1 Contents
2
Motivation: ................................................................................................................................................ 3
3
Introduction: .............................................................................................................................................. 4
4
Narrative: ................................................................................................................................................... 5
4.1
Plot and Story: ................................................................................................................................... 5
4.2
Fabula and sjuzet: .............................................................................................................................. 7
4.3
Aristotle’s Drama: .............................................................................................................................. 7
4.4
Freytag’s Triangle: ............................................................................................................................. 9
4.5
The flying wedge:............................................................................................................................. 11
Possibility: ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Probability: .............................................................................................................................................. 11
Necessity:................................................................................................................................................. 11
4.6
1.
Enactment: ...................................................................................................................................... 12
2.
Intensification: ................................................................................................................................. 12
3.
Unity of actions versus episodic structure: ..................................................................................... 13
4.7
5
The differences between Drama and narrative: ............................................................................. 12
Conclusion: ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Interactivity: ............................................................................................................................................ 15
5.1
Principles of interactivity proposed by Stephen: ............................................................................ 15
Input /output ........................................................................................................................................... 15
Inside / outside: ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Open / closed: ......................................................................................................................................... 15
5.2
Steps of interactivity proposed by Stephen: ................................................................................... 16
Observation: ............................................................................................................................................ 16
Exploration: ............................................................................................................................................. 16
Modification: ........................................................................................................................................... 16
Reciprocal change:................................................................................................................................... 17
5.3
Degree of interactivity proposed by Crawford: ............................................................................... 18
Speed: ...................................................................................................................................................... 18
Depth: ...................................................................................................................................................... 18
Choice: ..................................................................................................................................................... 18
5.4
Types of interactivity proposed by Ryan: ........................................................................................ 19
Selective:.................................................................................................................................................. 19
Productive:............................................................................................................................................... 19
Reactive: .................................................................................................................................................. 19
Ergodic: .................................................................................................................................................... 19
5.5 ................................................................................................................................................................ 21
5.6 ................................................................................................................................................................ 21
5.7 ................................................................................................................................................................ 21
5.8 ................................................................................................................................................................ 21
5.9
6
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 21
Interactive Narrative: .............................................................................................................................. 22
6.1
Ryan’s interactive plot generating aspects: .................................................................................... 23
Internal – External: .................................................................................................................................. 24
Exploratory – Ontological: ....................................................................................................................... 24
6.2
Interactive Narrative Plot Schematics: ............................................................................................ 26
6.2.1
Plot structures described by Stephen: .................................................................................... 26
6.2.2
Plot structure described by Crawford: .................................................................................... 28
6.2.3
Plot structures described by Ryan: .......................................................................................... 29
6.3
State of the art:................................................................................................................................ 31
6.3.1
The Sims:.................................................................................................................................. 31
6.3.2
Erasmatron: ............................................................................................................................. 32
6.3.3
Façade:..................................................................................................................................... 33
6.3.4
Murray’s categories for interactive narrative: ........................................................................ 33
6.4
Interactive Drama: ........................................................................................................................... 34
6.5
The strategies proposed by Jenkins: ............................................................................................... 37
1.
Evoked narratives ............................................................................................................................ 37
2.
Enacted Narratives: ......................................................................................................................... 37
3.
Embedded Narratives: ..................................................................................................................... 37
4.
Emergent Narratives:....................................................................................................................... 38
6.6
Different approaches toward interactive narrative: ....................................................................... 41
6.6.1
Quest: ...................................................................................................................................... 41
6.6.2
Monomyth: .............................................................................................................................. 43
6.7
Dramatic Engagement: .................................................................................................................... 45
6.8
Conclusion and our contribution: .................................................................................................... 49
7
6.9
Future perspective:.......................................................................................................................... 52
6.10
Appendix A: ..................................................................................................................................... 53
6.11
Appendix B:...................................................................................................................................... 55
References: .............................................................................................................................................. 57
2 Motivation:
Linear media applications have been a part of our daily life for example; theater, cinemas and TV are
occupying tremendous amount of our time. Everybody has been to a nice movie in the cinema, watched a
good movie or series on TV at home. We have experienced sometimes the emptiness of the streets due to
broadcasting a particular series or movie at a specific time. We might ask ourselves, what are the elements
used in such applications that attract people. What makes an individual be absorbed and loose the track of
time while watching a particular movie? The degree of engagement with such applications depends on how
good the story of a particular film is well constructed as well as the desire of the individuals. These
mentioned factors raise our curiosity to investigate the various techniques used in this field to maintain the
audience’s interest to watch and be absorbed by such linear products, and compare the degree of
compatibility with other applications such as interactive narrative applications (computer games).
The goal of this report is to investigate theoretically the techniques used in linear media application (e.g.
films, theater), and see if they can be applied and adapted to nonlinear media applications (e.g. computer
games) with the aim of enhancing the participants engagement to construct different story paths.
This report will present an analysis and investigations of attempts and approaches accomplished by
developers in the field of interactive narrative. The analysis will be considered as preparation for further
work in the next semester and the results of the analysis will be then used to implement a prototype of an
interactive narrative application. Furthermore the application will be tested and the overall report including
test results will be used for our master thesis project. The following chapter we will describe the term
narrative as well as its components.
3 Introduction:
The concept of interactive narrative is considered as an important and challenging problem among the
scholars within the field of games and other media artifacts. Scholars and designers disagree regarding the
nature of computer games; some claim that games are purely interactive and stories cannot be a part of it
for example Adams argues that “Interactivity is almost the opposite of narrative; narrative flows under the
direction of the author, while interactivity depends on the player for motive power.” (Adams, 1999, p.4).
Additionally Crawford states that it has been claimed by Cameron that “there is a central contradiction
within the idea of interactive narrative---that narrative form is fundamentally linear and non-interactive.
The interactive story implies a form which is not that of narrative…” (Crawford, 2005, p.49). The terms
interactivity and narrative represent a combination of two different concepts with two different
characteristics, for better understanding of these concepts and the relationship between them, we will
describe first the term narrative and its elements, secondly the term interactivity and its various types, to
investigate what are the contributions of these two concepts that can be adapted in an interactive
narrative application.
Various approaches have been explored by researchers to use interactive narrative in order to evoke the
notion of engagement in for example training simulations (Swartout & Hill, 2001, p.5), and educatainment
applications (Hill et al., 2004, p.1); it is an important task to maintain engagement in these applications
because it will affect user’s productivity and learning (El-Nasr, 2007, p.4).
In linear /traditional media such as the fields of movies and performance arts (dance, opera, drama and
theater), some techniques have been used in both fields to maintain audience’s engagement, philosophers
from these fields analyzed these techniques and attempted to map them to nonlinear applications. Our
goal is to combine some of the techniques used by scholar in linear media (theater and films) and adapt
them to nonlinear media (games).
Analyzing linear media will involve the previous works of poetics, critics and scholars. Aristotle’s theory of
drama will be described, other thinkers such as Freytag that reshaped Aristotle’s work. On the other hand
the term interactivity will be defined from different perspectives, what are the types of interactivity? How
interactivity can be integrated into the components of linear media, if possible, this will result maintaining
the advantages of the techniques used in linear media without harming the quality of interactivity.
4 Narrative:
Narrative is regarded as the most important component of culture; all cultures have their own stories. The
stories are considered to be the vehicle by which the cultural knowledge is communicated from one
generation to another. They play a major role in conveying cultural information (Crawford, 2005, p.6). In
order to have a better understanding of the term narrative, the essence of this chapter will be to focus on
describe definitions of the term narrative and its elements by scholars, for example Ryan’s definition of
narrative, Aristotle’s point of view with his dramatic structure and Freytag’s Triangle or pyramid of drama.
Some other terms that have been also used by Russian formalists amongst others to substitute the terms
story and plot to fabula and sjuzet will also be demonstrated.
Ryan defined narrative as “a discourse reporting a story as well as the story itself. Even in its “story” sense,
narrative is an ambiguous term” She claims that there are three types of narrative: sequential, causal and
dramatic:



Sequential narrative can be conceived as a representation of physical event involving common
participant e.g. the king died, then the queen died.
Causal narrative can be conceived as an interpretation of events invoking causality e.g. “the king
died, then the queen died of grief”.
Dramatic narrative can be conceived as a semantic structure meeting certain formal requirements
e.g. a development that leads from balanced situation to a crises then to a new form of balanced
situation, rise and fall of tension (Ryan, 2001, p.244).
4.1 Plot and Story:
A story is a linear sequence of events, its architecture described as a plotline; hence the story content
cannot be understood if the story has not been received completely by the user (Crawford, 2005, p.7).
According to Boorstin it has been claimed by Lillian that the “story is what the character want to do and
plot is what the writer wants the character to do” (Boorstin, 1995, p.154). The plot itself considered one of
the fundamental elements of the narrative, Herman stresses that the “plot is one of the most elusive
termini in narrative theory” (Dannenberg, 2008, p.6).
There has been tremendous amount of work by researchers describing the terms story and plot, the
theories regarding these two topics have one thing in common and it is, the plot as a more complex
concept than the story (Dannenberg, 2008, p.6) To have a better understanding of the overall theory
behind, it is essential to refer to the work that has been done by different theorists. Stephen stresses that
poetics considered as “one of the very treaties on narrative and dramatic structure” a series of writings and
lectures regarding poetics were carried out by Aristotle (Stephen, 2002, p.22). Aristotle described the plot
structure as the order of events in time, each event represents a significant part of the plot, and if any part
is removed the plot will lose its meanings, he categorized the plot elements as events leading to
astonishment, recognition, reveal or suffering (EL-Nasr, 2007, p.11). Poetics can define the plot as an
imitation of action, an action that contains a beginning, middle, and an end (Stephen, 2002, p.22).
Aristotle considered the plot as the soul of tragedy, by tragedy he refers to narrative, by plot he refers to
the arrangement of incidents. Aristotle claims that “Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action
and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality”. He argues that without
action there cannot be a tragedy, while a tragedy can be without a character. Action determines the
narrative, so the plot which it is by definition is an imitation of action, thus action is considered as the first
most important among Aristotle’s narrative components, the character comes as the second most
important (Aristotle, 350 B.C.E).
Moreover and according to Stephen, Aristotle states that: “We’ve considered that a tragedy is an imitation
of an action that is complete in itself because it’s a whole of some quantity (because a whole doesn’t have
to have a quantity). Now a whole is something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning isn’t
necessarily after something else but is followed by something. An end naturally follows something---either
as necessary or as consequential---and has nothing following it. And a middle follows something and is
followed by something else. Therefore a well-constructed plot begins or end at any point the author would
like. Beginning and end have to follow the forms described.” Stephen argues that this passage does not
explain what makes a story interesting or exciting, the obvious thing is that there are some parts that can
work together in order to form a beginning, a middle and an end. Aristotle basically claimed that there are
causes and effects that take place over time (Stephen, 2002, p.22).
Janet H. Murray also highlights that the plot is consists of sequence of events, the linkage between these
events are based on causality. To distinguish between the story and plot E.M.Forster states that “a plot is …
a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story.
“The king died and then the queen died of grief” is a plot”. (Murray, 1997, p.185)
Other studies and approaches to plot and related theories contributed a variety of generically oriented plot
structures which based on the story and a more complex understanding of plot, for example the American
Critic R.S.Crane distinguished between different types of subject matter, he called them the plots of action,
character and thought (Dannenberg, 2008, p.7). Another example is the work of Northrup Fry, in his
“theory of myths” he identified four generic plots which he named: comedy, romance, tragedy and irony.
According to him the central element in Romance is the adventure quest. The characteristic plot arc in
comedy is the U shape, the story unfolds from a high beginning to fall into a possible catastrophe and then
to a sudden upward or happy ending. The pre-generic plot element in the tragedy is the death of the hero.
