Very insightful article about different styles of character and how that ties back to the social models the games derive from.
Lots to think about.
Very insightful article about different styles of character and how that ties back to the social models the games derive from.
Lots to think about.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Narrative structure for RPG
I am back to thinking about suitable narrative structures for CRPG games.
My current breakdown is something along the lines of:
* Linear narrative - Essentially there is one start and one ending, there may be more or less variability in the middle. (Think Max Payne )
* Broom narrative - Similar to the above but with the addition of a number of different endings. (Stalker is an example )
* Serial missions - One mission at a time usually with a strong theme. Can do branching but very expensive to develop whole mission modules that may not be played through.
* Mission Loom - From a single start point the rest of the game is composed of many small missions that overlap and weave together. Good for pickup games or for the OC gamer who wants to "complete" everything in the walkthroughs.
* Mission Loom with main thread(s) - One or more primary missions are presented to try to tie all the mini-missions together into a common theme? (Think Fallout 1,2,3 etc)
These are essentially all fragile systems that have modular segments that join together to create the narrative context for the play activities. They are fragile for a number of reasons, the first being that they have no capacity to be resilient to any errors in the chain. If one module fails ( for whatever reason) it conceptually leaves a gap. Even if the player somehow crosses the gap and gets back into the game, they have experienced the cognitive dissonance of having to "exit" the flow of the game to deal with the broken game engine/level script/ whatever bug. Obviously this is undesirable.
The second issue of fragility is to do with the Users perceptions of whats going on. Its fine to be able to tune a level until most users get it most of the time, but for complex storytelling that involves any subtlety ( which the debate is still open as to how many people would actually buy a game with too much subtle storytelling...stuff but anyway) there is no way to gauge if the user is following the storyline at a level they want or care about. (I use care to represent their level of engagement in the storyline rather than just their engagement in the game activities which can be a different kind of bear tickling)
So, to recap, the player can loose interest, loose the thread or fail to engage with it enough to differentiate the meta story from the game activities. (Not see the forest for the trees... so to speak)
The other sort of fragility I was thinking about is the temporal aspect. How to deal with the amount of playtime that the player wants to commit vs the time required to get through the narrative. Can the player commit more time if they enjoy the story or does the story have to fit the amount of time the player wants to commit? Both of these scenarios have ugly issues associated. Players are getting a little tired of "sticky" games that demand attention. (This whole issue has been soured by the MMORPGs and their subscription models.)
So players want a quality experience not a skinner box. Something that enriches their life rather than sucks it dry.
This is a similar issue to the one faced by television serials. Keep a narrative arc or make each episode self contained. Keep them wanting more or give them what they want? The eternal dilemma for media producers.
I have been reading an interesting post by someone about working inside a bounded time frame that has some interesting dimensions for writing. These ideas have mixed with an analysis I recently read of the "Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time" fiction series. One point of view is about how forcing us to work within a clearly bounded time frame helps sharpen everything you are doing while on the other hand, the book series was criticized because it wandered at times without boundary and so the quality suffered.
The point being that forcing a scenario or a narrative into a fixed time frame may be no bad thing. Especially a reasonably short one. Cinematic scripts are usually 120 pages which forces them to keep it tight (conceptually. Lets not argue about all the exceptions to this rule that exist.)
So how would that be applicable to game narratives, assuming game narratives are even well enough defined to be called such a thing.
If we are looking at a simple linear narrative, its easy to apply a fixed time to the narrative. It just keeps on ticking no matter what the player does. This forces the player to get with the program and stay with it. In effect punishing them pretty severely for making any mistakes or wandering around exploring.
Pick this up later.
My current breakdown is something along the lines of:
* Linear narrative - Essentially there is one start and one ending, there may be more or less variability in the middle. (Think Max Payne )
* Broom narrative - Similar to the above but with the addition of a number of different endings. (Stalker is an example )
* Serial missions - One mission at a time usually with a strong theme. Can do branching but very expensive to develop whole mission modules that may not be played through.
* Mission Loom - From a single start point the rest of the game is composed of many small missions that overlap and weave together. Good for pickup games or for the OC gamer who wants to "complete" everything in the walkthroughs.
* Mission Loom with main thread(s) - One or more primary missions are presented to try to tie all the mini-missions together into a common theme? (Think Fallout 1,2,3 etc)
These are essentially all fragile systems that have modular segments that join together to create the narrative context for the play activities. They are fragile for a number of reasons, the first being that they have no capacity to be resilient to any errors in the chain. If one module fails ( for whatever reason) it conceptually leaves a gap. Even if the player somehow crosses the gap and gets back into the game, they have experienced the cognitive dissonance of having to "exit" the flow of the game to deal with the broken game engine/level script/ whatever bug. Obviously this is undesirable.
The second issue of fragility is to do with the Users perceptions of whats going on. Its fine to be able to tune a level until most users get it most of the time, but for complex storytelling that involves any subtlety ( which the debate is still open as to how many people would actually buy a game with too much subtle storytelling...stuff but anyway) there is no way to gauge if the user is following the storyline at a level they want or care about. (I use care to represent their level of engagement in the storyline rather than just their engagement in the game activities which can be a different kind of bear tickling)
So, to recap, the player can loose interest, loose the thread or fail to engage with it enough to differentiate the meta story from the game activities. (Not see the forest for the trees... so to speak)
The other sort of fragility I was thinking about is the temporal aspect. How to deal with the amount of playtime that the player wants to commit vs the time required to get through the narrative. Can the player commit more time if they enjoy the story or does the story have to fit the amount of time the player wants to commit? Both of these scenarios have ugly issues associated. Players are getting a little tired of "sticky" games that demand attention. (This whole issue has been soured by the MMORPGs and their subscription models.)
So players want a quality experience not a skinner box. Something that enriches their life rather than sucks it dry.
This is a similar issue to the one faced by television serials. Keep a narrative arc or make each episode self contained. Keep them wanting more or give them what they want? The eternal dilemma for media producers.
I have been reading an interesting post by someone about working inside a bounded time frame that has some interesting dimensions for writing. These ideas have mixed with an analysis I recently read of the "Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time" fiction series. One point of view is about how forcing us to work within a clearly bounded time frame helps sharpen everything you are doing while on the other hand, the book series was criticized because it wandered at times without boundary and so the quality suffered.
The point being that forcing a scenario or a narrative into a fixed time frame may be no bad thing. Especially a reasonably short one. Cinematic scripts are usually 120 pages which forces them to keep it tight (conceptually. Lets not argue about all the exceptions to this rule that exist.)
So how would that be applicable to game narratives, assuming game narratives are even well enough defined to be called such a thing.
If we are looking at a simple linear narrative, its easy to apply a fixed time to the narrative. It just keeps on ticking no matter what the player does. This forces the player to get with the program and stay with it. In effect punishing them pretty severely for making any mistakes or wandering around exploring.
Pick this up later.
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