Overview of my posts on interactive storytelling

Here's an overview of all the posts I've written on interactive storytelling, to help organize my thoughts on it.

 

On the sort of interactive storytelling I'm interested in. 

Using interaction in a narrative media to enhance the focus on character perspective - sketching a high-level vision (Feb 2018)

My idea for a form of interactive storytelling involves using interaction to help put the player in the character's shoes. Imagine being able to understand a different culture by 'living it'.

Some thoughts on how this could be done. 1st person or 3rd person over-the-shoulder point of view. QTE-like interactions for immersion rather than challenge. To initiate elements of an activity, and to shift where the character's looking at or focusing on. Potentially text labels on the QTE targets, indicating what the action the player will do, to help them understand what the character's about to do.

Accurate 1st person visuals would be confusing - the interaction could make it more comprehensible. Lots of 'day in the life' details would be tedious in a non-interactive format. Interactivity could make it more engaging. 

Potentially narration from the character, about what they're doing and thinking. 

Possibly engage the player by having them predict or anticipate what the character's going to do, and in some small way reward them for correctly doing so.

Fictional realism (Jan 2024) 

Related to the previous post, I think interactivity could be useful for presenting 'fictional realism' - fiction that is trying to accurately portray real details (like a real time and place). It may have a strong plot, or it may sacrifice that to some extent in order to provide more 'slice of life' details. Interaction to increase immersion. To put the player in the character's shoes. To let the player experience what it's like to be that character. So to go beyond 'show, don't tell' to 'experience, don't show or tell'.

 

Some useful concepts for talking about interactive storytelling. 

"Strong" vs "loose" narratives (Aug 2022)

There's a spectrum between strong and loose narratives. In a strong narrative, everything that happens is there to contribute to the overall details of the story (like its dramatic arc, and themes). A coherent whole. Events build on what came earlier. Details that don't contribute to the overall story are cut. Loose narrative details don't contribute much to a clear overall story. Real life is a loose narrative. I argue that strong narratives generally mean better storytelling.

Behavior-psychology congruence (Jan 2024) 

Behavior-psychology congruence is important for storytelling. A character's "psychology" is their character and mental state. Their behavior should be congruent with their psychology -- it should reflect their psychology (as well as their circumstances). Control over a character, in a game, can lead to a lack of such congruence. The character's behavior will tend to reflect, to some extent, the player's psychology. 

 

Choice & narratives, and separating narratives from interaction (Aug 2022)

Choices cause a looser narrative. Interactivity in story-focused games is often used to provide the player with choices. The game may provide tens or hundreds of potential (interrelated) stories, with the player's choices determining which one they experience. It's difficult to construct that many different strong narratives. And pretty much impossible to do so if they're overlapping, as strong narratives don't "live close together" in "narrative space".

It's not obvious when a narrative is loose. In a loose narrative, the moment-to-moment storytelling may look like what could appear in a non-interactive work with strong storytelling (like a novel or movie). But a strong narrative is about how all the moment to moment contribute to the overall story, so it's easy to overlook the lack of a strong narrative. It concerns larger-scale story details.

Why the narrative is separate from the interaction. Choices give the player some agency. There can be a puzzle-like element to choose well to get better outcomes. The overall "interactive storytelling" package is narrative plus choices. It's easy to assume if the overall package is great, the storytelling must be great. But interactivity (gameplay) is separate from narrative. The choices determine what happens, and thus what specific narrative the player experiences. The narrative is the result of the interactions, which aren't part of it.

Interactive storytelling containing interactive gameplay segments and separate non-interactive, story-focused segments (Aug 2022) 

Many games alternate between interactive gameplay segments with loose narratives, and non-interactive (or with limited interaction) cutscenes with strong narratives. How the gameplay affects the storytelling. The gameplay puts large gaps between each bit of strong storytelling, effectively diluting the storytelling. The gameplay segments also constrain the types of narratives that can work in the story-focused segments. The overall plot has to be compatible with being repeatedly put on hold, for long periods of time, during the gameplay segments. And the plot has to be compatible with what the player character undertakes during the gameplay segments. In such games, the gameplay's the main focus, and the storytelling is used to enhance the overall experience. Not where the storytelling's the main focus, and the gameplay enhances the overall experience.