The plot element of irony is the downward slope of a grand beginning and criticism. (Dannenberg, 2008,
p.8). So far we were looking at the plot from different perspectives, the plot is regarded as an important
element of the narrative, the plot shape is predetermined by the author, furthermore the shape of the plot
is dependent on the representations of different events in time, these events represent an important part
of the plot which they are causally related to each other. Since events are constructed from different
actions, the characteristics of the plot can be described as dependent and based on actions. Since the
characteristics of the plot is that it involves actions; these actions results different events that are causally
related to each other, hence these can be considered as more similar to the characteristics of interactive
applications, this will emphasize the importance of analyzing the term plot more than the term story.
Nevertheless within the narrative structure; other terms have been used by Russian formalists to represent
the story and plot. To know what these terms are, a detailed description will be elaborated in the next
section.
4.2 Fabula and sjuzet:
According to Russian formalists the term fabula refers to the events that occur one by one, while the term
sjuzet refers to the order or the way these events are depicted. The fabula in video games according to
Nitsche consists of the events that have been created by the interactor on run time; this is not the case in
text where the events are provided by the work, An example of the fabula of the video game is the Myst
where the story of a conflict between a father and two brothers is not predefined by the work, but the
player uncovers the story by his interaction (Nitsche, 2008, p.49).
For the fabula to be generated the player should be engaged in the virtual world, with other words, in
order to the events to occur the user must actively involved in different actions. On the contrary to the
fabula, the sjuzet in video games are presented by the work, the presentation of events occur by the use of
audiovisual, an example of sjuzet in video games is the Max Payne which can be formed as replays and
flashbacks (Nitsche, 2008, p.49). In Max Payne whenever the detective meets a specific character, he gets
different flashbacks that remind him of other events that happened earlier in the game, these flashbacks
are represented either by visual or audio or by both.
Based on the above mentioned definitions we can see that the term fabula corresponds to story and the
term sjuzet has the same attributes as the plot. As mentioned earlier, the plot is considered as an important
element in narratology, thus sjuzet which corresponds to plot can be considered as important as the plot.
We can sum up by saying that fabula is determined and dependent on the interactor, while sjuzet is
determined and dependent on the designer of the game.
We described story as a linear sequence of events and the plot as interrelated causal events, the
characteristics of the terms story and plot is linear. It was essential to elaborate on the terms fabula and
sjuzet in order to emphasize the role of interactivity in an interactive narrative applications, although the
term sjuzet does not refer to interactivity because it is predetermined by the designer, the term fabula
represents the events and story paths that are totally dependent on the interactor. These story paths
construct patterns. One of the most known thinkers such as Aristotle describes the components of these
patterns; this will be demonstrated in coming section.
4.3 Aristotle’s Drama:
Laurel states that many theorists have made major contributions in the field of drama; a question might
come to our mind, why the work of Aristotle regarding poetics seemed necessary to analyze and refer to,
the reason is that no one has provided a theory of the drama that is a comprehensive and well-integrated
as Aristotle’s (Laurel, 2007, p.36).
As main two concepts Aristotle defined Muthos as the plot and the Mimesis as the mimetic activity.
Aristotle described Mimesis as:”the representation or portrayal of action and behaviors or a dramatic
enactment” and Muthos as “the arrangement of the incidents or the organization of the events that form
the overall plot structure of the narrative”. He considered Muthos and its components as the most essential
to the construction of the narrative structure, because of the fact that the plot structure represented the
primary significance of poetic drama; on the other hand the poetics considered as the maker of plot
structure (Louchart & Aylett, 2004, p.508).
One of the areas that Aristotle focused on was the tragedy; he specified its six main components as: Action,
Character, Thought, Language, Pattern and Enactment (spectacle). Laurel developed a model to represent
Aristotle’s components as it is shown in figure (1).
Figure 1 Laurel's model to represent Aristotle’s theory of drama (Mateas, 1998, p.3)
Each element is the formal cause of all the elements bellow it and each element is the material cause of all
the elements above it. The material cause of an element refers to the material in which the element is
created of, for instance the material cause for a building is the material in which the building is constructed
of. The formal cause of an element is the plan or the goal towards which something is heading, the formal
cause of a building is the architectural blueprint. In drama the formal cause is the author’s view of the play,
the author constructs the plot, the characters are needed in the play; furthermore the plot considered as
the formal cause of the characters. In the other hand the material cause in drama is the audience view of
the play, the audience see and hear from the play, thereby they detect patterns from the characters actions
and from what they say in the play; the audience will start to understand the characters thoughts, based on
these information the audience will understand the plot structure.
Mateas argues that in a successful play the audience will be able to summarize the formal causation, and
they will experience an “ah-ha” situation, meaning that the audience will understand the behavior of the
characters and their relation to the plot. Therefore with simple words the audience will have an answer to
many “why’s” why the character said this, why he acted like that. Mateas calls these aspects as the
interpretation process, the audience will use and develop the material cause to conclude or sum up the
formal cause (Mateas, 1998, p.3).
Another considerable work regarding the plot structure has been done by Gustav Freytag, a German
novelist, dramatist and critic, namely the Freytag’s Triangle. To know his approach the next section will
describe the principle behind it, as well as the modification that has been applied by other novel thinkers.
4.4 Freytag’s Triangle:
Freytag claimed that the action of a play could be represented generically; he created a visual
representation of the dramatic anatomy namely called the Freytag’s Triangle or Pyramid (Stephen, 2002,
p.22). Freytag seemed not to be satisfied with the approach of Aristotle, his visualization based on the
concept of rising and falling in action, he simply divided the classic plot into three portions; modifying by
that Aristotle’s work pointing to the increase, culmination and decrease of the plot. In other words the
rising action is what leads up to a climax / turning point, and the falling action is what leads down to the
conclusion. Freytag expressed the plot as a function of time along the horizontal axis and the density or the
interest of the reader (complication) along the vertical axis. He used the terms “Desis” as the rising action,
“Perpeteia” to represent the problem and “Denouement” for solving that problem as it is shown in figure
(2). According to his model, each narrative has a sequence of time driven events reaching the peak or
climax ,which represents the highest level of complexity of the plot over time(Stephen, 2002, p.22). Laurel
describes the climax in Freytag’s triangle as an emotional peak as well as an informational one. She
assumes that there is a direct relationship between what the audience knows about the action and how
they feel about it. The manipulation of information generates causality and probability, thereby it
considered as the basis of such audience responses as suspense, surprise and catharsis (Laurel, 2007, p.81).
Stefan believes that the modification or the model developed by Freytag does make some sense because
many complicated narrative arcs can be represented by such a model (Stephen, 2002, p.22).
Figure 2 Freytag's Triangle of Tension (Stephen, 2002, p.22)
Furthermore Karamazov modified and worked on Freytag’s model by dividing the “Desis” and the
“Denouement” part of the plot into smaller subdivisions that represent a subplot. Each subplot has its own
pyramid structure, figure (3), this allowed him to make Freytag’s model to be subdivided continually
(Stephen, 2002, p.23).
Figure 3 Karamazov’s modification of Freytag’s triangle (Stephen, 2002, , p.23)
Freytag’s model was best for linear narrative that presents a problem and a solution. Edgar Allan Poe as an
inventor for the Mystery Genre was not interested to be limited in presenting a problem and a solution to
it. He wanted to push the reader to be an investigator in the story. Poe looped off the Desis and a major
part of the Peripeteia to allow the gradual solution of the problem to serve as the story itself as it is
illustrated in figure (3, right). His main idea was to focus on what cause produced which effect, for example
if the effect is the kid wants to revenge for his father’s death, the cause will be somebody killed his father
early in the story (Stephen, 2002, p.23).
Figure 4 Poe’s modifications (Stephen, 2002, p.23)
Making the reader become an investigator brings us one step closer to the computer game narrative
concept, this will enable the reader/user to be more actively involved in the process of the development of
the plot, his actions will influence directly the narrative construction, thereby the reader/user will be free
to create his own story rather than being passive and only receiving a predefined story. However Poe’s
concept in overall seems abstract. And therefore similar model is presented in detail by Laurel, namely the
flying wedge.
4.5 The flying wedge:
Laurel states that “causality is the connective tissue of plot” she outlined that the term causality refers to
the cause and effect relationships within the represented action (Laurel, 2007, p.73). The action of a play
described as a sequence of incidents that are causally related to one another (Laurel, 2007, p.68). In
comparison computer programs contain more potential actions than a play. The definition of the term
potential is something that can develop or become actual. Laurel claims that the probability is the key
quality of a dramatic action, and dramaturgy is made of the orchestration of probability and causality
(Laurel, 2007, p.81). She finally defines the dramatic potential as a “set of actions that might occur in the
course of a play” (Laurel, 2007, p.68). According to her the dramatic potential can be formulated by three
factors, possibility, probability and necessity (Laurel, 2007, p.69).
Possibility: According to Aristotle’s terms the potential of a play is formulated by the playwright into a set
of possibilities. As the play progresses the number of introduced new possibilities gradually falls off.
Probability: The enactment affects the possibilities by eliminating some and making some others more
probable. For example Hamlet’s father was killed; it becomes probable that Hamlet will try to find out who
was the murderer, and then it becomes probable that when he finds the villain, he will try to revenge.
Necessity: At the climax level of the play the only remaining probability is that Hamlet will die and
Fortinbras will return order in the kingdom. At this level when the probability becomes necessity, then the
entire action of the play will be complete (Laurel, 2007, p.69).
Figure 5 Laurel's model "The flying wedge" (Laurel, 2007, p.70)
Figure (4) above gives a better visualization of the overall three factors of Laurel’s model. The drama starts
to unfold in this model with unlimited potential; with the development of the first scene, based on the
setting and character’s motives, certain possibilities are eliminated. During the progress of the plot the
audience starts to expect the probability of certain outcomes more than others. At the climax level, all the
other story path possibilities are discarded and a single necessary ending is left. The progression of the
material causality can be seen through reading from left to right, and the formal causality can be seen by
reading from right to left. The notion of decreasing possible or probable alternatives might be a useful
model for computer generated plots, which could be achieved by starting a branching tree graph of
possible plot lines; then gradually removing the improbable paths to reach a climax (Laurel, 2007, p.69).
The flying wedge model seems more comprehensive. This is because, instead of removing the Desis and a
major part of Peripeteia as it is in Poe’s modification (as described in figure 4 above), it keeps all the plot
components, thereby it will preserve the plot causalities, meaning that the model will keep the
interrelationships between the cause and effects along the entire plot. In comparison with Freytag’s model,
where reaching a climax and then a resolution or falling in tension, suites linear media more than nonlinear
ones. The functionality of Laurel’s flying wedge appears different, in Laurel’s model there is no fall in
tension following the climax; the climax is the stage of clarification that all the uncertain story paths or
possibilities are reduced. Applying this model to computer programs will be a great benefit, due to the
interactivity nature of computer programs. Using the flying wedge model, the user will be indirectly guided
through a dramatic arc with the advantage of being independent and free to choose a non predictable story
path. The user will be able to choose possible events that decrease gradually leading him to a final climax.
The final climax in a play is predefined by the author, while in an interactive narrative application the user
will be able to reach various endings or climaxes. In other words the interactor can go through different
story paths and different events (different interrelated causalities) with many different endings. Since
Laurel’s model emphasizes on providing the user with dramatic causally interrelated events, it would be
interesting to know, what are the major differences between the terms drama and other concepts such as
narrative, the following section will demonstrate these differences, and analyze which of the concepts
suites more to be adapted into interactive narrative.
4.6 The differences between Drama and narrative:
Laurel describes the choice preferences of drama instead of narrative as a model for human computer
activities. Both drama and human computer activities share common elements, they contain characters,
space/location and time, thus she argues that plays or drama are more close to human computer activities
than narrative. Additionally, according to Rollings and Adams “The essence of any story, whether it’s
interactive or a fixed narrative, is dramatic tension: a situation or problem that is unresolved. This is what
holds the reader’s attention and keeps her around to see how it comes out” (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.93).
