Emergent Narrative and Encouraging Emergent Play
Posted: November 10, 2015 Filed under: Art, Fiction, NonFiction, Story, Uncategorized | Tags: Architect of Experience, Art, Blog, Challenge, Dame Developtment, Emergent, Essay, Gamedev, Gaming, Narrative, Narrative Design, Story, Writing 2 CommentsGames have two different kinds of narratives: Explicit and Emergent. Explicit Narrative is the story that the game tells to the player, and Emergent Narrative is the story the player creates for themselves as they play the game.
Perhaps the most noticeable game featuring Emergent Play is Minecraft, which sold to Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars. Since then, Sandbox and Survival games have taken off, generating countless titles, almost all of which are Early Access, only a few of which will ever see completion.
Any time you get your player to say: “I Did ______ in [Insert Game Name]” then you have created Emergent Play [EP].
How do you get your player to put themselves in the place of their avatar? How do you encourage them to make decisions and create their own Narrative?
Mapping Interactive Narrative
Posted: August 21, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Academic, Accepted, Action, Architect of Experience, Art, Challenge, Conditional, Critic, Critique, Game Developtment, Gamedev, Games, Gaming, Interactive, Narrative, Narrative Design, Objective, Video, Video Games Leave a commentA few months ago I started working on the Narrative Design for a game called Eons Lost, currently in development by 3 Halves Games. Though Narrative Design was not initially an area of writing I gave much consideration, it ended up taking over my brain, and I want to share with you my methodology in approaching it.
Interactive Narrative is a consistent pattern of Objective and Reward.
The following diagrams are the first element in the methodology I am using to design the narrative of Eons Lost. I started with the basics: How do you organize Interactive Narrative?
Walküre Excerpt #4
Posted: August 17, 2015 Filed under: Fiction | Tags: American, Americans, Architect of Experience, Art, Challenge, Civilization, Critique Leave a comment1918, Fall, Belgium Front, Edie
The little one insisted on giving us nicknames, but I told him that if he insisted on calling me Nan one more time I’d punch his stomach right through his anus. Then the Priest came out with an eyebrow gushing like a mountain spring for getting in a bar fight with a gunner from the next outpost over. I told him a Chaplain shouldn’t fight, and he told me to go fuck myself. The big one spent this time saying nothing, looking out into the darkness with his Springfield’s scope for a German light to shoot. My husband would have loved these people, which is the only thing that kept me from hating them.
War is boring and tiring. Two months to this foxhole and Seven days in it so far. The big one has fired 23 shots so far and is unsure if any have hit. The little one cheers him on, “24 Germans!” to which the big one says, “Why 24? I’ve only fired 23 shots” and the little one says, “Yeah, but one of them got two.” “How do you know that?” “Math”.
They carry on like that while the priest drinks from a flask and I write.
I don’t know much about them yet and haven’t bothered to remember their names. I know when they look at me all they see is a small woman with a Machete on her back and a trench knife in her boot. None of them have made a move on me, but I suspect the priest will break first.
We Almost Didn’t Go To Space
Posted: June 13, 2015 Filed under: Article, NonFiction, Story | Tags: 1946, 1947, American, Architect of Experience, Challenge, Civilization, Clyde T Holliday, Earth, Galaxy, Picture, Space, Space Race, Universe, V2, World War 2, ww2 Leave a commentIn October, 1946, a small group of scientists rode a jeep out into the desert to where a V2 Rocket had come crashing down from the edge of space. On any other day they would have been examining the wreckage, taking notes, all work to develop an American missile that was more accurate and more deadly than the German V2.
But today was different. Today what they wanted was a small roll of undeveloped film in an iron box designed to survive a 62 mile fall. In that box was the first picture taken from space.
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