Control over a character means an abstracted existence in the game world, which makes storytelling difficult (Aug 2022)

At each moment in a movie, there are the "performance details" (the acting performances, involving their posture, body language, movements, facial expressions). These reflect the characters' personality, intentions, and mental state. These are abstracted away in games when the player has control over a character. The player couldn't have control over them. The player can say what action to do (e.g. 'walk forwards') but can't control the acting performance details of the action. So the posture and movement animations (like for walking) tend to be always exactly the same. Abstracted and generic. This makes it difficult to have strong storytelling while the player has such control.

Action-mirroring control schemes (Jan 2024) 

Action-mirroring control schemes are found in several story-focused games. To increase immersion, the input approximates something of the nature of the action to be performed. E.g. a window that can be slid to the left to open may be opened by pushing left on the joystick. Or a cup of coffee may be stirred by making a circling motion with the joystick. Or mashing a button to try to escape the grasp of a bad guy. This post explores all the different kinds of such control schemes, and considers how successful they are at increasing immersion. We argue they don't provide much immersion, and the immersion they do provide is for doing pretty basic tasks, so aren't very meaningful. They don't feel like doing the actual task. When we do these basic tasks in reality we tend to do them on autopilot (without thinking about how we're doing it).

We want a control scheme that more closely matches how we perceive and undertake actions. I argue that the one used in Beyond: Two Souls is more effective in this regard.

 

Audio and audiovisual logs (Aug 2022)

What they are and how they work. "Audiovisual logs", like found in "Everyone's Gone To The Rapture" and "Tacoma", are where the player sees a past scene unfolding, as if it was presently happening in the location the player is at. The role of these two kinds of logs in gameplay and storytelling.

Environment and storytelling (Jan 2024) 

Looking beyond just audio and audiovisual logs to all the ways a video game's environment can contribute to the storytelling in the game, and how effectively each of these contribute to the storytelling. Also, why environmental storytelling (e.g. letters and audio logs) contributing to backstory is more heavily used in games. And why games aren't suited to the strongest form of visual storytelling, 'visual action'. And some ways of using environmental storytelling that haven't been exploited.

 

Activity-and-Choice Story-Games (Jan 2024) 

A newer genre of story focused games that evolved out of point-and-click adventure games. Comparing the storytelling in these two types of games. In these games the puzzles are replaced by activities and choices.

Having a puzzle-focus restricts the storytelling. It has to be a story in which the main character solves puzzles. In which the plot can only be progressed by solving puzzles, which slows pacing. The gameplay is more part of solving the open puzzles rather than part of a particular story beat. Interactions with (and looking at) objects and other characters are primarily in service of the player solving puzzles.

Activities - character has a task or goal. A specific narrative situation. Player interacts with objects to complete it. Usually there's minimal challenge. It's there to provide some interaction that progresses the story. E.g. getting all the items from home to bring to a party (eg snacks, drinks, a blanket, money). Choices - explicit choices of what to do or say. Choice may need to be made within a time limit. These enable interactions with (and looking at) objects and other characters to be story-focused.

 

Cutscenes with interactivity (Jan 2024) 

The kinds of cutscenes in video games, and how interactivity in them affects the strength of their storytelling. The benchmark is 'visual-action storytelling'. There's the basic non-interactive cutscenes. QTE-and-choice cutscenes introduce basic interactivity. During-Gameplay Cutscenes enable more player control, at the expense of weaker storytelling.

Wolf Tivy and Christopher Sommer on what it takes to do novel work

Two pieces that resonate with my approach to life and to what I'm working on.

The first is Quit Your Job, by Wolf Tivy (Jan 2022). I came across it via this tweet from Kevin Kelly.

In society, there's always new problems to address and new things to create to make things better. You can live your life within other people's existing visions of problems to address and things to create. You can chase money and use that money to consume. But there's also the important task of creating a vision -- defining what are the new problems to address and things to create. And then going after that vision.

This essay is about what it takes to create and execute on such a vision, and how that really can't be done within the confines of a job. You need extended periods of freedom to explore. Thus, "Quit Your Job".

(Doing so is a good way for a person to use wealth they've obtained. It may be difficult for people with a family, unless they're rich. But it's easier than most people think, to live cheaply for an extended period of time, while working things out. And it's definitely possible to do if you're willing to be poor for an extended period, as I have been). 

Here's a sample of it:

The key implication is that while you have not yet found the unique opportunity that will be the engine and purpose of your empire, you have to adjust your sense of value. Value is very legible within a clear plan to reach a clear objective. But you cannot pursue interesting novelty—things that no one else is doing or which you have never seen before, or the little threads of nagging curiosity or doubt—by chasing along known direct value gradients. But that’s where the treasure is. That’s how you will find the place where you need to build. To get the biggest and most interesting payoffs, you have to start by chasing merely interesting novelty in an open-ended way.

Working even a good job cramps your sense of possibility, imposes narrow objectives, and eats away at the little things that could grow into big things if they weren’t so oppressed by the rigors of existing structure. I’ve seen this with my friends, in how they are full of ideas and adventurous spirit a few months after I convince them to quit their jobs. The world is full of ideas and opportunities to explore, but it takes time outside of structure to even adjust your eyes to the landscape of possibility. You are cramped by your job, unable to make the class of investments that is necessary for a life beyond the existing tracks.

If your role in the universe is structured work within order found and built by someone else, those off-road investments are pointless. This conventional work is usually more immediately valuable than anything you could do on your own and it does not require much open-ended exploratory leisure. This efficient pursuit of predictable value is the quiet dignity of the mass of working people. But if we are to solve the bigger structural, spiritual, and intellectual problems which aren’t addressed by existing institutions, someone needs to be exploring off of the established road, where there is a high probability of failing to accomplish anything at all, and a significant probability of discovering and exploiting the next big breakthroughs.

[...]

If you have the resources to spend some time exploring, if you are on to interesting threads of novelty that few other people have, and if you have the spirit to tighten your belt, throw out your map, and explore off-road, then your real job is to do so. It is a grave sin to neglect that kind of cosmic duty. But many more people have the means and privilege to quit their tracked careers than ever realize it and act on it. You need far less than you think to live in monk mode and pursue this kind of exploration. What this means in practice is that at some point far before you are or feel ready, you need to quit your job.

[...]

True ascent beyond the kept life comes only from taking bold, determinate leaps of faith on real constructive projects. [...]

To make such bets you must be indifferent at some level to whether you end up a king or a monk, or even dead. The indeterminate hedge-trader with his logarithmic utility function assigns infinite negative utility to ruin. The man of action serenely regards ruin as the most likely possible outcome, mitigates it where he can, and leaps anyway. He rejects the comfortable half-existence of drifting with the indeterminate human tide and manifests his bold vision into the world. Ruin is largely an illusion in the modern world anyway. If you lose everything you own, you generally still have your network and skills. Even a nominally risk-loving financial utility function is overly conservative in practice because it’s hard to lose these intangible assets.

Life necessarily involves these fatal leaps of faith—bets which you have no certain way of knowing will work out but which define your whole existence and require your intense effort. [...] The highest returns of life and glory come from taking hard bets on your best visions of the future and being able to make them work through dedicated struggle.

[...]

No one can or should be the lone overman who defines all value for himself. We need to cooperate with and defer to each other to make society possible. But even if we individually can only bite off a small piece of the overall purpose structure of our society to manage ourselves, we need to actually do that far more than we do now. For any given question of ends, someone, somewhere, must be taking responsibility. Someone must make that leap of faith to define ends for the rest of us to work towards. No one else is going to do it. Why not you?

[...]

to actually accomplish at your full potential, you have to start doubling down on particular bets long before you know that you can follow through. You won’t see the whole path when you begin. You will have no way of knowing whether it exists, or whether what you are pursuing is even possible. If you have more certainty than that, you aren’t aiming high enough. You have to bet your life on faith that the universe will provide if your vision is good enough.

[...]

Perhaps this is why our society has been so stagnant and uncreative in some ways for the past 50 years. We chose the path of comfort, certainty, measurable progress, and indeterminate hedging of bets. In our cowardice, we turned away from the uncertain leaps of faith of collective struggle after fatal ends that would have demanded us to truly live.

Read the full essay here.

 

The second piece is by former US National Team gymnastics coach, Christopher Sommer. It's from an email he sent to Tim Ferriss that was included in Tim Ferriss's 5-Bullet Friday email of 28 Sep 2024.

We live in a world where people try to manage everything, to make everything productive and efficient. There's deadlines for most things. Things should be done within certain time frames. To not be working to deadlines is seen as to be lazy, unfocused, or sloppy.

Yet this is not true for everything. Developing skills and undertaking creative tasks don't work this way. Trying to fit them into time frames will tend to lead to failure. They take how long they take. This especially applies for the tasks of creating a vision -- defining new problems to address and things to create -- and chasing after that vision, that the first, Wolf Tivy, piece was about.

The approach Sommer describes really reasonates with my own approach to research.

Here's the full text of it:

In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals. Unreasonable expectations timewise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure. Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process.

The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home.

A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.

And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end.

Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are not encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best.

Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes.

If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to. Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.