Regarding the characteristics of drama and narrative Laurel proposes the following key differences:
1. Enactment: It refers to act rather than to read. In acting, the sensing and the cognition process
will be involved. Therefore drama refers to action and narrative refers to description.
2. Intensification: It refers to the incidents of drama which they are selected, arranged and
represented, simply the emotional intensification and condenses time. Narrative contradictorily
follows a reverse or extensification process. For example incidents might be reported from a
number of perspectives and expand time. According to Laurel, one of the formal differences
between drama and narrative is the time scale, the time scale differs when you are acting out than
when you are reading.
3. Unity of actions versus episodic structure: The structure of incidents is different in the drama
than in narrative. Drama represents a central action where the separate incidents are causally
linked to it, while narrative is episodic where the incidents are almost independent and connected
thematically and not causally to the whole. Laurel describes the characteristics of drama as more
tightly constructed, intense and cathartic than narrative (Laurel, 2007, p.94).
The aspect of enactment which it is a part of the concept of drama is more related to interactive narrative
applications. In computer games, for instance both the sensation and cognition of the player are involved
thus leading to action. Therefore we can argue that the characteristic of drama is more related to actions
which it is more close to computer games. If we relate the second attribute of interaction in drama to
computer games: when the interactor is actively engaged in an activity, there are some time limits to
accomplish a specific task. The time intensification is predefined by the designer, the time for taking an
action is condensed in computer games. Finally the aspect of unity of action versus episodic structure, both
attributes can be related to computer games, episodic structure can be found in adventure games, but the
aspect of unity of actions can be interesting to investigate further due to the fact that it represents a
central action composed of separate causally related incidents, which can be considered as an attribute of a
story plot.
Summing up:











Plot can be considered as one of the fundamental elements of narrative.
Plot involves actions.
If there is no action, there is no story.
Fabula is dependent on the interactor.
Sjuzet is dependent on the game designer.
Probability is the key quality of dramatic action.
The dramatic potential can be determined by three factors; possibility, probability and
necessity.
Possibility refers to the number of possible events or actions.
Probability refers to a lower amount of predictable probable actions.
Necessity refers to a single and final probable event, story ending (climax).
There are common shared elements between drama and human computer activities. These
are:
 Enactment: It refers to action.
 Intensification: It refers to the condense time.
 Unity of action: It refers to the causal relationship between the events leading to
cathartic.
4.7 Conclusion:
A story is the basic form of narrative representation, which is a series of events ordered in time, while the
plot is the way narrative incidents are organized, arranged and finally presented. In the plot the relation
between each event is based on cause and effects. A plot can be divided in three parts, a beginning or rising
action with many possibilities, middle or climax with less probabilities and an end or fall in action.
Therefore one can imagine that the plot has a linear structure. Interrelated causal events forms what so
called a dramatic pattern or arc. Causality and probability are playing a significant role in dramaturgy;
therefore it is essential to take these aspects to consideration in relation to interactive based generated
plots. It is important to analyze further some of the terms rather than others, for instance analyzing the
term plot due to its characteristics of involving actions as well as its crucial role in forming the dramatic arc,
the term fabula because it refers to the events that the interactor creates by his actions, finally
investigating the term drama rather than narrative due to the fact that it involves enactment,
intensification and unity of actions. All the mentioned preferred topics to be analyzed further have
common or closer relations to nonlinear media. The model of flying wedge will be also investigated to see
the possibilities of applying or adapting it to nonlinear interactive applications such as computer games. In
the next chapter the term interactivity and its attributes will be on focus to discover whether if there are
possibilities of adaptation or common relationships with the term narrativity or not.
5 Interactivity:
The term interactivity has been on focus by different theorists and philosophers, most of them delineated
the concept of interactivity from different perspectives. In this chapter we will demonstrate the most
important aspects and characteristics of interactivity from different thinker’s points of view. Analysis will be
accomplished to compare and distinguish the relationships, differences and similes in the contents of the
aspects of interactivity. This will include a discussion of different steps of interactivity, the factors that
affect the degree of interactivity as well as the elements that interactivity relies on, the types of
interactivity and their definitions by different thinkers and the principles of interactivity which will be
demonstrated in the following section.
5.1 Principles of interactivity proposed by Stephen:
Stephen claims that interactivity can mean many things; it can be described; as an ongoing raise in
participation, as a response to response, as a bidirectional communication medium. Interactivity can be
good sex. It can be many things that cannot be done alone. He categorizes the term Interactivity by a set of
three principles; these principles are Input / output, inside / outside and open / closed (Stephen, 2002,
p.37).
Input /output: This principle states that an input must generate an output and vice versa. The quality of
interactivity can be determined by the ability of the interaction cycle to add information. One factor that
can define the quality of interactivity is the response time between the Input and the output. A shorter
response time enables the user to quickly identify the changes that he applied to the system. Another
factor according to Stephen is the user’s ability to control the input. In his example, if a person pushes on a
door bell button, he expects someone to answer. This input has to facilitate more input and provides the
user with other capabilities; hence the line thins between response and stimulus, leading to increase in the
depth of immersion, therefore when a person is immersed he cannot do something else (Stephen, 2002,
p.39).
Inside / outside: This principle refers to the dialogue created between the internal and the external
worlds. The relationship between two sorts of interactivity, Stephen identifies them by the terms “inside
the skull” (internal) and “outside the skull” (external) interactivities. He claims that inside the skull
interactivity is a process of extending of the users knowledge. It is the imagination of the reader of his
world, the world of meaning, the art, and dreams, the world of semiotic. Outside the skull interactivity
refers our experience on the empirical or experiential level. Mark Stephen refers to the technology around
us; he describes it as the element of the craft not the art, e.g. the haptic feedback of the joystick, the hues
of the colors (Stephen, 2002, p.40).
Open / closed: It refers to the ability of the system; Stephen stresses that the characteristics of open /
closed system is that, the interactive system should get better the more it is used. According to him, Open
systems are more interesting than closed ones; open systems can give something back which closed
systems cannot. For example if a person kicks a ball, the ball rolls over, moves and bounces, the person
expects this response. But if he kicks another person, he will not be able to expect the other persons
reaction because human is independent and unpredictable. Hence interactivity with the ball is predictable
and it is a closed system, and the interaction with the humans are unpredictable and it is an open system.
An open system is more interesting, more complicated, and less predictable. On the other hand a closed
system is less interesting, less complicated and more predictable (Stephen, 2002, p.43).
Amongst these the last principle of interactivity appears to be a bit confusing, concerning open and close
systems, lets first analyze the relationships between human-human interactivity and between humanobject interactivity. Regarding the first type of relationship, by nature human, animals or any living
organism are considered as complex and independent systems. Hence interaction with complex systems is
not predictable because we will never be able to know what the reaction would be to a particular action.
Secondly, interaction with objects can be placed under two categories, simple and complicated. Interaction
with dead object such as a ball involves higher predictability since it relies on the interactor’s basic
knowledge and the law of physics in the environment. But interaction with more complicated objects such
as computers, might involve lower degree of predictability for example if we play chess game in a computer
AI based, we cannot exactly predict what would the next movement will be from the AI side. Moreover, this
is also the case with advanced AI based computer games; the level of unpredictability also remains high.
Nevertheless beside these principles, Stephan furthermore categorizes interactivity in four steps calling
them the steps of interactivity where he focuses on the order of the process of interactivity.
5.2 Steps of interactivity proposed by Stephen:
Stephen claims that the structure of interactivity is composed of different steps just like any other
communication art, such as rhetoric, music notation and dance choreography etc. Understanding and
applying these steps can enhance the quality of the interactive system; those steps go together with the
principles of interactivity which were mentioned earlier. Stephen distinguishes between the principles and
steps. He describes the principles of interactivity as the means of guiding development and the steps of
interactivity as the means of evaluating the results of that development. He breaks the steps of interactivity
into four categories: Observation, Exploration, Modification and Reciprocal change (Stephen, 2002, p.44).
Observation: Before any action can take place, the interactor uses his skills to observe and evaluate the
surroundings and determine his abilities in the environment. Stephen argues that a type of awareness of
first level options is required. First level options refer to the identification of the things. The interactor
might ask himself what is possible and what is not? (Stephen, 2002, p.44). For instance, when a person is
driving his car he is observing the environment around, looking to the road, watching the traffic signs, he
will experience a first level of awareness; he knows that there are many possibilities and ways to reach his
destination.
Exploration: The user explores his capabilities, he figures out what he can and what he cannot do. Here
the user moves from the first level options to the second level options where he unintentionally discovers
his abilities whether he can or cannot make a change in the environment (Stephen, 2002, p.44). If we take
the previous example of driving a car; the driver explores the environment, so he knows that he can drive
with a maximum speed of 50 Km and he cannot drive 100Km inside the city.
Modification: It is the results of applied changes and modifications by the user to the system. The user
first evaluates; based on his evaluation, he determines his abilities and intentionally carries out some
actions; these actions will result some changes in the interactive system. The user bridges between
evaluations, capabilities and decisions. According to Stephen this step represents the transformation from
unconscious discovery to conscious action that leads to a change in the system. The user at this step knows
some of his abilities and uses them to modify the interactive system (Stephen, 2002, p.45). With the driving
example the user knows that he can turn the car to another direction and stops it at any time, but he might
not be able to evaluate his skills in preventing an accident.
Reciprocal change: As the user changes the interactive system, the system in return tries to change the
user’s action. This type of intertwined relationship is considered one of the defining elements of
interactivity; without it, the system would not have any difference from any ball that has been kicked or a
doorbell that has been triggered. For instance when the driver takes the action of speeding up, the reaction
from the system or the feedback changes the driver’s initial action. If he reaches the desired speed, he will
change his action to maintain the desired speed (Stephen, 2002, p.45).The following figure (5) illustrates
the steps of interactivity and their sub parts.
•Skills
•Identification & Evaluation
observation •Possibilities
•Abilities
•experience
exploration
Modification
Reciprocal
change
•Change
•intentional actions
•Interrelationship between the user and the system
•Feedback
Figure 6 Illustration of the steps of interactivity
Based on the above definitions; we can argue that any basic interactivity can involve the described four
steps of interactivity. In a basic meaningful interaction, the order of the steps is an important issue,
meaning that the steps can be described as single directional process. For example the interactor cannot be
involved in the third step of modification unless he has been through the processes of observation and
exploration. The participant in the interaction will first observe, evaluate the surroundings and the
potential possibilities, then he will determine his skills and abilities. Once this happened the user will be
able to execute actions to modify the system. When the modification takes place, the user gets feedback.
The amount of change or the amount of feedback in/from the system will determine to which degree the
interactor should change his actions.
Similar to Stephen’s steps, Interactivity has been also defined by Crawford, but with other terminology. He
claims that interactivity is “A cycle process between two or more active agents in which each agent
alternately listen, thinks, and speaks” (Crawford, 2005, p.29) Nevertheless in Crawford’s definition, the
category of “listen” can correspond to the interaction step of exploration by Stephen, thinking can also
correspond to observation and finally speaking corresponds to modification. Additionally he is emphasizing
that interactivity is not a binary quantity just like morality, either you are right or wrong, or you have it or
not. He means that interactivity is arithmetic quantity just like weight, for instance you can be able to have
more interactivity or less of it. He simplifies the degree of involvement in low or high interactivity, an
example of low interactivity such as the refrigerator light (the light turns on when you open the door and
off when you close it) and a high degree of interactivity such as sex (powerful lovemaking can be
considered as the deepest interaction two people can have). The degree of interactivity by Crawford will be
further described in detail in the following section.
5.3 Degree of interactivity proposed by Crawford:
Crawford outlines that the degree of interactivity can be determined by three factors: Speed, Depth and
Choice.
Speed: The speed of interactive applications can play a major role in determining the interaction quality,
Applications that are slow can destroy interactivity; an example is the VisiCalc spreadsheet that has been
designed for personal computers. There were also some other spreadsheet programs that is called patch
processing programs, where you patch your data onto punch cards and then submit your job to the
computer center, then pick up your output the next day. Nevertheless we can doubt if these examples are
valid enough due to the interactive systems revolutionary developments. Another example could be a bad
internet connection that leads to an extension of the expected time to get a feedback.
Depth: Some activities do not require lots of concentration for example searching on a website to find a
piece of information, others like video games require a higher level in the degree of concentration but still
does not reach deep enough to the crucial areas of you mentality. Some other activities provide deeper
interactivity than others, for example in strategic games such as a chess game; it provides deeper
interaction than a tic-tac-toe game. Crawford argues that the quality of interaction relies on its depth and
speed (Crawford, 2005, p.42).
Choice: Crawford claims that the quality of any interaction depends of the richness of the choices available
for the user. He claims that the term richness can be divided into two aspects:
1. The functional significance of each choice
2. The perceived completeness
The functional significance of each choice: It refers to the degree to which a choice satisfies the user’s
interest, desire and needs. For instance in games the player is offered the opportunity to wander over a
huge region in the virtual world, the player spends hours exploring a dead area that does not offer
further possibilities for interaction. Millions of choices and possibilities in terms of where the player
might go are offered by the game but not all choices are functionally significant.
The perceived completeness: It refers to the number of choices in relation to the number of
possibilities the user can imagine. In Crawford’s example, if the user reached the climax of the story
and he had to choose between leaving his girl friend for the sake of the war or to give up and shirk his
duty to go back to his girl friend. Having two choices does not decrease the quality of interaction
(Crawford, 2005, p.42).
The three described terms above namely the speed, depth and choice, play an important role in
determining the quality of interactivity. Concerning the speed the faster the response by the system the
better the interactivity is. The immediate response by the system helps the user to recognize that his action
has modified the system, and this modification can result two options, either by satisfaction that leads the
user to further interact with the system, or it will lead to dissatisfaction, hence the user in this case will try
to act again in order to accomplish the desired task. Both cases can be considered as positive since they are
leading to more action and involvement by the user. Regarding the depth, interactivity that requires more
concentration by the user, more involvement of the user’s cognition and awareness will increase the
productivity, thereby increasing the quality of interactivity. The final aspect which affects the interactivity
is the choices available; these should be functionally significant. In other words the provided choice by the
system should lead the user to the desired goal or direction. Limitation of choices available does not harm
the quality of interactivity.
5.4 Types of interactivity proposed by Ryan:
Ryan argues that any interactive work requires a reasonable interactive medium, according to her,
interactivity can appear on two levels, one constituted by the medium and the second intrinsic to the work
itself. She categorizes the types of interactivity as reactive, selective and productive interactivity.
Selective: This can be divided into two, random and purposeful. First in the random selection the user
takes a deliberate action but does not foresee the consequences of his action, a good example is the
random clicking of many hypertexts. Second in the case of purposeful selection e.g. in computer games, the
player is offered a choice between two paths; the player is not able to predict which of the choices leads to
success and which one leads to failure.
Productive: This is what Ryan described as the fullest type of interactivity; in this case the player is
involved in productive actions that leave durable changes and manipulations in the environment. The
productive interactivity enables the user to sit actively in the driver’s seat instead of seating passively in the
passenger’s seat. In video games the player is both reader and producer, reader of the computer output
and producer via input. The player does not enters the game world only but in addition he changes the
game worlds ingredients (Ryan, 2001 ,p. 205).
Reactive: In this type of interactivity, the user does not involve in any type of deliberate action. An
example is, a piece of art reacts to noise in a room or to the sunlight. For such type of interactivity, Ryan
uses the term of Ergodic. She clarifies Ergodic design and sensitivity to user input regarding digital text,
virtual and electronic environments, she gives examples of each and the potential combination of two
categories or more from the selective and productive interactivities points of views. The illustration and
detailed description can be seen in Appendix (A). Nevertheless Aarseth describes Ergodic differently than
Ryan, his description is more related to computer games which will be demonstrated in the following
section.
Ergodic: Although this category can be seen as a type of interactivity defined by Ryan. It is essential to
mention that this section will focus more on other scholar’s perspectives. Amongst others, the term ergodic
will be described by the ludologist Aarseth, he first used this term in his work on Cybertex and later in
games, Ryan borrowed this term to make it suite and cover other general aspects than Cybertexts..
According to Aarseth “The term ergodic is appropriated from physics that derives from the Greek words
ergon and hodos, meaning “work ” and “path.” In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the
reader to traverse the text”(Aarseth, 1997, p.1). Ergodic is suggested by Aarseth to describe the difference
between the type of interaction of the user’s participation in the digital media and other types of
engagement. The user’s or the interactor’s participation depends on his physical activities, the user’s
movements or the physical activities in the real physical world causes various input effect in the virtual
world. Aarseth distinguishes digital media interactivity with other traditional media interactivity, he claims
that, throughout the interactive participation with the virtual world “the user will have effectuated a
semiotic sequence, and this selective movement is a work of physical construction that the various concepts
of ‘reading’ do not account for”. With the term traditional media Aarseth refers to books, cinema and radio
that do not offer the level of ergodic participation. Some examples of ergodic participation are the mouse
clicking, pressing a key and moving a joystick. In other words the registered physical inputs by the input
devices that has a immediate effect on the virtual world (Nitsche, 2008, p.32). The core of video game
experience is the player’s activity; game theorists agree that there would be no game if there is no player
activity. Due to the nature of video games containing physical activities, the player activity is considered as
ergodic or nontrivial. The player activity is divided in to two types; diegetic activities and extradiegetic
activities. Diegetic activity refers to what the player’s avatar does as a result of the player’s activity.
Whereas the extradiegetic activity refers to the player’s physical activity in order to achieve a certain result.
These two terms differ significantly from each other. To clarify the distinction, a good example could be
that some shooting games use a gun sight with a joystick and a button to fire (Diegetic). While another
games uses a handgun shaped controller for the same input (extradiegetic). So the actions on the screen
could be the same while the input means can be difference (Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, 2003,
p.15).
To summarize the types of interactivity presented by Ryan, the selective interactivity can be either random
or purposeful. In random selective interactivity, the user is completely not able to predict the outcome
while in the purposeful interactivity the user is intentionally selecting a choice and to some extent, the user
might be able to predict the outcome. Productive interactivity refers to the user’s freedom to choose his
own path and make durable changes in the virtual world. This reminds us in Laurels flying wedge were the
user is provided with many story paths, the user is free to choose and draw his own story, this type of
interactivity suites more to be adapted to serve the aim of this project. Finally the term of Ergodic can be
described from two perspectives. The first one is from Ryan’s point of view where it refers to the
interaction of two objects without the involvement of the user, the user has no influence in the emergent
outcome. A recall of this type of interactivity can be an art piece in a museum that casts a shadow from the
sun differently over time. Another perspective is that the term Ergodic is considered as the interactors
physical activity which it is called the Ergodic participation. This participation by the user is the core source
of interactivity resulting continuous change in the system. Thus this type of interactivity can be
correspondent to Stephen’s aspect of reciprocal change where the user and the system are changing each
other continuously.
To be able to get a better visualization of all the mentioned: types, degrees, steps and principles of
interactivity; we designed a model that shows the relationships between these aspects. As it is illustrated in
figure (7), some of the aspects have direct relationship to others and some do not. For example the
principle of inside the skull is linked to the observation and exploration indicating to the activities which
take place inside the skull of the interactor, while the principle of outside the skull is linked to the
modification and reciprocal change referring to the change occurred in the virtual world.
Figure 7 our model to illustrate the relationships between the steps, types and degree of interactivity
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9 Conclusion
Interactivity involves the steps of observation, exploration, modification and reciprocal change.
Nevertheless the first two steps can be considered as inside the skull activities, while the step of
modification can be considered as outside the skull activity and the final one can be represented in both
inside and outside the skull activities. All the mentioned steps, activities and degree of interactivity can be
influenced by the factors of, the speed of applications, depth and concentration, and finally the choices
available in the system. Computer games, depending on the nature of the game can be considered as both
open and closed systems. It can involve predictable and non predictable activities; non predictable or open
systems are more interesting than predictable or closed ones. The steps of modification and reciprocal
change involve Ergodic participation. Ergodic participations refers to the physical activities carried out by
the interactor in the physical world. All computer games involve Ergodic participations, for instance if a
player is waiting on a tower and wants to snipe and shoot his enemy, the passive waiting period freezes
partially most aspects of interactivity and the entire Ergodic participation. The interactors physical activity
or the Ergodic participation is the cause which leads to the effect resulting the reciprocal change. In the
productive interactivity the interactor actively enters the virtual world. In addition he changes the game
world’s ingredients, according to the choices available by the system the interactor and is free to make his
choices and build his own story. Identifying the principle of the interactive narrative application is
significant; the input in the application should open to the possibilities for more inputs and provide the user
with more capabilities. Another factor is to guarantee the unpredictability of the system, that is, making
sure that the characteristics of the system is more being open and not closed. Choosing the proper type of
interactivity to be integrated with narrative is of extreme importance to maintain user’s involvement with
the interactive narrative application. It is also important to take the steps of interactivity to consideration in
any interactive application. This implies giving the user the proper chance to observe the surrounding,
explore his capabilities to take actions which will lead him to carry out or execute the actions and modify
the system. This modification or the change in the system will result in the system trying to change thus
affecting the user’s actions. Maintaining the speed, depth and availability of choices for the mentioned
steps of interactivity is important due to the fact that they influence the quality of interactivity in general
which will lead to influence the quality of narrative construction process.
Summing up:




Interactivity with a system involves the steps of; observation, exploration, modification and
reciprocal change.
Interactivity refers to the communication between the internal and the external worlds
(Inside/Outside the skull activities).
The attributes of the technology in the external world is directly proportional to the interactors
internal world. The speed, depth and choices available by the system will have direct effect on the
degree of interactvity.
Interactivity can exist with the forms of selective, productive, ergodic and reactive.
In the following chapter the term interactive narrative will be described. How it can generate various plot
types. Different plot schematic that have been proposed by scholars, as well as the characteristics and
functionalities of these plot structures will also be on focus.
6 Interactive Narrative:
The term interactive narrative has been defined differently by philosophers; however the focus in this
chapter will be on analyzing the term interactive narrative and its different aspects, demonstration of
different plot schematics, how the user will create and experience different narrative forms in interactive
narrative applications, the state of the art and various solutions in this field.
Interactive narrative has been defined by Stephen as “a time-based representation of character and action
in which a reader can affect, choose, or change the plot. The first-, second, or third-person characters may
actually be the reader. Opinion and perspective are inherent. Image is not necessary, but likely”. On the
other hand Crawford claimed that “A plot is a fixed sequence of events that communicates some larger
message about the human condition. In interactive storytelling, plot is replaced with a web of possibilities
that communicate the same message” (Crawford, 2005, p.85). Moreover, regarding the role of the author
and the characteristics of interactive narrative, Stephen described it as the process of narration where the
process of interactivity rips off the perspectives of the author and puts new perspectives in the hand of the
reader. Thus interactivity accommodates a relationship between reading and writing. Interactivity is the
main difference that enables us to distinguish between games and other forms of entertainment. If the
user only wants a story he could read a book or watch a movie. In video games the players do not like to be
force fed a story which in turn limits their gameplay. According to Rollings, stories are not interactive and
the story tree has a limited amount of branching available, therefore the story should be handled carefully
and it should not be forced on the player for example railroading the player into a limited story paths. The
player himself is regarded as the storyteller in a video game where he is able to construct his own story
(Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.93).
In the process of developing interactive narrative, the plot structure should be more flexible that allows for
multiple perspectives into multiple viewpoints resulting in an interconnected cohesive opinion or view
(Stephen, 2002, p.62). According to Stephen, interactive narrative has different size and shape and its
quality can be determined by different means. First, it is considered as a way of reading, it contains
character representations. The character representations follow a planned development that occurs over
time which it is determined by the author or the reader. Second, interactive narrative follows in general the
steps of interactivity; for example observe, explore, modify and change. Finally it follows the principles of
interactivity; for example inside/outside, input/output and closed/opened. Stephen outlines that some
forms of interactive narrative follow the mentioned criteria’s more than others, the more they are followed
the higher the level of interactivity and deeper degree of narrativity (Stephen, 2002, p.62). Moreover and
regarding the use of interactive narrative, El-Nasr claims that Interactive narratives have been used in video
games, edutainment and training simulations, sustaining engagement with such applications will have a
direct effect on the aspects of entertainment, motivation and presence (El-Nasr, 2007, p.1). Other
descriptions of interactive narrative regarding its narrative constructions will be on focus specially the work
of Ryan, in the following section different aspects that generate different narrative plots will be
demonstrated.
6.1 Ryan’s interactive plot generating aspects:
Ryan proposes two pairs of interactivity forms Internal – External and Exploratory – Ontological which she
adapted from the work of Aarseth on user’s perspective in cybertext. She uses different terms to represent
the four types of interactivity, focusing on the user’s relation to the virtual world. Her aim is to show how
these types of interactivity provide different possibilities on narrative themes and plot creation. According
to her these four types can be described in two groups as:
Internal – External: In the case of internal interactivity, the user is projected as a member of the fictional
world. This could be by an avatar or by conceiving the virtual world from a first person point of view. In the
external interactivity the user is situated outside the fictional world and he is able to control, navigate and
manipulate the virtual world from above .e.g. the game of total war (Ryan, 2001).
Exploratory – Ontological: In the exploratory interactivity the user is free to move around in the fictional
world. His activity does not change the plot. He has no influence or power to change the fictional world.
While the ontological interactivity is the opposite of the exploratory one, the user in this case is able to
change the story path, and his decisions determine the development of the story plot (Ryan, 2001).
The above mentioned interactivity type can generate four possible combinations; each combination can
determine and develop a different story plot as the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
External – Exploratory
Internal – Exploratory
External – Ontological
Internal – Ontological
External – Exploratory interactivity: Concerning the textual world and classical hypertext specifically,
this type of interactivity refers to the freedom of the user to choose routes in the textual space. The user
chooses and puts blocks of texts or lexias one at a time. Ryan calls this type of interactivity as external
because the reader cannot be casted as a member of the fictional world by the text. The reader considers
the text as a searching database than a world to be immersed in. The reader’s interaction or his path of
navigation does not influence the narrative events but rather emerges the global narrative pattern in his
mind. For example in jig saw puzzle every player has different dynamic discoveries to construct the image,
these differences do not affect the global structure of the image when it is put together (Ryan, 2001).
Internal – Exploratory interactivity: In this type of interactivity the user takes a virtual character into
the fictional world, the role of the user is limited to some actions that have no influence on the narrative
events. This does not mean that his role is passive. The user can move his character in the fictional world,
picking up objects and looking at them, or the characters role can be scripted as a traveler or as a detective
solving a mystery. Internal – Exploratory interactivity can result five types of story plots:
1. The mystery story where two narrative levels are connected, one is predetermined and the other is
created by the actions of the user.
2. The parallel plot where large number of characters act at the same time in different locations, the
user moves around between different locations to observe every thread of the plot.
3. Narratives focused on interpersonal relations where the reader gets the story from one characters
point of view and switches to another characters point of view.
4. The spatial narrative, the user’s main aim is to travel and explore.
5. The narrative of place, in this case the user tries to explore a specific location (Ryan, 2001).
External – Ontological interactivity: In this type of interactivity the user has the infinite power and
authority on the system. He simply acts as the god of the system having control on both time and space of
the fictional world, he controls and makes decisions for the characters and throws obstacles in their way. A
good example of this type of interactivity is the interactive movie “I’m your man” (Ryan, 2001), where the
user has different choices of assigning behavior on the characters at different branching points, ordering
them with specific actions like killing some other characters. Other examples of External – Ontological
interactivities are the children’s books choose your own adventure and the simulation game Simlife.
Internal – Ontological interactivity: In this case the user decides and acts within time and space in the
fictional world. In our daily life we engage constantly with the world surrounding us. The interaction
between the user and the system produces a new life story; the user is deeply absorbed to reach his goal to
reflect on the plot which he writes by his actions in the game. When players describe their experience with
a game, their description of the game takes the form of a story. We might think that computer games are
played for solving problems, defeating opponents and not for creating a story; if this was the case and
narrativity was not important, why then do designers put huge efforts in the creation of narrative interface
and graphics? Why doesn’t the player just collect some points by hitting targets that moves on the screen?
Kendall Walton called the functionality of narrativity of action games as a “prop in a game of make-believe”
it plays an important role as a stimulant for the imagination (Ryan, 2001).
Other thinkers such as Grodal, criticized Ryan Exploratory – Ontological points of views, he argues that “The
only necessary condition for experiencing”agency” and interactivity is that our actions make a difference”.
Additionally, he claims that “Interactivity is not centrally about changing a world; on the contrary, it is about
changing the mental states of the player, whether that takes place by changing some objects in the world or
by changing one’s point of view” (Wolf & Perron, p.141). Let us analyze what Grodal means by the actions
that make differences. If we reflect back to Ryan’s Exploratory and Ontological interactivities, the first
refers to the games in which the player move around without being able to alter the plot and the game
environment, while the second refers to the games where the player is able to influence the virtual world
and the story. Grodal disagrees partially with these two terms and argues that, there are no obvious
distinctions between exploring and altering. That is because of the key element of agency is the ability to
change the player’s experience. To simplify it more, Grodal gives an example of real life situation, a person
might feel agency by changing his experience by going to Italy, and it might be called exploring because
Italy does not change and Italy is the same after the visiting, but, the person has changed his mental states
by his navigations and experiences in visiting Italy. On the other hand, the person might experience agency
by building a house in Italy, thus making the first experience Exploratory and the second one Ontological
according to Ryan. Grodal argues that the person can wander around in an adventure or mystery game, but
he cannot change the fundamental layout of the game world as he cannot change Italy by his visit.
However, he can still control his navigation and his ability to shoot others and create different stories.
Grodal’s notion regarding the mental change by exploring seems more comprehensive than Ryan’s. The
change in the players mental states do not necessarily require a real interaction to change something in the
world, by exploring the virtual world; the mental states of the player might be changed. This difference in
his point of view can be considered as a significant process for experiencing agency.
Summing up:





External-Exploratory interactivity: The user does not have a character in the fictional world and his
interaction does not influence the virtual world, but the narrative emerges in his mind.
Internal-Exploratory interactivity: The user has a character in the fictional world, he is able to
explore and navigate.
External-Ontological interactivity: The user does not have a character in the fictional world, but he
has full power of changing the plot.
Internal-Ontological interactivity: The user has a character in the fictional world as well as full
power of changing the plot.
The player can experience agency by the change in his mental state.
1. Nevertheless all the above mentioned combination possibilities (Ryan’s Internal- External and
Exploratory-Ontological) will going to generate different types of plot schematics, to name some of
the plot schematics, the following section will highlight the most relevant plot structures for this
report, these schematics are proposed by scholars that have ludologist and narratologist
backgrounds such as Stephen, Ryan and Crawford.
6.2 Interactive Narrative Plot Schematics:
Many types of interactive narrative plot structures have been introduced by deferent scholars; each of
these plot structures has different shape and functionality. However the plot structure of interactive
narrative is a system of connections than a curve or a plot arc. Stephen stresses that the visualization of an
interactive nonlinear narrative can be more useful than a linear narrative. Raph koster claims that there are
two form of interactive narrative, Impositional and expressive (Stephen, 2002, p.63).
In general (In the movie industry) the author has control over the story, while in interactive narrative both
the architect of the interactive storytelling and the readers have control over the story. The terms
impositional and expressive refers to the level of control on the story that the user is allowed to have. An
example could be “choose your own adventure” as heavily impositional where the user is guided with strict
rules that allow the reader with limited decision choices. In simple words, impositional refers to a high
limitation by the system and less freedom of interactivity for the user. On the other hand, in the expressive
form the reader relies less on the series of events or decisions. The reader is free to explore, investigate
and make changes in the environment. Therefore, expressive refers to low limitation by the system and
high freedom of interactivity for the user. An example of this type could be the “Ultima online” where the
player has a high degree of freedom to navigate, explore and take actions. The challenge lies in finding the
proper balance between the two forms. Philosophers put major efforts in balancing the limitations and the
freedom of the player in the game world; hence focus in this section will be to demonstrate different plot
schematics proposed by various thinkers. The following three plot structures are proposed by Stephen.
6.2.1
Plot structures described by Stephen:
6.2.1.1 Nodal Plot Structure
This type of plot structure figure (7) consist of a series of noninteractive events interrupted by different
points of interactivity; this type is called “string of pearls”. It provides the most potential support for the
classic dramatic arc. Nodal plot structure has a single beginning and at least two endings, the event of the
endings will be the same and they do not have to occur at the same time in the storyline. Examples that
follow this pattern are games such as “Sonic the hedgehog” and “Dues Ex” (Stephen, 2002, p.64). According
to Stephen these games failed to some extent, to take the advantage of their dramatic potential due to the
lack of smooth transition and integration between the modes of active and passive participation in the
game. While the benefits of this type structures allow the player strong backstory, comprehensible
character development and deep environment (Stephen, 2002, p.64).
Figure 8 the Nodal Plot structure (Tomaszewski, 2005)
6.2.1.2 Modulated Plot Structure
The modulated plot structure figure (8) to some extend support the dramatic arc, but the degree is lesser
than in the Nodal plot structure. Moreover, it does not require the order to follow the different events.
Transitions in the story can be made in an earlier point as well as the time can be looped back on itself. The
interactivity in a modulated plot structure is more plot based, it can provide the reader/interactor with the
option of either avoiding the interactivity or to take an easier way to increase the participation and
interactivity. (Stephen, 2002, p.65).
Figure 9 the modulated plot structure (Tomaszewski, 2005)
6.2.1.3 Open Plot Structure
The structure of the open plot can look like a road map which consists of points of decisions which can
carry the reader to other points of decision. This type of plot structure is considered the most expressive
for the reader and the less expressive for the author. The dramatic arc is almost abandoned for the
interests of exploration and modification. It has no starting point; the story depends on the development of
the character or the environment. If we consider the open plot structure as a series of intersections in a
city, and you are driving, the individual decision allows you to go where you want to go. The process of
going from one place to another is what is important in the plot structure. Since there are many
opportunities for interactivity, the scale, frequency and form of the interactivity can be found in it is highest
level, resulting high complication in implementing this form of narrative (Stephen, 2002, p.66).
Figure 10 the open plot structure (Tomaszewski, 2005)
6.2.2
Plot structure described by Crawford:
6.2.2.1 Foldback Plot Structure
Developers tried to put efforts to solve the problem of branching tree design. They developed a plot
structure where they rerouted the consequences of the decisions, namely foldback structure. Without
additional efforts from the story designers, the foldback plot structure gave the user opportunities for more
decisions. Crawford argues that the foldback plot cheats and tricks the player into thinking that more
choices are available. He gives an example of a choice available for the player in a game. In this game, a
player enters a cave searching for the dragon and the sword needed to save the maiden is placed close to
the dragon. While he is inside the cave, he hears a sound of a tickling water. This sound will lead him either
to the hole of the dragon or to the mouth of the cave. He claims that in this way the story folds back to a
predetermined path. A problem that can occur is when the player repeatedly and unavoidably falls for the
trick of thinking that he is making a choice in the storyworld; the player simply thinks that he has been
cheated (Crawford, 2005, p.126).
Figure 11 a simple foldback structure (Crawford, 2005, p.126)
6.2.3
Plot structures described by Ryan:
6.2.3.1 The Network
In this case the reader’s movement will be neither free to navigate nor limited to a single course. The
network structure figure (12) allows circuits and therefore the duration of the readers visiting of each node
cannot be controlled by the system. The narrative continuity can be possible only from a single node to the
next or between sequences of nodes with single connections. The reader might go through a node where it
is described that a specific character is dead and then the reader moves to another node where the same
character is still a live (Ryan, 2001, p.248).
Figure 12 the network structure (Ryan, 2001, p.248)
6.2.3.2 The Tree
The characteristic of a tree structure figure (13) is that it does not allow circuits; there is only one way to
reach a given node. When a specific branch is taken, there is no possibility to return back to the decision
node. The branches in a tree structured diagram are isolated from each other, the reader can easily move
from the root node to the leaf nodes resulting in well formed stories (Ryan, 2001, p.249). The schematic of
the tree plot is easy to understand and simple to implement for the developer. However, after just a few
steps, the tree will grow rapidly, rendering it impossible for the developers to determine and identify
enormous amount of different conditions (Wolf & Perron, 2003, p.261).
Figure 13 the tree structure (Ryan, 2001, p.249)
6.2.3.3 Action space, Epic Wandering, and Story-World
The overall diagram space represents the geography of the virtual world, the nodes, the bidirectional links
between the nodes and the access ways to different sites as it is shown in figure (14). The interactivity
occurs on the macro level and the dramatic plotting on the micro level. It is free for the user to take any
road. When the user reaches any site; the system will send him into a self contained adventure, this
process is represented by bidirectional arrows in the diagram. According to Ryan the model discards the
idea of having an overarching dramatic narrative in favor of epic structure where the role of the user is
passive. The overall determined narrative by the user’s activity is sequential. On the other hand, the small
narrative events or micronarratives that are specified by the system can be dramatic. The geography of the
virtual world consists of distinct subworlds; each subworld offers different adventure. For example in one
site you ride a horse towards saving the queen in the castle; in another you climb a mountain; in another
you are flying in a spaceship. The numbers of the choices are limited to takeing the ride, and when the user
takes a decision, the system takes control over the user and provides him with an experience that has a
direction of the Aristotelian narrative structure. Landow has a similar structure which he calls the “story
world”. The concept is based on the fast reproduction of narrative where small stories take over the
attention from the macro level of the plot. Landow uses Hypercafé (Ryan, 2001, p.256) as an example.
Here, the user moves aimlessly in a crowded café, he chooses a table where some others having a
conversation, after selecting the conversation the user listens to it. The video unfolds; the role of the user is
passive in this case. Ryan stresses that in such systems the narrative coherence can be maintained at the
cost of interactivity (Ryan, 2001, p.256).
Figure 14 Graph of the action space, Epic Wandering, and Story-World (Ryan, 2001, p.256)
The structures of Nodal, Modulated and Foldback have common functionality in the sense of providing the
user with opportunities with multiple paths at the middle, and a single end. While the tree plot structure
has a single start point and infinite ending possibilities, this would demand huge efforts and maybe almost
impossible for designers to implement. A solution could be to develop a system that can generate a tree
plot structure than designing it. The network graph functions in a similar way as the tree but allows circuits.
Finally, the common attribute of the plot structures: Action space and Open graph provides multiple
starting points and multiple endings. We believe that this plot structure suites the characteristics of
emergent narrative (emergent narrative will be described later in this report) and allows the user to
construct narrative that has the characteristics of Aristotelian dramatic structure. Thereby this plot
structure will be chosen for the aim of this project. We will investigate the possibilities of applying and
adapting some other techniques and concepts to this type of plot structure. In the following section we will
describe other works that have been accomplished by designers and developers.
6.3 State of the art:
Some approaches towards interactive narrative and interactive drama will be on focus, to investigate
various techniques used in this field as well as describe the strength and weaknesses of each application.
First, we will demonstrate the idea behind The Sims and its characteristics of allowing the player to
construct a narrative. Second, the interactive storytelling Erasmatron will be demonstrated. And finally, the
interactive drama application of Façade will be described. We will also discuss some of the critics as well as
the pros and cons about each application. The following section will demonstrate the life simulation game
The Sims.
6.3.1 The Sims:
A work developed by Will Wright to simulate a household life, the Sims is considered as an environmental
approach to storytelling, even though it does not offer explicit storytelling. The players in the Sims guide
their characters in house activities such as taking shower, preparing meals, eating, washing dishes, cleaning
the house and sleeping. All the mentioned activities are claimed by Chris Crawford as not being dramatic
activities. He claims that the drama has been defined by Alfred Hitchcock as “life with dull bits cut out”
(Crawford, 2005, p.137). In this regard, Crawford describes the Sims as life with the dramatic bits cut out.
He concludes that the Sims is not interactive storytelling (Crawford, 2005, p.137). Finally, Sansone stresses
that the Sims has no plot, drama or emotional depth (Sansone, 2004, p.77).
Nevertheless, many people describe the storytelling content of the Sims. Crawford is of the opinion that
there is no story in the product itself; the player in The Sims perceive a story based on the characters
behavior in the game. In other words, the product simulates the player’s imagination to create a story
(Crawford, 2005, p.137). This reminds us of Grodal’s process of mental change where the user changes his
point of view while exploring the environment. A form of narrative emerges in the player’s mind. We will
elaborate more on the term emergent narrative in later sections in this report.
The criticism made by Crawford seems to be to the older version of The Sims. The latest version of The Sims
3 was released in February 2009, and has more interesting functionalities. The player is able to choose and
assign different traits (amongst 63 traits available) to his character. A combination of these traits can create
complex personalities. The assigned traits and lifetime wishes can be developed by some activities such as
training, exercise and reading. These lifetime wishes gives the player’s Sims the ability to for example get
married with other Sims. Additionally, daily maintenance is also required, for example it is important that
the player maintains hygiene and assures proper eating and sleeping for his character otherwise the Sims
get sick and die. One can imagine such a tragedy ending for a marriage and argue if the same criticism by
scholars can still take place. Indeed the developments that took place in The Sims can be considered as
revolutionary, we can summarize the developments as; in The Sims the player is involved in household
activities whereas in The Sims 2 the player is able to make shopping’s and go to night clubs and in The Sims
3 the player is able to for example experience adventure and travel to Egypt. Nevertheless ther is no
specific goal in The Sims and the events in the game are lacking causality.
6.3.2 Erasmatron:
Erasmatron is another approach towards interactive storytelling. It is developed by Chris Crawford and he
called it the future of interactive storytelling. The fundamental components of Erasmatron are the Actor,
Verb, Stages and Events. Crawford claims that some of the basic laws of drama can be easily constructed;
he mentions the concepts of space and time. The dramatic space is discrete, not continuous like the
physical space. It is divided into sub-spaces which are called stages; the actors interact with each other on
the stages. On the other hand, the dramatic time behaves differently than the physical time, except when
important action on track, the dramatic time goes at the same rate with the physical time. It is possible
with the dramatic time to jump any time interval that is necessary for the story. This jump is event driven
and not clock driven (Wolf & Perron, 2003, p.264).
The following present Crawford’s description of the basic components of Erasmatron:
Actors: Crawford considers an actor as the most important narrative component, Erasmatron offers a wide
variety of actors, and the attributes of the actors include name, gender, active/inactive (part of / not part of
the story), conscious and location (the stage the actor occupies).
Some other personality attributes that are also supported by Erasmatron such as: Timidity, Magnanimity,
Gullibility, Pride, Integrity, Dominance, Loquacity, Greed, Sensuality and Volatility. High Timidity value in a
character pushes him to give up easily facing any challenge. A high Gullibility in a character makes him trust
other characters fast. A high Volatility in a character can change his mood eagerly (Wolf & Perron, 2003,
p.265).
Verbs: It refers to the actions that an actor can carry out, some of the attributes of the Verb could be:
Audience (the presence and absence of other actors), the time to prepare (the time needed to set up the
action) and the time to execute (the time needed to carry out the action) (Wolf & Perron, 2003, p.265).
Stages: It refers to the location in which the different actions are executed (Wolf and Perron, 2003, p.265).
Events: It refers to the actor’s executed action. Eevents include: Subject (the actor who perform the event),
Verb (the performed action), Direct object (to whom the action is performed), Location (the stage of the
executed event), Time (the time of the executed event), Causal event (the reaction to a previously executed
event), Consequence event (the reaction to the latest executed event), knowledge (the knowledge of the
actors), Fallacious (the truth and falsification of the executed events ), Secret (the knowledge about the
event meant to be kept conceal) (Wolf & Perron, 2003, p.266).
Based on this approach Crawford developed and implemented a game called Balance Of Power 21st
Century (Crawford, 2008). The characteristics of the game can be described as a text based with drop down
menus. The basic idea behind is that the player takes the role of the president of the United States, the
player should take an action after the September eleventh attack; the game engine demands the player to
make some decisions to protect the country from further attacks and the people who were behind the
attack. However after playing the game, we believe that the game in general has the characteristics of
strategy games such as the game (Empire: Total War), where the player is also able to make cooperation
with other empires and it involves many different game elements that direct player’s interest. While
Erasmatron is text based and it lacks the basic game element such as 3D and audiovisual effects; hence it is
not immersive and not interesting to play, moreover one can imagine Erasmatron as railroading and
constraining the user to limited possible story paths. Nevertheless it is important to take the basic
components of Erasmatron into consideration, namely the relationship between actors, verbs, stages and
events.
6.3.3 Façade:
Façade is an immersive interactive drama developed by Mateas & Stern (Nitsche, 2008, p.65). They used AI
based techniques, in order to implement that kind of interactive story. The idea has been imagined by the
Star Trek Holodeck which presented by Laurel in Computers as theater. Façade combines the gamelike
pleasure of continued interaction and the storylike pleasure of participation in long term dramatic
progression. The player has a first person view in a simulated and real time 3D world with animation and
sound, where he is able to directly interact with the surrounding by navigating and picking up objects. The
characteristic of Façade is that it contains theatrical drama, instead of saving the world and shooting the
invaders, the characters in Façade expresses their mode by the use of emotional gestures, facial expression
and the use of natural languages.
Ryan criticizes Façade though, she claims that interactivity is limited because the user is more “active
observer rather than being cast as the main protagonist” (Szilas, 2005, p.194). The story is mainly about
human relationship, namely the relationship of a couple where their marriage is about to an end. The
actions take place in an apartment where the structure of events follows the Aristotelian arc of tension,
exposition, ascension, climax and denouement/resolution (Mateas & Stern, 2008). The player carries out
different small actions, the story progresses through the responses of the virtual couples to these actions.
These discourse actions contain criticism, praises, provocation and flirtation. The player chooses to have
the name of Brenda, where she is an old school friend of the couple Grace and Trip. The couple has invited
Brenda for drinks because they have not seen her for long time. Brenda is able to move around in the
apartment and pick up objects and gestures by the use of the hand cursor controlled by the mouse, and
communicate to the couple by using text inputs and receiving prerecorded audio outputs from the couple.
If the interactor inputs and uses provocative sentences, he will unnerve the two virtual characters which
might result in an end of the conversation and probably being asked to leave the room. (Mateas & Stern,
2008)
As we mentioned earlier in the section of plot schematics, the challenge is to have a balance in between
the impositional (limited interactvity) and expressive (unlimited interactvity) aspects of the game. Although
façade put great efforts and focuses on the necessity of containing the element of drama, it seems that it
lacks the needed balance between the dramatic elements involved and the user’s freedom of interactivity.
