I was thinking about how and why so many people like freedom of choice and interactivity. I hear a lot of complaints about games that railroad you into a certain choice making them very boring and also not allowing for significant replay value. But what if you could create a game that had direction to it, but you could play it from different perspectives? I never played it, but I think Bladerunner had a concept like this. Essentially, what happened in game time happened irregardless of whether the player did anything or not. For example, if a scripted event was supposed to happen at such a place and such a time and the player wasn''t there, oh well...the player doesn''t see it. Also, if different character types are allowed, why not have some information revealed to certain characters, and different information passed to others? An NPC might be more willing to divulge information to a pretty girl than some Duke Nuke-em wannabe. This way, there is replay value because you get to see a different side to things (maybe even play the bad guy), and there''s more than way to get to your destination. I think a method like this wouldn''t require huge branching logic to determine the state (goal) of the game. Instead the game logic just has to determine what you would be capable of seeing depending on who you are, where you are, and at what time you were there. Branching logic of "If player succeeds at this, then stateA is introduced, else state B happens", and on and on and on (which is what freeform storytelling would require). There''s another option too. Create a "sandbox" in which it feels like the player has total freedom and control, but in reality, he''s just a small player in the role of things. For example, if you have a war as a backdrop, the player can be free to fight wherever he choses. His victories and defeats may affect his little corner of the universe, but the overall scheme of things will not be affected unless the game plot dictates it. For example, no matter how well a player does, the circumstances elsewhere may be dire, and the overall direction of the story goes on unperturbed. What matters here is that that the player feels like he has a choice and thinks he is making a difference. Indeed, in his little corner of the universe, maybe he is, but the grand arching storyline goes on.

Nice idea

COOLNESS!

I still think the problem here lies in the fact that there''s a "destination" at all. My biggest gripe with story-driven games is that there is this climactic ending to my experience, whether I want it or not. The problem with games like Bladerunner is, because of the independent story, you can feel like you missed out. The game will end and you''ll be none the wiser. Go one step futher, adding multiple plots, and you''ll increase the chances of not being left out. Go further still, make multiple successive plots, and your chances of finding something interesting to do go even higher. Keep on extrapolating and you''ll eventually arrive at what could make games finally a legitimate art form: a unique form of expression - a holistic expression of environment. (it''s the dependency of games on linear media that are holding them back from legitimacy. So long as they copy the stylings of movies, they will be nothing more than "copies of movies".)

Also, I think your analysis of "freeform storytelling" is a little flawed. Rather than picturing it as a giant tree, picture it instead as state-reactive, where there isn''t a linear path to each event, but instead events triggered by conditions. In other words, instead of a series of explicit events that cause monsters to invade your city, have the potential for monsters to invade at any point, but only invade when they "decide" it''s a good time.

Keep in mind that I realise my idealism isn''t without costs. The immediate loss is the forced imposition of message-through-story that you gain with traditional storytelling. It''s hard to demonstrate the injustice of war without poignant examples. In return, however, you''re empowering the user to make their own stories and legends from the raw material you provide. In fact, it brings the game from "storytelling" to "story-giving".

As for feasibility, take these two tiny examples of current (potentially unintentional) efforts to accomplish this:

a) Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube. Here, you''re presented with a little town with inhabitants and goings-on in "real time" - one minute of real life is one minute of game time. Townsfolk (or townscreatures, as it were ) go about their lives, you go about your life, and that''s about that. Even when the game is off, it effectively continues to play. The failing here is there just isn''t that much depth. Neither you nor the animals really have much to do. But where it succeeds is in the illusion of reality in that, without forcing me to be anyone, I''m free to play out my little role however I want. Even more impressive is it does so in limited RAM (24 megs of runtime memory - non-volative state saves in under 400k) with a limited processor (533mhz).

b) Nethack, for just about every flavor of UN*X and home operating system under the sun. While I could sing the praises of Nethack (and other roguelikes) until I weas blue in the face, there''s one little bit of it that is often overlooked (and in fact, is left out of a lot of roguelikes). For those who don''t know the concept of roguelikes, every time you enter a new level of the dungeon, it is randomly created. In Nethack, however, when your character dies, there''s a small chance that he will leave his "bones" (and effectively the whole dungeon level) in a preserved state, so that a future dungeon delver make come across it, and end up reliving the dungeon level as it was left by the deceased - and in fact, run into the deceased (usu. appearing as a ghost). This little bit of continuity between sessions does wonder for a story-giving aspect of the game. It also serves as a link between distinct sessions, giving the meta-game additional value. (and, again, the techincal "limitations" of a game like Nethack should serve as a good base of what could be accomplished...)

Aren''t you asking for a living world? Let the creators set it up, or make it randomly generated. But once the game starts, it''s always a new game. The biggest challenge then is content (nethack & hengband are very open-ended but, there just isn''t much to do).

scaught-
I agree that storytelling doesn''t have to take a branching effect approach, but can instead take a cause-effect approach (events only happen because a certain previous event or set of conditions happens to trigger an event).

