GAM710 Week 02:02 Interactive Narrative - Che Wilbraham

User Experience
User Stories
Personas - Fictional Characters that represent the users that may use the product or service.

Consensual Hallucinations...

Speculative Design - future tech and the relations we foster with them.

Design Fiction -

(The flash fictions of UX/UI - journey through the designs)

Non-Linear Interactive Fiction.

Che Wilbraham - Blog - Branching narrative structure.

Che's portfolio 



ON INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE 

• Narrative  - story linear significance of the story as authored. 
• Interactive - A conversation, Nonlinear, significance by choice. 
• Plot - There is a tension between player agency and the interactive strength. 
• Design - Create a 'possibility space', cant control the events but can control the rules. Can create a story world (Not Storyline), overall narrative/goals and challenges can be defined. 
• Play - The player should be able to make dramatically interesting decisions. Irrelevant/boring decisions should be avoided like the plague! ( :D )    
• Story World - The possibility space of the player 
• Story Line is one played line of experience in the story world.    
• Story Chunks - Choices, Actions, Events and Scenes, Paragraphs, Comic Book Panels. 
• Embedded Narrative - Authored content - cut scenes, exposition, scripted events. 
• Emergent Narrative - Arises from the rules of the system, created by the player, victory/defeat and unusual interactions. 

• Branching narrative - usually the paths split, rejoin and split again. can be costly as much of the content is never seen by the player. eg: choose your own adventure books, digital roleplaying games like Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls. 
• Linear 'Interactive' Narrative - cut scenes - usually the player must repeat a level until they pass and then they can go on to the next level. eg: linear puzzle games - Proff Leyton, hidden object, tomb raider etc. A good player should have access to all of the narrative by the end.
• Sandbox Games - Heavy use of emergent narrative, high interactivity, little predetermined plot. Can feel directionless eg: The sims, Civilisation series, digital exploration/survival games eg: Minecraft. 
• Autonomous Agents - Non player characters act/react under their own drives. play can feel directionless. Light artificial intelligence, virtual pet games... 
• Drama Managers - are outside of the narrative but affect story elements so as to provide a specific user experience. Complex systems monitor and alter numerous items. Could try to maintain story beats or plot coherence. eg: pen and paper director Dungeons and Dragons - The interactive drama facade and the left for dead series, AI Director.   

REFS 

• Crawford Chris on Interactive Storytelling Crawford, Chris. 2012. New Riders.   
• Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman 2004. MIT Press. 
• Facade