And since I’m a naive transhumanist, I’ll take it even further than most academics, and suggest that reality itself is transforming into a highly dynamic story/game told interactively between patricipants. Virtual worlds are only the prototype. The universe is an MMO and capitalism is crunch time.

But, I’m pretty sure what prompted Corvus onto this extened mini-series on “storyworlds” isn’t a problem with the term, its a pretty decent one, though I’m not sure if it has more marketing potential than “game”. The storytronics people certainly seem to think so. I think Corvus’ problem, and my problem as well, is with the design philosophy behind Storytron.

Corvus describes his complaint in the engine’s systematic neglect of participation, I describe it as a lack of local agency. Either way, its a highly abstracted engine that seems to take the wetness right out of stoytelling. The interface is a clue enough, but combined with the obstinate conviction that Storytron should remain “pure” and avoid flashy front-ends, or things like character body postures and any sort of expressive text, and you can’t help but feel that the revolution hasn’t yet arrived.

That said, I’d like to take advantage of the zero overheads involved in their buisiness model and explore the potential of the technology. Though I suspect that Micheal Samyn of the Drama Princess project is correct in his prediction that character interaction in storytron will seem shallow compared to the empathy seen in linear stories, probably because the design of the engine is centered on a single level of interaction that hinges on a homogenous data structure and character model. The character interaction will certainly be better than anything seen in videogames, however, which is why a few dozen people have signed up for their message boards and voiced interest in being early adopters.

But back to the term “storyworld”, as a term to describe everything within a fictional universe. Since some have considered it “marketing” (though I should note for the record that it has been used in narratology for decades, Umberto Eco even used it), I’m interested to hear what better terms you’ve heard or think of would be more appropriate. I like storyworld because it is accessible to industry and academia, but the variety of meanings we’ve ploughed through here is an indication that it may not be as effective. What other terms do you think capture it better?

I’d like to add too that I’ve loved talking this through with you guys. It has been really good fro me to clarify what I’m talking about and an absolute thrill to talk about it with people who understand narrative and are working with emerging forms. And yes Corvus, I understand why you describe story, narrative and plot: you’re having multiple conversations at once!

Cheers, Christy

Mostly agreed, hence my acknolwedgement that I’m arguing more of a tangent than a point. What grinds my gears, to quote Peter Griffin, is rather when the new mechanics are used to cover up or excuse lack of a story. Or rather, “even if you don’t systemize, at least fictionalize”. Or. Something. English grads are allowed to invent new words right?

Craig:
Also, I couldn’t freaking STAND Half Life 2. It was one of the most poorly designed games I’d ever seen. As for “story”, I considered it the second weakest portion of the game, right behind the vehicle levels.

*tips hat*

Josh: Personally, I don’t care if the narratives generated by stuff I’m involved in creating don’t stand up to the canon of linear literature, though I think they might be able to stand up to the story seen in some decent anime series’ or maybe Grimm’s fairy tales. When designing an interactive play experience, the key is the experience, not the rules or fiction alone but the confluence between them. I think focusing on including social challenge and character empathy in a game experience is a more useful goal than including narrative cohesion. The latter’d be nice, but I think the prior would be enough to prompt the player to fabulize their own sort of experiential cohesion.

It seems like you’re argument is “why try to systematize story elements when we can’t even write a decent storyline for a game”, and theres something to this. But consider that all games are composed of rules and fiction, even a system where the rules deal with story from the bottom-up. So your argument is actually parrallel to the problems of designing and engineering dramatic game systems, good writing is always a good thing, but good writing alone won’t bring this art form to fruition.

Christy: while I share your optimism regarding transmedial storytelling, and what I think (perhaps radically) are its logical conclusions: pervasive gameing/storytelling, social reimagining, the dissolution of the difference between the real and virtual – Crawford’s use of the term is distinct from yours. He means “storyworld” in a specific sense of something playable made with Storytron, and in a more general sense of something playable made with the Facade technologies or another drama engine. I’m pretty sure he isn’t terribly interested in transmedial storytelling, he’s interesting in interactivity first and foremost. That said, Storytron might make for some good literary and film adaptations, I’d personally like to do a storyworld based on The Aristocrats. Just picture that.

There will always be a place for linear storytelling, but like Corvus, I think that we can use a more robust, interactive form of storytelling in games. The fact that most of our good stories to date have been using classical methods means nothing: we have had two thousand years to focus on those methods, and have had around ten years to try to figure out the new methods.

Also, I couldn’t freaking STAND Half Life 2. It was one of the most poorly designed games I’d ever seen. As for “story”, I considered it the second weakest portion of the game, right behind the vehicle levels.

Re: Corvus’ comments:

I think a good push can allow you to create a very powerful game world, and it sounds like you agree. I think our primary disagreement on that matter is level of pushing.

I think that a talented guide is critical to establishing and maintaining a cohesive world. Moreover, I think that the central “pushed plot” needs to affect everyone in the game world, to allow for a level of useful cohesion. This sounds like it’s somewhat more aggressively centralized than your ideas.

I’ll disagree with only the use of a single word … need. My problem with a lot of the debate in general on storytelling and games is the focus that games shouldn’t behave as traditional mediums do … that you must use participation or tangents or something to form a powerful narrative.

When in truth, what’s really happening is making an already difficult task all that much more difficult. Telling a really good linear story with nothing more than pen and paper is hard enough. What I fear is that people, in the pursuit of dynamic story engines or AI based actors or whatnot, will forget that sometimes the good old fasioned method is still a tried and true one.

And I know it’s my favorite kicking boy, but I need to go no further than Half-Life 2. Everyone marvels at how Valve doesn’t intrude on “your” participation as Gordon. And it’s grand that the game never relies on normal cinematics …. so …

A game considered an epitome of advanced game storytelling has no real protaganist and very little plot. I don’t see this as evolution. The Sims is also a favorite son of the interactive story crowd and yet, I have yet to hear a compelling narrative being built from it.

Again, I acknolwedge I’m largely speaking on a tangent here … moaning more about perhaps, what could happen if one didn’t do something rather than try something completely new. I’m all for the completely new. But I’d say that the game industry still hasn’t learned the lesson that Doom’s story didn’t suck because of anything dealing with technology … but rather that it had a bad story.

Or to put it another way … were I to choose which built a better narrative … Max Payne or Half-Life 2 or Sims … Max Payne will win every time. And it was built on little more than 2D panels and linear plot. If Doom had used the exact same mechanism … completely plausible with it’s level of tech, we might still be talking about the story it told today.