In fact Façade allows less expressivity for the user, the movement of the user is constrained and limited to
being in an apartment. It is essential to mention that user’s expressivity is an important factor which should
be taken to consideration. In the process of developing Façade, Mateas borrowed and used the term
agency which was found by Janet Murray to represent the user’s freedom of interactivity. In the following
section the term agency among other terminologies will be described, as well as the process of adapting
the term agency to be a part of the elements of drama.
6.3.4 Murray’s categories for interactive narrative:
Murray describes agency alongside some other terms such as immersion and transformation. She proposes
three categories to analyze the interactive story experience; a brief description of each category will be
demonstrated in the following:
Immersion: According to Mateas, this is defined as “feeling of being present in another place and engaged
in the action therein” Mateas argues that if the player is immersed in an experience, he is willing to accept
the internal logic of that experience, although it differs from the one in real world.
Transformation: Mateas separates this category into three types; transformation as masquerade,
transformation as variety and finally personal transformation. With the first one he refers to the game
experience that permits the player to transfer himself into someone else during the game experience. The
second refers to the game experience in which offers large number of variations on a theme, the player is
able to explore these variations and obtain better understanding of the theme. The last one refers to the
game experience in which it takes the player to a journey of personal transformation.
Agency: According to Murray the term agency can be considered as the most fundamental category from
the interactive dramatic perspective. Agency has been defined by Mateas as “the feeling of empowerment
that comes from being able to take actions in the world whose effects relate to the player's intention” It is
essential to mention that agency is not an interface activity. For example if there is many different buttons
or knobs to twiddle, and the action of twiddling has less effect on the players experience, then there is no
agency. In addition there must be a relation between the effect and the player’s intention; if the player
manipulates the interface element, this manipulation will cause an effect in the virtual world, if the effect is
not what the players intended to have, then there is no agency. For instance the player might think that an
action would have one specific effect but instead it had another effect (Mateas, 1998, p.2).
To sum up, an interactive story experience according to Murray involves three aspects, immersion,
transformation and agency. In linear media (e.g.films), a person can be immersed and transformed. These
two terms are independent from the third aspect of agency that refers to pure interactivity. Agency should
increase player’s experience in the game, a relationship is necessary between the player’s intentions to
carry out an action, and the obtained result. Finally agency can be considered as an important category for
interactive drama. Agency refers to the player’s intended action in the virtual world, hence in order to
experience agency there must be a balance between the players’s intended action and the out coming
result of interactivity. The following section will be about the adaptation of agency by Mateas to the
components of drama to obtain an interactive narrative model.
6.4 Interactive Drama:
In this section the process of integrating and adapting the term agency to Aristotle’s theory of drama by
Mateas will be demonstrated. Particularly, in developing Façade, Mateas and Stern followed Laurel’s
model, as shown in figure (15). This model represents Aristotle’s theory of drama that analyzes and
determines if the different categories proposed by Murray already exist in Laurel’s model and how to
integrate or adapt other aspects to it. Mateas claim that Murray’s category of immersion exists in
Aristotle’s theory of drama in the form of engagement, and some of the transformation’s sub categories
are also exists in the form of change in the protagonist, except Murray’s transformation as variety, which
refers to the kaleidoscopic narrative which rejects closure and that is contrary to Aristotle’s theory (Mateas,
1998, p.3).
Mateas calls Murray’s proposed categories as phenomenological; they are referring to what the player feels
like to participate in interactive story. Meanwhile he calls Aristotle’s categories as structural since they
refer to what parts that creates a dramatic story. Mateas argues that the challenge of developing
interactive drama is to integrate or adapt the phenomenological aspects to Aristotle’s structural aspects.
Since Murray’s categories of immersion and transformation exist in the field of non interactive drama,
Mateas claims that Murray’s agency as phenomenological category can be integrated and adapted to
Aristotle’s structural aspects; integrating agency will lead to obtain a model of interactive drama (Mateas,
1998, p.4).
Aristotle’s theory of drama is covered and explained in the narrative chapter, figure (15) illustrates
Aristotle’s theory of drama. Besides the traditional chains of Aristotle’s material and formal causes, two
new causal chains have been added in the level of character. The addition of the player represents the
freedom of the user to take his own actions.
Figure 15 the agency is inserted to Laurel's model at the level of character (Mateas, 1998, p.4)
According to Mateas, the user’s intended actions represents a new source of formal cause. The player’s
intention to take an action becomes the formal cause of the activities that occur from the level of language
towards the level of enactment. The player’s ability to take an action is not totally free, the material cause
constrains it from below and the formal cause from above it; hence the material causes represent the
material resources that provide the character with the ability to take an available action (Mateas, 1998,
p.4).
Regarding the user’s ability to take an available action, Mateas argues that the benefits of Norman’s
principle of affordance from interface design can be considered. He defines affordances as “the
opportunities for action made available by an object or interface”. He claims that the meaning of affordance
can go beyond the meaning of availability of action; an interface should cry out and call for an action to be
taken (Mateas, 1998, p.4). We mentioned the case of teapot handle as an example of affordances in the
interactivity chapter. As the handle of the cup cries out to be grasped, in a similar way, the material
resources afford actions in an interactive drama, thus they limit the users actions. This can be considered as
negative aspects of constraints. However, the material resources cry out to show the availability of such
actions, which refers to the positive form of constraints. In interactive drama the material affordances can
refer to for example, the richness of the character, so the player is able to understand their thoughts. These
can be the characters motivations, desires and goals, they will become the material resources for the
player’s actions.
Mateas claims that “A player will experience agency when there is a balance between the material and
formal constraints” meaning that the player will experience agency if the actions motivated by the formal
constraints through dramatic probabilities is proportional to the available material constraints from the
most bottom level of spectacle and upwards to pattern, language and thought. If the game provides more
material affordances than the formal affordances, just as the case with some adventure games, the player
will randomly wander around in the game world with less level of intention. A good example that
stimulates a proper balance between the material and formal constraints is the game Quake. The formal
constraints or the dramatic probabilities are presented as (Anything moves will try to kill you, you have to
kill everything and finally you have to go through many possible levels). For these formal affordances there
are corresponding adequate material affordances that work. For example, the player is able to move and
run easily in the space, he is able to pick different types of weapons and shoot monsters. On the contrary,
the monsters have a consistent behavior of either kill or be killed (Mateas, 1998, p.5). We can summarize
the above mentioned facts by saying:
 Agency (user action) can represent the formal cause for the elements of Aristotle’s drama from
Language and down to the level of Enactment.
 Agency is constrained by the material causes from the level of Enactment and upwards
 Affordance can influence Agency.
 In order to experience agency there must be a balance between the material and formal
constraints.
Integrating agency to be a part of the components of drama can be considered as an important step to
approaching the concept of interactive drama. Agency represents the availability of interaction in an
interactive storytelling application. There are two important aspects that determine the player’s level of
experiencing agency, the formal and the material causations. The formal cause refers to the player’s
intentions and motivations to take actions. The ability to take these actions is determined by the material
cause which represents the resources for the player to use in taking actions. To make the player experience
agency, it is essential to maintain balance between the formal and the material causes. Besides the
approach of integrating agency, other thinkers tried to combine both narrative elements and game
elements as an attempt for interactive narrative application. To approach such applications Jenkins
proposes different strategies with a short description and examples of each. Evoked narratives refer to the
use of some elements from a known linear narrative in an interactive application e.g. applying and adapting
elements from the movie of Star Wars to the GAME of Star Wars. Enacted narratives which can be
organized around the player’s movement through the virtual world for example adventure games.
Embedded narratives can be added as events with their consequences, where the player discovers new
stories through the game progress e.g. Half Life. Emergent narratives where Jenkins points out The Sims as
an example and defines it as narratively pregnant game spaces, which gives the player the opportunity to
make his own story (Mateas, 2002, p.35). Further description in detail regarding Jenkins strategies will be
demonstrated in the following section.
6.5 The strategies proposed by Jenkins:
According to Jenkins, not all games tell stories. He proposes four different strategies; as an approach he
attempts to unite the elements of interactivity with the elements of narrativity. Jenkins claims that
“Environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in at least one
of four ways: spatial stories can evoke pre-existing narrative associations; they can provide a staging
ground where narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mise-enscene; or they provide resources for emergent narratives” (Jenkins, 2004). Furthermore Brown and Cairns
states that “The first stage of immersion is engagement. This is the lowest level of involvement with a game
and must occur before any other level” (Brown & Cairns, 2004, p.2).
Based on the arguments mentioned above, the environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an
immersive narrative experience, and the concept of engagement represents the first stage of immersion.
We believe that applying and adapting the strategies proposed by Jenkins to interactive narrative
applications can improve the player’s engagement with such applications. Therefore we find it significant to
describe these strategies more in detail in the following sub sections.
1. Evoked narratives
According to Jenkins, evoked narratives are elements in which the user is familiar with from previous
experiences in movies. The user enters physically to spaces that they have visited many times in their
fantasies. Jenkins states that the use of evocative spaces “may either remediate a pre-existing story (Back
to the Future) or draw upon a broadly shared genre tradition (Disney's Haunted Mansion)” (Jenkins, 2004).
Additionally Jenkins states that evoked narratives refer to spatial design that can enhance our sense of
immersion within a familiar world.
2. Enacted Narratives:
The enacted narrative can be obtained by containing a combination of pre-rendered sequences, back
stories and cut scenes in the game space. This type of narrative can be experienced through the player’s
movement in the game world, even though cut scenes provide the player with background story. To have
this type of narrative, the designer of the game should use more sophisticate structure than long cut
scenes. For example to advance the narrative in the game, most adventure games such as Thief 2 use this
technique (Brand & Knight, 2005, p.3). Enacted narrative gives the player a role of protagonist and it is
mostly concerned about the player’s performance in the space. This can be found in adventure games with
an example being the Myst. Here, the player explores the game world and interacts with different objects.
The player is able to carry some items and read them while he is wandering in the space. These items can
represent some necessary back stories for his journey.
3. Embedded Narratives:
The narrative events are embedded in the game space; the player determines a story through the progress
of events in the game world (Mateas, 2002). Brand stressed that “Embedded narrative is present when the
player can evolve a sense of story over time by stumbling across spaces and objects or artifacts that become
familiar and are thus decoded for embedded meaning or importance” (Brand & Knight, 2005, p.3). In other
words it refers to the player ability to decode the mise-en-scene in the game space. The author predefines
the embedded narrative to evoke past story events (Brand & Knight, 2005, p.3). For instance, in Dead Space
when the player enters the spaceship and sees blood, dead bodies, and destroyed equipments; this evokes
past story events in him, and triggers the notion of awareness; he tries to interpret and make sense of the
overall game situation.
4. Emergent Narratives:
The concept of emergence started thousands years ago and achieved popularity among Western Europe’s
thinkers as “emergent chemistry”. Alchemists believed if they mixed different chemicals in a complicated
way they could cook up gold. Emergence has been defined by Crawford as “the notion that complex
systems can produce behavior that surprises us with its organization”. Regarding the interactive story telling
Crawford underlines that “Just as the alchemists had to understand the basics of chemistry before they
could start cooking up interesting chemicals, storybuilders are just going to have to understand tha basics of
drama before interactive storytelling works” (Crawford, 2005, p.138).
The Game of Life as an old computer program represents one of the earliest examples of emergence. It
produced the concept of “cellular automata”, a collection of intelligent cells that have a self acting
mechanism where each cell had some simple set of rules that defines its behavior. According to Crawford;
this concept inspired the work of many researchers such as the game designer Will Wright to create the
game of SimCity (Crawford, 2005, p.137). Lindley states that “Emergent narrative in the strong sense is
concerned with the emergence of well-defined high level narrative forms from the interaction of smaller
scale elements (eg. game characters) in a system that does not contain any representation of that high level
form” (Lindley, 2005, p.24). The interactive drama system Façade that has been created by Mateas and
Stern, is a good example emergent narrative system that uses Aristotle’s arc of dramatic tension.
