Playable Stories
To Do This Week
Journal: Consider any of your favorite video games that involve storytelling. How do the game goals and puzzles/challenges involve the player or "interactor" in uncovering or finding meaning in the narratives? Are the narratives just an excuse for strategic gameplay or is immersion in a story world—with characters and conflict— essential for the game? How do the works engage your imagination and/or emotions? Describe the world-building in the game.
Notes
Video Essays?
Discuss favorite narrative games.
Hypermedia Narrative: 10%
Due April 11th
- Story plot: Is there a clear goal or purpose? Does the plot reveal internal or external character change? (system operations)
- Interaction: Are there patterns in user interaction (unit operations)? Do these interactions reveal theme or meaning?
What is the relationship between world simulation, interaction, and story plot? What is the world? What is your role in it? What patterns determine that role?
System and Unit Operations
Ian Bogost:
- system operations (big goals, narrative arcs)
- unit operations (small actions, steps in a process)
System operations are familiar narrative shells of gameplay:
kill aliens, find treasure, complete quests. Film genres—romance, adventure,
thriller—also rely on system operations.
“protracted, dependent, sequential, and static”
Unit operations are small, repetitive actions that carry gameplay forward.
“succinct, discrete, referential, and dynamic”
Four Strategic Forms of Interactivity
External exploratory: networked lexia, scrambled story, puzzle structures (Twine, 3rd person)
Internal exploratory: embodied navigation, detective-like exploration (Twine, 2nd person)
External ontological: god-like perspective, simulations, branching narratives
Internal ontological: total immersion, agency, Holodeck-style experiences
Virtual Spaces
Interactive Fiction (IF):
Simulating virtual space through navigation.
Before video games, interactive fiction allowed players to explore worlds through text commands—an early form of story simulation.
IF dream: story simulation as literature and experience.
(Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray)
Colossal Cave Adventure (1975, Will Crowther)
A detailed simulation of a cave system where players explore, collect objects, and solve puzzles using text commands.
Simulating Worlds
Façade (2006)
Simulated interaction with characters using natural language processing.
internal ontological
The player inhabits a social role, shaping a dramatic narrative through dialogue rather than predefined choices.
The Sims
A sandbox life simulation where narrative emerges from systems rather than fixed goals.
Simulations in Reality
Augmented Reality, Mobile, and Location-Based Games
external ontological
VR Games
Full immersion in a story world
Grounded: The Making of The Last of Us
Hypermedia (Puzzle) Films
- Bandersnatch
- Run Lola Run
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Memento
- Tenet
Final Project: 30%
The final project is a digital story incorporating at least two modules from the course: diagrammatic, visual, cinematic, hyperlinked/interactive, or game-like storytelling.
Project Description (2%) — Due TBA
3–5 sentence story summary, form, and inspirations.
Project Critique (8%) — Due TBA
In-class critique based on progress and clarity of concept.
Final Project (90%) — Due TBA
Revised, complete work with artist statement and process reflection.