And while I know many people hate the idea of having direction in a story since that implies a forced story, I believe that what we have here is a struggle between two sides of our psyche.

One side craves independence, freedom and control. We wish to be the masters of our own fate and decide when and what we do. As the old saying goes, happiness can be measured by the degree with which we feel we have control over our lives. The other half though struggles to find meaning in our existence. We look day to day at our affairs and wonder what the common thread is linking them all. We even wonder if there IS a direction in our lives and if we live nothing more than a chaotic meandering of actions. This half yearns for something which provides us direction and meaning.

The notion that players can come up with their own stories implies that they themselves are good storytellers...that they can find meaning and direction within their own actions. This is a very rare (and valuable) trait. Most people are not like that though and don''t know how to create anything meaningful. They flock together and pretty much take a herd mentality. They don''t really know where they are going and some don''t even care until a sheperd comes along and directs them home.

My point is that if you do have the gift of being able to see patterns and tell your own engaging stories out of seemingly random events, then freeform stories are the way to go. But I think the majority of people aren''t able to do this. I''m not sure if you''ve ever played role-playing games of the pen and paper variety, but imagine getting a bunch of players together and that said they didn''t want a GM. They would just cobble together some quick fights and some treasure looting scenarios to pass their time and have fun. It''s not the same as having a GM concoct a story for you I assure you.

It''s the same when I used to play Battletech (the miniature game...not the Mechwarrior computer game). We used to have campaigns with points missions...each side getting so many points and then creating scenario victory conditions. Later when I became a referee...I introduced a running campaign set in the Chas march region and introduced NPC characters that the players interacted (or fought ) with. The players all told me it was much more fun and real when there was a direction to the events I was leading them to (which since they all wanted to play various Houses, I said they were a small mercenary company that would eventually be hired by the St. Ives commonwealth. And this wasn''t a small group of players...by the end I was managing more than a dozen players and ALL of them preferred the story-based campaign to just randomly generating missions and blowing things up.

My experience has shown me time and time again that a well put together story is more enjoyable for players than having pseudo-random events where players have free reign to go and do as they please. Perhaps this sounds cliche, but life is not really about free reign and doing whatever we want. Perhaps deep down we''d like to do this, but I believe that all it would lead us to is an empty feeling. Imagine telling a teenager that they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, no rules, no conditions, no stipulations....and see if they come out with direction and meaning. A few actually will...but the vast majority won''t.

Sorry if I come out sounding very dogmatic but I feel strongly on this issue. I''m not saying you can''t have a quick game without purpose or meaning....just a quickie to blow off some steam. But in the long run, I think having a purpose and direction for the players is a very valuable asset for a game to have. Direction doesn''t always equal story though or even linear for that matter. Just as a circle has a direction and is not linear, neither does a game have to be linear. It does mean that a character is "pushed" along by the flow of the game. The series of events should somehow tie together to provide a context for the players to examine and reflect on. The best kinds of players don''t need this "deus ex machina" to provide them with a story, but I believe that most do...and prefer...this kind of direction once it is given to them in a good package. I personally think the best way is to provide players with a direction, but let them find a purpose and draw meaning from the events on their own.

My biggest gripe with "linear" games is the situation (often in Final Fantasy games) where on the one hand, the plot is trying to railroad you in a given direction at ever increasing speed, while on the other hand, the game mechanics are set up so that if you try and do what the plot wants you to do, you end up getting flattened, so you have to ignore the plot every so often and just concentrate on pumping your characters - sort of loses the whole immersive aspect if you ask me...

I have nothing against games herding you in one direction, it''s games that can''t decide whether to push you or not...

I think one possibility would be to make the "story" something malleable and amorphous (unnecessarily big word alert ;-)).

What you could do is introduce strong "storylines" into a very open-ended game as a sort of expansion pack, where the game engine would fit the beginning of the story somewhere into the events that have occurred, are occuring, and might occur.

For example, a trivial "story" might be "the princess has been kidnapped by the evil Goblin King, go rescue her sorry but cute little butt". Rewriting it a little to be more generic you get "friendly NPC with some power has been imprisoned somewhere by unfriendly NPC with some power". The engine could fit "friendly NPC" to your trusty little dog, "unfriendly NPC" to that gargoyle you ran away from on Level 5, and "somewhere" with that nice little maze of acid pits on Level 3. You''d end up with a potential storyline where the gargoyle attempts to kidnap your dog, takes it to the acid pits, and guards it there until you either pay the ransom or smack him hard with a slightly-decayed pink salmon.

/me slaps MadKeith around a bit with a large trout

:D

(mIRC style)

Reminds me of Run Lola Run. Very time dependant. Creating a domino effect within a toybox area that would change depending on all the object''s interactions.



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