Abstract
Linear and branching narrative structures are widespread in games, but limited in their dynamism and expressiveness. We consider the alternative storylets model of interactive narrative content, in which a game’s narrative is assembled from a database of discrete, reorderable narrative “chunks” or “modules” known as storylets. This paper represents a first attempt to map out the design space of storylet-based narrative systems in games. We define the common elements of storylet-based systems; categorize such systems along several distinct dimensions; and survey implementations of such systems in existing games.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alliot, F.: The casual (but regal) swipe: creating game mechanics in Reigns. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024278/The-Casual-(but-Regal)-Swipe. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Failbetter Games: Fallen London. http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Failbetter Games: StoryNexus. http://www.storynexus.com. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Kennedy, A.: Echo Bazaar narrative structures, Part two. http://www.failbettergames.com/echo-bazaar-narrative-structures-part-two. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Kreminski, M.: Epitaph. https://mkremins.itch.io/epitaph. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Kreminski, M.: History generation in Epitaph. https://mkremins.github.io/blog/history-generation-epitaph. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Kreminski, M.: Starfreighter. https://mkremins.itch.io/starfreighter. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Façade. https://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Facade.shtml. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Structuring content in the Façade interactive drama architecture. In: Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (2005)
Mateas, M.: Introduction to content selection architectures (unpublished lecture slides)
Mateas, M.: More content selection architectures (unpublished lecture slides)
Nerial: Reigns. http://nerial.co.uk/reigns-original. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Reed, A.A.: Changeful tales: design-driven approaches toward more expressive storygames. Diss, UC Santa Cruz (2017)
Reed, A.A., Garbe, J.: The Ice-Bound Concordance. http://www.ice-bound.com. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Samuel, B., et al.: Leveraging procedural narrative and gameplay to address controversial topics. In: International Conference on Computational Creativity (2017)
Sharp, D.: Story vs. game: the battle of interactive fiction. http://web.archive.org/web/20040404061317/www.channelzilch.com/doug/battle.htm. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Sharp, D.: The King of Chicago. https://classicreload.com/the-king-of-chicago.html. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Short, E.: Beyond branching: quality-based, salience-based, and waypoint narrative structures. https://emshort.blog/2016/04/12/beyond-branching-quality-based-and-salience-based-narrative-structures. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Short, E.: Glass. http://inform7.com/learn/eg/glass/index.html. Accessed 25 Jul 2018
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kreminski, M., Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2018). Sketching a Map of the Storylets Design Space. In: Rouse, R., Koenitz, H., Haahr, M. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11318. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04027-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04028-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)