Let''s call it "Bob"

"When i was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of
the corner of my mind. I turned to look, but it was
gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has
grown, the dream has gone." -Pink Floyd

JSwing, you''re my hero.

Well, interactive is a buzzword, it won''t stand the test of time. Intertainment also. Let''s face it, you interact with EVERYTHING, it''s not that special. Now being able to CONTRIBUTE to a story, even by simply making decisions, that''s what we''re at. It''s a subtle difference, but it will make or break a name.

Interactive book relies on that "interactive" word again. Plus they are far closer to movies now than books.

Morfe, I don''t think I''m trying to generalize. There are GAMES, and then there are GAMES WITH STORIES. They are very clearly different from each other...

Actually, rather, there are stories with games IN them. Most RPGs are actually not games, just a story with games placed at regular or random intervals to prevent progress until they are completed. That''s the primary difference here... is the whole thing a game or are the games simply acting to compliment something ELSE? See what I''m getting at? This is something far different from tetris, and it needs it''s own name.

Hey... actually, I''m quite happy with that last one. So the question of the whole thread now becomes...


What do you call a visually conveyed story that has trials placed within it to prevent progress until such time as those trials are completed?

And then there''s a different but related genre. What do you call a medium in which decisions made by the user determine what output they get from the medium?


Here I was, believing these two things were the same, but they''re not, you just see them used together a lot. Forget marketing, what do we call these two things?

An adventure game.

A game engine.

So the Final Fantasy series, Starcraft, Dead or Alive 2, and Deus Ex are all adventure games?

Fair enough.

If my computer hangs while typing this one more time...

I agree with Landfish; the "games" we have now are often something more than the original definition was meant to apply to. They also need a different name because they deserve a clean break from the other botched forms of media and all the buzzwords that float around.

As far as stories with tests intermittently placed within them, I have two and a half ideas for names. The first is meant to be humorous, and the other one and a half are hopefully good definitions.

Pay Per View
Lock & Key Story
Lock & Key Media (Hence the 2.5 ideas...)

I like Lock & Key Media best myself. The story is locked at different intervals, but there are keys that will open the story again for the "player" (Rats, another word we may have to redefine!). Media is a good word because then the story isn''t limited to visual media- the story can be portrayed with sound, touch, and maybe one day, smell(!).

I have three ideas for stories that are input driven, and I think each one applies at a different level of "interactivity." (Buzzwords are almost like dirty words sometimes...)

Game Driven Story
Input Driven Media
Synthestory

Game driven stories are those that have simple games and well defined choices or inputs that drive the story; more basic and easily done type of stuff. Input driven media would be those things in which more of the user''s input is taken into account and drives different parts of the medium, not just the story itself. (Let your imagination cook up some things input could drive...) Synthestory would be a medium in which almost all of the user''s actions could be taken into account, and the user would be aware that certain actions would affect the outcome of the story in certain ways, thus allowing the user to influence and Synthesize his own story.

Again, Landfish has amazed me at his ability to use his keen intelligence like a scalpel...

Best regards,
Torus


"Impressive!!!"

Well, let''s examine the other names and where they come from...

narrative: a book or other story that is narrated somehow through an entity or viewer telling the experiences of a person or group of people

Film: strange, developed as a method to take still pictures using a thin film of exposed material, enhanced to expose very quickly in quick succession, then replaced by digital "filming" methods

movie: a further addition to the film, although a newly created word. Conveys the idea that the images are moving, but they move according to someone else''s whim and concepts...a script. We are aiming to come up with this sort of word, a new concept that accurately and concisely depicts the medium

player: the person who "plays" something...play was originally conveyed to mean engaging in entertaining activities

interactive: the player interacts with some an animate person or inanimate object, usually seemingly hollow lifeless images moving and speaking; or throwing bricks around to build stuff; or shooting the moving images until they stop moving...

game: an activity that has a defined set of rules and a single goal - to win. players win by best satisfying the set of rules, ie lose all your cards first, get the most land, kill all the other players, find out who the murderer was, score the most points, etc. appeals because of excitement, interaction with other people

prose: written literature, most simply. static and unchanging. interest and motion arise through the reader''s intelligence, experiences, and imagination. only conveys a narrative or delivers a point, but nobody but the most devout or bored people will sit down and read when they have a million other things to do, it''s not very exciting. takes a while and analysis to understand, which stimulate the mind


so, our new medium doesn''t have "players" as such, because the consumer who uses the product will be not only playing and interacting but observing and receiving passive entertainment and insight. they aren''t only observers or readers though, because they do have a part in the development. it''s not just a "movie" because things do more than just move around as someone else dictates. the user participates in the development of the plot and also watches as the plot unfolds. it''s more than just a "game" because the rules change as the experience unfolds, and there are multiple goals and endings.

so, what words can we come up with to properly convey this concept...? i''m at a loss, but maybe this can stimulate others to come up with creative terms for our developing medium

anthalaris.8k.com

Ah! My goodness! Intelligent reponses! With all the people arbitrarily yelling at me I forgot they existed!

Torus: I can''t say you''ve nailed it, but you obviously have a very good sense for this kind of thing. Keep em coming.

Assassin: yes yes yes. Definitions will solve this, I''m sure of it.

Someone once metioned that many media are named for what they are recorded ON. Film, novels recorded in books became known as just Books, theatre is a medium named for it''s location.

so shall we call it "CD"? or maybe even "hard drive"

"When i was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of
the corner of my mind. I turned to look, but it was
gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has
grown, the dream has gone." -Pink Floyd

Well, what is in a name? What comes to mind when people say "RPG" or "FPS"???

RPG- Some tile based world where you hack everything to death until you hack the final boss of anusaria to peices? Well... Damn me.

FPS- Some 3D-ish world where you have a specified amount of guns that you can pick up and use to shatter everything in a small radius to oblivion.

Hmmm... And you wonder why we want different names? Because I don''t want anybody classing my game like either of these! (BTW... I am not angry, even if it sounds this way)

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche