JoeJ said:

I can not list a single example of a game where character centric ‘live’ storytelling (cutscenes, talking NPCs) actually works for me.
But i can list many working examples of alternatives: Narrative FPS or Walking Simulator, picking up audio logs or notes, showing reprises, mostly about events from the past, avoiding the live events.
I think this is because those latter approaches spur imagination, while the former prevents this, and also NPCs even if recorded never feel alive in games.
Personally i tend to believe that maybe we just can't do storytelling like the movies do. We have our own ways, which are better no matter how big the budget is. But not sure, since my personal impression may be subjective and shared by a majority.

There is just differences is what draws attention, what players cares about and things like absorption.

I prefer single-player games where I have companions or close connection to NPCs. Here are some of them I enjoyed for the relationship: Darkside Detective, Horizon Zero Dawn, Baldurs Gate 3, Wasteland 3, The Last of Us, Life is Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Outer Worlds, A Plague Tale, Days Gone, Broken Sword, The Walking Dead, Beyond Two Souls, The Last Guardian, Uncharted, The Witcher 3, Thronebreaker, Cyberpunk 2077, God of War (2018), Firewatch, Detroit Become Human, Half Life 2, Disco Elysium, GreedFall, Blackwell series, Beneath a steel sky.

I find the level of presence in Cyberpunk 2077 phenomenal. It was also really good in Half Life 2 and most of the game I listed here. The Walking Dead series takes the price where The Final Season made me sob for days.

aigan said:
My goal would be something like Cyberpunk 2077, but the first step would be a text-only game with an abstract description of events and without any dialogue.

Why not both? Dynamic characters in an action adventure, but avoiding the static restrictions of static dialogue. I mean, for the last step as well.
Personally i see almost no other way, aside of some key scenes maybe where dialogue is required.

I want the dialogue. But with a systemic game, you could just configure the game to your taste. That is one of the reasons why this has the potential to be much better than anything previously done.

To me, the disliking of dialogue dates back even to early graphics adventures. I loved Zak McCracken, but in Monkey Island they talked too much. I was bored and never finished the game.

I realize just now that it's probably dialogue which breaks story telling in so many games for me.
Probably that's just me. But omitting it makes ideas about dynamics, freedom and emergent options so much easier.

And I would prefer to skip the violence. Don't want to hurt people, regardless of how bad or evil they are supposed to be. And a systemic game could adapt to that.

But it's also, in my opinion, a big problem with hand-written dialogue, that all the things said lack relevance for the things you actually do in the game. If something is said, it should be things I can use to improve my chances to achieve my goals in the game. That alone, will categorize almost every line of text in games today as useless.

And the game can't let the player act on the information since that would introduce branches. That is, if a player hears a bit of information about where to go, the game would have to force the player to go there, since that is the story the designer created. And that takes away the choice to do anything else, and thus takes away the need for the player to actually take in the information given. They will just let the game guide them to the next part.

Some players would not want a more unguided experience, but there are those who do.

JoeJ said:

aigan said:
There are plenty of sandbox games. Many of them have some measure of simulated physics. I think they can be a lot better, but it’s at least something. There hasn’t been a game yet that does the same thing with story. That is, doing story through systemic interactions.

A story sandbox - how on earth should this be possible?
I'll read on, but in case you don't, i really would love to hear about some examples…

Gee. Never write in browser. … Gave lots of examples and it all disappeared when I accidentally pushed the wrong button. This version may be shorter…

aigan said:
As hinted by Watch Dogs Legion, you can talk to a person, and that person will be woven into the existing narrative.

Interesting. But i know only the first WD game, which was pretty good imo.

WD Legions was not good but had an interesting concept and did some things well:

aigan said:
The tone can adapt to the player. If the player behaves silly, it could use story rules from action-comedy. If the player is careful, it can take more from a thriller. If the player is flirty, it could use rules from romance stories. If the player is a murder-hobo, it will take rules from outlaw stories.

How? I mean, we could raise the budget to 5 billions, making content of 10 AAA games, then tailoring to the players style simply by selecting content.

You don't do it by hand-written branches and dialogue and quests. It's not about producing content. You do it by producing systems.

Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of systems but the story and quests are all hand-written. But there is a small part of systemic story in the game. When you get caught stealing or committing a crime, there is a system that lets you get out of the situation by lying, charming, bribing, returning the item or excusing yourself. Sadly, it doesn’t connect very well with what else is going on in the situation, since everything else is hand-written.

It will take a AAA developer a lot of work over many years to reach the fidelity of popular story-based games. But the same thing can be done much easier with lesser fidelity. As I said, my plan is to start out with no graphics and only high level plot-points. A sort of interactive story-outline generator. Next step would be the scene level. After that it would be the beat level. After that comes additional work on systems for psychology and sociology. Only after that could you start with something similar to dialogue. That would be at version 6 or later.

The beat-level version 3 could look something like:

You: Ask about <person 1> in regards to <event 2>.

Them: Tells you that <person 1> did the following things during <event 2>: …

So this would be a cooperative NPC, that has a specific memory of an event that included a specific person. Could also ask about places, objects, relationships, and so on. And with the person's own goals and allegiances, it could lie about it or express different emotions related to the topic.

This is part of my explanation in another discussion a couple of years ago:

You will have beliefs about places, people, events, things, values, and can use those when talking to other characters in the game. That means that "persuade" is not a skill check, but rather a question about actually selecting something that the character cares about. If part of the story is to stop a specific character, you could do it by: Murder. Incapacitation through wounds. Incapacitation by restricting movement. Capture. Convince or force the person to another place. Interrogation for finding other ways to stop its plan. Make the person change their goal by charming or intimidating. Convince or trick the person to stop. Use trade to make a deal. Distract the person as to sabotage its plan. Spread true or false reputation about the person to other characters or factions. Use leverage or threats with something the person cares about.

You can look at the Sims for another example of abstracted character interactions.

But this really goes too far?
I'd rather hope on procedural content generation in this case, which now becomes possible using generative AI. But i'm not optimistic regarding quality. I expect boredom worse than ever, artificial and strange experiences, and i even hope such attempts will fail.

No need for generative AI. In fact; it’s not possible to do with LLMs.

JoeJ said:

aigan said:
For every type of story theme, there are variations that can be mapped to the player stalling, shortcutting, succeeding or failing.

Still sounds like exponential growth of production efforts.

But it depends on how you tell the story eventually.

Personally i have a vague idea which maybe is similar. It's about generating cool action movie situations around the player. Some background task could analyze the gameplay, preparing things like an ambush, an helicopter coming buy so the player can jump on it, or adjusting traffic during a car chase so pursuers crash into oncoming traffic, etc.
That's difficult, but surely doable. And if action movies tell a story, then this would count as story too.

So what do you mean? Physical events and spectacle like in my example, or character centric events affecting relationships, dialogue, drama, …true story with a deeper meaning?

Yes.

Those types of world events have been done in many games. But usually not connected to the main story. All threads should connect.

The goal is to do it with the main story and everything around it, including all relationships and drama, in a meaningful emotional way.

The first versions would include a very limited set of possible story developments. And as a result, it would be a rather short story and be mostly similar on each playthrough, even if places and persons are moved around. But I have planned for a way to do it so that a single person could make something interesting and engaging, within a reasonable development time.

The replayability will come from each additional system mixing in with everything that is already implemented. And the stories will combine several competing conflicts, relationships and goals, in a similar way to how much drama does it today, using mostly the same components for the thousand time. Stuff like repressed resentments, goals of finding a new life, combining composed exterior with visible enthusiasm for their specific hobbies, romances, and so on. Each and every one will have to be implemented as their own systems. But then they can be combined in millions of ways.

If you think about it, most games doesn't have that complicated drama. It all works since you go through shared setbacks, with the connection and emotions communicated through body language and the like. Let the NPC confide in you in the right moment, making themselves vulnerable. … The story rules are not infinite. You don't need that much to make something that would work well compared to games of today.

As you said, you could do it even without using words. Just let the companion hesitate before taking your hand when you help them up the cliff.

aigan said:
A computer can check the constraints against thousands of variations finding a better match than any tabletop game master would.

Yes, but that's not the problem. The problem is how to generate the content?

Content?! Where we're going We don't need Content!!!

It's all systemic. 🙂

The coming game Judas has a bit of systemic story by connecting dialogue through thousands of recorded clips. But I think that is too much of a limitation. We are very close to being able to generate a voice complete with the specific person's personality, emotions, heart rate, and so on. For that level of fidelity, you would need a bit of machine learning. But that is the edge expression of all the systems behind it.

For expressions and body language, the Witcher 3 did pretty good with their systemic gesticulation, even if they did a lot of manual adjustments for the more important interactions.

JoeJ said:

The primary question is simply: WHAT can a player do in a future game, which he could not do in former games already?
The control scheme does not answer this? Currently we have just combat, puzzles, and finding the way to the exit. What more actions could we want to do in a game? Getting a different hairstyle or more strength points does not count. That's no actions.

This is a different topic from systemic story. But it's part of what I would like to use in a future action-adventure game. But I would have more focus on exploration, traversal, investigation and dialogue.

The suggested control scheme is for making a consistent way to interact with the world that also has a fast and easy way for almost everything that is commonly done in those types of games and still leave plenty of room for game-specific controls. Apart from basic collecting, traversal and combat, you would interact with the world by gripping things and using push, pull, lift, rotate and so on. I also described how to use parts of objects, also basically by directing the hand with high precision.

But you would be first with providing me some answer to this question, so i'll try to answer yours.

Imagine there is a stack of boxes on a table, and a big empty box on the ground.
Your task is to move all small boxes into the big box, but you have to rotate them so they fit, like Tetris.
Yow would you do this?

The generic way would be to walk around the big box while holding the smaller boxes. That way you wouldn't need rotation.

But I also have several ways to rotate things. For example by inspecting the item and then rotating it, similar to how you can inspect items in Uncharted or Tomb Raider or Last of Us. While inspecting, you can move the object to the other hand, holding it in it's rotated form, provided that it's not an object with specific limited grip points. (see “Inspecting”)

A third way to do it is as described under “widgets” . This one is contextual, meaning that the specific object is tagged as something you want to rotate. That would make it work similar to things like steam valves or keys, that you rotate by rotating the right stick. The rotation direction is controlled by the type of object. (See ”Widgets")

All of these ways are consistent throughout the game. The player could transfer the knowledge from previous experience with other stuff. No need for guessing or special button-prompts.

These actions uses inspect or focus to let the sticks rotate the object rather than moving the head or body.

I would also probably use a bit of item-snapping to make it line up optimally if it's close.

JoeJ said:

aigan said:
That was a description of NetHack. It was done in the 80s. And I guess the same holds true for Minecraft and several other systemic games. Just not for any story games. Yet.

against other objects, all with a usual 3D gizmo. I did this for debugging, but it's actually fun, i tell you.
But i'm not really serious about it. ; )

The game doesn't have to implement all of physics. But if there is a physics implementation, it should apply to everything in the game, or at least in a way so that the player can learn the outcome of their actions.

In the case of NetHack, it does this perfectly, by not introducing anything that's not integrated with everything else. In this case, by not using physics or graphics of any kind.

Often heard about NetHack, but i never played it. Might try.

Personally i've made a mobile puzzle game about interactive blocks and predictable NPCs. Movement like Sokoban, but i 've added any puzzle mechanics you have ever seen in such games, some new ones, multiple floors so it became 3D, etc. It even had crafting, and could do everything Minecraft has done much later. There were many potential interactions of multiple objects, it was rich in options.

That sounds fund and interesting. Link?

But are you sure about it having all mechanics I seen in sokoban games?

NetHack has Sokoban, and you can use the things you have learned in the game to solve them. For example, you can usually press yourself between two stones if you take off all your clothes and drop all your stuff. You have countless of spells and other systems you could use. Polymorph yourself or objects. Teleportering, digging, using all sorts of spells, and so on. The sokoban levels has some sort of magic limiting some of the options, but there is still much you could figure out to do if you get stuck.

It did not make me rich, but everybody really liked it. They felt creative and smart while playing it. It made them smile.
There always was just one way to solve a puzzle, but it did not feel like that. It felt much more like creative exploration.

A systemic game would have problems rather than puzzles, since you can't control what options the player will have in the situation. There has to be systems for different ways the player gets stuck.

This sticks with me. Rich, but not overwhelming. You did not need to memorize and master complex mechanics to build up skill incrementally, since every level was just a entirely different problem.
Surely something i'd like to bring to a 3D action game.

Yes.

NetHack looks somehow similar, although i guess it's turn based.

Sort of. But it's not turns. Every action takes a specific amount of fractions of seconds, depending on lot of factors, and the world will move ahead that amount of ticks after your move.

There are actually multiplayer versions of NetHack that uses floating time-scales where you still uses turns, but allow for the other players to move without waiting for you, but it will sync the time the closer the players are to each other.

There are lot of later games that also done cool things. Lot of them inspired by NetHack. But most of them has less systems and less consistency. But NetHack is just a systemic environment and shares that with many other sandbox games.

I have been waiting ever since for the next evolution. The systemic story.

aigan said:
On the top level you would pick a conflict such as envy, greed, health, poverty, and so on. Using that constraint, pick more things on lower levels, until you get down to the inciting incident. And keeping everything not observed open for change in order to adapt to the player's actions.

Sounds reasonable, but it's still hard for me how it would look like, and how to implement it.

I've tried the NetHack game, but it's hard to get an idea of how to play it at all. I do not understand the interface at all. Usually i lack the patience to explore such games well enough.

But i think a made some progress of understanding your vision. At least i have moved my assumptions.

I think about it more like a text adventure. (Not a 10b$ AAA game with infinite content.)
The story describes or revolves around the state of the game. Even if the game is complex, and likely it should be for the idea to make sense at all, adaptive and procedural story seems possible.
Regarding terms, ‘description’ rather than ‘story’ makes a big difference here for me, if i'm on the right track.
The association of ‘procedural or dynamic' story just sounds too ambitious / naive at first, and 'systemic' sounds a lot like marketing promise lacking a actual meaning. But that just said to give you some feedback on how hard it probably is to transport your vision to others.
Now i guess you want to enrich the description somehow, so it becomes more of a story.

I remember some games, the first one is Façade

there's an experimental game being developed called Ultima Ratio Regum

https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/​

where virtually everything is procedurally generated

(editor crash - be very careful with posting links btw, always copy your test to the clipboard first, so you still have it after a crash!)

Facade is about character relationships. If you missed it, surely interesting.
And there were similar, purely text based games before that inspired it.
Though, with generative AI on the rise, this surely feels prehistoric pretty soon. But still interesting, impressive and very out of the norm.

The other game is Disco Elysium. Probably even further away from your idea, but idk.

aigan said:
That sounds fund and interesting. Link?

It's all gone, but i still have some gifs:

Not as complex as NetHack for sure, but accessible. ; )
The goal was to get the cone-shaped, one-eyed guys into the black holes on the floor in indirect ways.

It's pretty easy to make such games on a quantized grid with top down view.
The quantization makes everything predictable, and the top view gives oversight.
In a modern 3D action game, you have nothing of this.
The primary problem is the player can't observe the complex, entangled causes and reasons, and giving him feedback is almost impossible.
To me, that's really the primary design problem we want to solve. We have sacrificed so much for 3D. Bringing some things back would enable new games, even without much invention on other fields.

@joej said:

aigan said:
On the top level you would pick a conflict such as envy, greed, health, poverty, and so on. Using that constraint, pick more things on lower levels, until you get down to the inciting incident. And keeping everything not observed open for change in order to adapt to the player's actions.

Sounds reasonable, but it's still hard for me how it would look like, and how to implement it.

I've tried the NetHack game, but it's hard to get an idea of how to play it at all. I do not understand the interface at all. Usually i lack the patience to explore such games well enough.

There are many games with similar levels of complexity today. It's still just systemic environment. But if trying nethack, your would probably have a list of all the keyboard commands by your side. And the goal at the beginning would be to go down to level 20.

But i think a made some progress of understanding your vision. At least i have moved my assumptions.

I think about it more like a text adventure. (Not a 10b$ AAA game with infinite content.)
The story describes or revolves around the state of the game. Even if the game is complex, and likely it should be for the idea to make sense at all, adaptive and procedural story seems possible.
Regarding terms, ‘description’ rather than ‘story’ makes a big difference here for me, if i'm on the right track.
The association of ‘procedural or dynamic' story just sounds too ambitious / naive at first, and 'systemic' sounds a lot like marketing promise lacking a actual meaning. But that just said to give you some feedback on how hard it probably is to transport your vision to others.
Now i guess you want to enrich the description somehow, so it becomes more of a story.

I just see the story as a collection of interactions with persons with goals, feelings, memories, plans, goals, mental states and so on. Just one variable of the NPC can be presented as “He seems nervous”. … What more do you want for it to classify as a story?

I remember some games, the first one is Façade

I played it.
Along with Prom Week an many more.

You can see a lot of games mentioned on my playlist at:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbvfm0ge12qm-Vim6VPNm1Ehop-WLgAbS​

@hypnotr0n said:

there's an experimental game being developed called Ultima Ratio Regum

https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/​

where virtually everything is procedurally generated

I seen it and listened to a couple of his presentations. Its interesting. But its very far from the type of systemic story I'm looking for. I want a story that will engage me similar to what exist in the best story-driven games. That usually includes companion relationships.