Fixing Gamebooks 6: Don't break the story spell

What happens when we add interaction to story?

I've been reading Alan Moore's Writing For Comics. It may be wafer thin but it's a dense, insightful read. One statement got me thinking about my musings on gamebook interactivity...

A successful story of any kind should be almost like hypnosis
Alan Moore

He goes on to argue that a well crafted story pulls you deep under its spell, warning that 'violent' or 'clumsy' elements can easily break the readers self induced hypnosis, snapping them back into reality. For comics, he cites switching between scenes as a particular problem area, it's a moment where a narrative thread is cut and spliced with another. It is a storyteller's duty to handle the transition well and preserve the suspension of disbelief.

What then, would Mr. Moore make of narrative intrusions such as skill tests, dice fights or even just a simple multiple choice menu?! Adding meaningful interactivity to digital stories is an interesting challenge in itself, but even the inclusion of 'desired' interactivity could be disruptive to an audiences sense of immersion. How would a reader react when they suddenly hit a point of interaction like a brick wall?

The Problem With Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 5

Fixing Gamebook Plots

In the previous post in this series I suggested a potential solution to some of the relational issues between reader and character in interactive fiction.  But fixing characters is only half a solution. The other half requires us to address another gamebook problem area, plot.

I will avoid talking about plot in terms of creative writing, there are far better sources for that. Rather I will focus on how the gamebook's strict branching tree format needs to evolve to facilitate better interactive storytelling.

Gamebooks plots are a string of set-pieces.

Simple gamebook plots are often a sequence of interconnected set-pieces. The player moves from scene to scene, the designers assuming that ‘kill the wizard’  or ‘progress through the map’ is a robust enough premise to glue the narrative together.

Although fun, these simplistic romps lack genuine causality. They defy the definition of plot: a causal sequence of events that make up a story. As E.M. Forster explains instead of "The king died and then the queen died" it's better to create a causal relationship between the two events, for example "The king died and then the queen died of grief." Events need to unfold in a logical chain, to create narrative momentum, and pull the reader along with them.

Lord Obliteron

One god, one mission. Purge, expunge, annihilate, eradicate. Sentience is the preserve of mankind, not appropriate for the abominations of the dark.

Gnome innovation: Gnombotics

Gnombotics is the shroomanoid design and manufacture of automatons and prosthetic body parts. Once the preserve of the rich and powerful, the technology is now priced more attractively for a broader market.

The Problem with Gambooks Trilogy - Part 4

Fixing gamebook characters

This post is an overflow from Part 3: Can Gamebooks be fixed? You really should read that first. Better still start from Part 1: Gamebooks are broken. If none of this makes sense don't say I didn't warn you.

The protagonist and characterisation

Gamebook authors have commonly chosen one of two options regarding protagonist characterisation:

1. To anonymise the main character, creating an empty vessel which enables the reader to project their own persona on to the hero, or…

2. To give the main character an identity (with backstory, belief system, strengths, weaknesses, etc...)  in an attempt to create a hero more rooted in the events of the story world.

Both these approaches have flaws.

Weapons Master

The Weapons Master fears nothing.

Well, maybe he's a little scared of his wife. She has forced him into retirement before he loses any more essential body parts. He can now be found teaching in the relative safety of the Dungeoneers Boot Camp.

His job is to take the soft, wide-eyed recruits and turn them into hardened, dungeon-ready delvers. He takes this role very seriously and doesn't suffer fools gladly. He knows failure to properly prepare his students will result in their premature, often inglorious death. This is something he reminds them of frequently, often along with a relevant anecdote about how he acquired one of his many battle scars.

To relax he likes nothing better than to stroke his furry snake.

The Problem with Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 2

How are gamebooks broken?

In Part 1: Gamebooks are Broken I claimed games and books don't mix well. This post is going to attempt to explain the key incompatibilities between game and book.

Why are videogames such a useful comparison?
I use videogames as a primary focus for comparison, because they, more than any other medium, have attempted to address the narrative/interactivity divide.

In their infancy, limited by processing power, videogames were pure interactivity, Pong and Pacman ruled. Narrative was not an option. As the quality of audio/visual delivery grew, so did the aspirations of the game industry. Initially they borrowed heavily from film's storytelling toolkit, as immature mediums often do (like inceptive television broadcasts were merely radio with pictures). Players where now being asked to stop playing and start watching, and so the 'cut scene' was born.

But now more industry voices are joining the argument that games are not the place for traditional narrative. Nintendo's revered videogame innovator, Shigeru Miyamoto, advocates that game designers should forget characters and focus on experiences. Some are claiming narrative heavy adventure games deserved to die.  With the emergence of the indie game scene, a new breed of inventive developers are taking a fresh apporach. For example, The Journey enables players to enjoy an emergent narrative and The Unfinished Swan processes a fragmentary narrative, both a departure from traditional linear storytelling. Unfortunately the mainstream industry hasn't given up on clumsily spoon-feeding us story in attempt to make us 'feel' for their avatars, as the new Tomb Raider attests.

For me, games and linear narrative media are fundamentally different... and here's why:

The Problem with Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 1

Gamebooks are broken

The Mysterious Path project intends to revisit the gamebooks (CYOAs) of the 80's, to reinvigorate the format, to drag the experience into the touch screen age and try and make it relevant again. And lately it feels it's getting harder to drag. It's reluctant to join the 21st century. It's working against me.



An early Mysterious Path wireframe concept. A game comic thing.


I think I always knew something wasn't right, that something was holding me back from diving head first into the project... but I wasn't sure what it was (something other than lack of time and talent!)

I started with naive optimism on the possibilities of digital gamebooks.

Later came the angst ridden paralysis where game and narrative modes refused to gel.

Now it feels like the gamebook could be a fatally flawed construct, better left in the museum.

The projects honeymoon period is concluding and I am asking questions that are casting shadows over the direction of Mysterious Path. I know I'm not exactly inventing a new entertainment paradigm, and should just lighten up a bit, but as any meaningful next steps will require significant effort, and possibly expense, it would be nice to have some validation or robust logic to back up any design hypothesis.

So it's time to kick the tyres.

Starfall

Fan art for Tweet RPG, Starfall Rebith. Comic cover.
It's a vote based RPG on twitter give it a try.
Starfall Rebirth is the live adventure... follow it here.

Bum Rush the Titan

Did a blog header for Bum Rush the Titan. It was fun.