Another good example of emergent narrative is the flying wedge of Laurel figure (4) which it has been
described in the narrative chapter. Emergent narrative-EN is defined as “a narrative concept in virtual
reality that relies on emergence for a flexible shaping of stories as opposed to fixed pre-determined plots”
(Louchart et al., 2008, p.1). The concept has been introduced by Aylett in 1999 as a convincing solution to
the narrative paradox in virtual environments. The term narrative paradox refers to the contradictions
between the independency of the user (his freedom to move in the virtual world) and the wish to convey a
satisfying plot structure. In order to accomplish an interactive narrative experience two parts need to be
involved, the interactor and the system play. The EN system can provide the interactor with a certain
dramatic experience, such experience can only occur if the interactor actively and freely participates with
both the narrative environment and characters (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2).
It is essential to stress that the interactor influences the way the story unfolds. Therefore there must be
flexibility in the relationship between the interaction and the narrative development, so they accommodate
each other. The EN scenario or the system provides the interactor with the spectrum of available actions
and events; the system offers the interactor with definite amount of options so he is able to reshape the
spectrum of actions and define the story development (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2).
In the process of EN the direction of the narrative development is dependent on the interactors active
engagement in a specific interaction (the aim of the wedge), and the narrative developments constrains
probable future interactions (the gradual narrowing of the wedge). The player’s cognitive process is
involved and he continuously constructing narrative, the more this process develops the more meaningless
interactions is reduced (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2). As it is shown in figure (16), in the beginning of the story
there are many interaction possibilities, when the interactor carries out some actions, the story begins to
unfold and these possibilities begins to decrease, the gradual elimination of the possible interaction is
dependent on the development of the constructed narrative by the player, the player’s understanding of
the game world determines his future behavior and the dramatic consequences that might follow his
actions. Regarding meaningless interaction, (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2) in their example of Little Red Riding
Hood folk tale, at the moment where the wolf pretends as he is the granny; a meaningless interaction could
be, is to invite the granny for dinner at his house, a meaningful interaction could be to deceive the young
girl instead. As the story develops such type of meaningless interaction is the ones to be illuminated and lie
outside the scope of the interactor. The unused actions might be probable for and fall in the range of other
characters; hence different characters will have different story development directions, resulting story
endings or wedges (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2).
Figure 16 the flying wedge for interactive narrative (Laurel, 2007, p.72)
One of the most significant aspects in EN is the virtual character; characters convey stories when they
interact with each other as well as with the player. These interactions should bring the story forward,
Louchart claims that this process can be supported by the dramatic modeling of the characters, they are
designed to change the characters attitude, emotions and goals (Louchart et al., 2008, p.2). Another related
important aspect in EN is the simulation, simulation has been defined as “building models of (an aspect of)
reality” (Louchart et al., 2008, p.10). Just as film authors try to make their characters resemble reality;
modeling the characters in EN after realism can be considered as an important approach. According to
Louchart it increases the willing suspension of disbelieve, as well as it simulates realistic consequences for
educational purposes (Louchart et al., 2008, p.10). In the next section the mediation in EN will be on focus.
6.5.1.1 Mediation in Emergent Narrative
Boyd claims that art is a form of cognitive play, he stresses that we get art if we apply normal behavior
together with play to cognitive processing. We get art when we play with ideas, that’s why art can take
many different forms, if we play with ideas by using words we approach poetry, if we play with sounds we
obtain music and when we play with images we get paintings, Boyd states that “Art can be done with any
medium in which people play with ideas” (Boyd, 2009). As a recall of what we have mentioned in the
previous section. The interactor influences the way the story unfolds, he plays an important role in
narrative development. Stories in turn emerge at interaction time. It is essential to investigate, what can EN
convey? Who are the story tellers? What are the stories that have been told? And to whom these stories
are told? Louchart answers these questions by stating; the sender who tells the story. The massage is what
has been told. Finally the receiver; to whom the stories are directed (Louchart et al., 2008, p.4).
The sender: In traditional media the authors decide how to mediate a story to the receiver, the authors
write the story expertly in advance making sure to raise questions to the receiver and answering them to
reach the desired goal. This one directional relationship between/from the author to the receiver is not the
case in EN, even though the system of EN is created in advance, the narrative development will be shared
between the system and the interactor. In EN, the interactor raises the questions with the help of narrative
system and attempts to answer them. Therefore a dialogue relationship between the interactor and the
system is established (Louchart et al., 2008, p.5).
The message: It is the author’s full responsibility to decide what has to be told. In contrast, in EN the
interactor by his understanding the story world, and by making choices and exploring the consequences,
will have the chance and responsibility to construct his own message and finally what should be told.
Therefore there is a bidirectional relationship between the interactor and the narrative system in
constructing the narrative (Louchart et al., 2008, p.5).
The receiver: Louchart, Swartjes, Kriegel & Aylett claim that not all the carried out actions by the interactor
can be meaningful. To cover this aspect, it is essential to focus on the meaningful actions or namely the
notion of agency. In order to approach agency in an EN there are three points needs to be considered
(Louchart et al., 2008, p.5).
1- In order to be able to experience agency, it is not necessary for the interactor to be able to predict
the consequences of his actions.
2- In case if the interactor is able to predict the consequences of his actions, he should not behave in
a way such as in real life, since real life situation is different that a drama, meaning that the
interactor should be eager and courageous to expect high dramatic events that he would not dare
to have in real life.
3- The narrative system offers the interactor with some partially defined narrative elements that has
influence in the overall EN. Therefore, the narrative system assumes a willingness to play by the
interactor who ignore such offer and might choose another direction to explore something else.
Since the interactor plays a major role in the narrative development and the way the story unfolds,
the narrative system is not responsible for the degree of willingness or engagement of the
interactor to play. So, the more the interactor is willing to play the more satisfying the EN
experience is (Louchart et al., 2008, p.5).
Summing up all the mentioned strategies proposed by Jenkins, it is important to stress that each strategy
plays an important role and complements the other strategies in giving the player the opportunity to
construct his story. Evocative narrative elements play a crucial role because of its direct relationship to
interactivity. It can be considered as the main resource to support meaningful interaction by the user.
Enacted narrative influences the player’s performance in the game world. The embedded narrative
elements evoke and trigger some thoughts in the player’s mind, it indicates to some other events or
incidents that occurred in the game. Finally the EN model presented by Laurel can be considered as an
important step not only towards stories in games, but, it can also represent a step towards interactive
stories that involve dramatic elements. Another benefit of Laurel’s model is that it accommodates all the
other strategies proposed by Jenkins. Additionally these strategies can work as supplementary tools in
Laurel’s model to provide the players the opportunities to construct different stories. Laurel’s model guides
the player indirectly through different steps; these steps will rise in tension to reach a climax assuring the
process of forming a dramatic arc. The model by Laurel has been developed from experience combinations
in both linear and nonlinear media; it would be interesting to look into some other works that have the
same characteristics as the model proposed by Laurel. In simple words a model that has been used in both
traditional and interactive media, for instance the story vehicle of the concept of Monomyth created by
Campbell. This concept involves some other terms such as Quest. The following section will describe what
these concepts are and how they are used to serve interactive narrative applications.
6.6
Different approaches toward interactive narrative:
In the following section different approaches toward interactive narrative will be analyzed. These
approaches are mostly discussed in the academic field by scholars and each of the approaches follows
different theories and concepts with the aim of providing the user with interactive storytelling application.
3D graphics are considered as new means of expression added to the interactive narrative applications. The
availability of navigation in 3D space changed the textual quality of computer games; it distinguished them
from any other less spatially defined interactive pieces (Nitsche, 2008, p.6). Nitsche proposes three factors
that play major role in defining the quality of an interactive narrative system. These are Structure,
Presentation, and Functionality (Nitsche, 2008, p.6). By structure he refers to the textual quality of the
game worlds; how the player understands the game space presented to him. Nitsche argues that “Narrative
is seen as a form of understanding of the events a player causes, triggers, and encounters inside a video
game space” (Nitsche, 2008, p.6). In other words Nitsche simply refers to the concept of Quest; this
concept will be further described in the next section. With the term Presentation Nitsche refers to the
expressive elements of video games. In nowadays video games; audiovisual components or elements from
cinematic have been used in commercials presentations (Nitsche, 2008, p.7). Functionality it refers to
determining rules that the player can do in the game space and how the space influences the player’s
abilities, for example artificial intelligence and interface design (Nitsche, 2008, p.7).
6.6.1 Quest:
The concept of quest refers to the movement in the spaces the idea of traveling through the virtual world.
De Certeau claims that “every story is a travel story, as it has to include spatial practices that localize
events” (Nitsche, 2008, p.58). In this regard Nitsche adds by saying “These travels can be used by the
spacemaker and form an essential ingredient of 3D game worlds that stands out as a spatially defined
pointer to possible dramatic structures” (Nitsche, 2008, p.64). All events in the virtual world have a certain
location and time; both are linked to a virtual journey filled with discoveries and explorations. The role of
spacemaker is to provide opportunities in the virtual space. Nitsche states in his example, the filmmaker
says “Look, I will show you” while a spacemaker should say “Here I will help you discover” (Nitsche, 2008,
p.57).Nevertheless the benefit of quest is that it provides the spacemaker a guideline to position the
evocative narrative elements (Nitsche, 2008, p.58). In fact without narrative elements the 3D video game
can be in danger, it becomes composed of disintegrated and unconnected momentary interactions
(Nitsche, 2008, p.64).
According to Nitsche the process of evoking narrative takes place in the player and the player’s experience,
space is considered as a fundamental element of this experience. He states that “game spaces evoke
narratives because the player is making sense of them in order to engage with them” (Nitsche, 2008, p.3).
Furthermore the player generates new meaning through comprehension of signs and interaction with the
space. Nitsche calls the implemented elements in the game space to assist comprehension, as evocative
narrative elements. He claims that evocative narrative elements “do not contain a story themselves but
trigger important parts of the narrative process in the player” (Nitsche, 2008, p.3). Moreover Murray argues
that spatiality is one of the most important aspects of digital media (Nitsche, 2008, p.4). In this sense
Nitsche in his example states that; the game of Grand Theft Auto III provides the player with randomized
taxi missions. The player has to highjack a virtual car (a taxi), pick up passengers, compete with other traffic
and find the shortest way in the city towards the target. When the player is delivering the first passenger;
he might pick other passengers and continue to other destinations. Nitsche argues that the player is
constantly changing missions; he is involved in the game’s urban landscape, he becomes a part of the
flowing traffic, the player engages with the space far more than other games such as Tetris (Nitsche, 2008,
p.57). Therefore Jenkins suggests considering space makers as narrative architects; they do not tell stories,
but, their main objectives are to design worlds and sculpt spaces for the player (Nitsche, 2008, p.58). The
building process of the player can be improved by including evocative elements in the virtual environment.
These elements represent suggestive markings; they are grouped in a way in order to trigger the player’s
reactions so he can create his own interpretations. In fact stories are in the mind of the player and not in
the work itself (Nitsche, 2008, p.44). Such elements can be represented by anything, any situation that
comes across with the player; they are structured in a way to guide the player’s comprehension. The idea
behind the evocative elements is to improve the player’s experience in the virtual world (Nitsche, 2008,
p.37). Indeed, narrative elements in video games are widely discussed; Nitsche argues that they can
generate supportive circumstances for the necessary interpretation of the conditions in game spaces.
Additionally they can prevent chaotic and meaningless explosions of possibilities. In other words narrative
elements can prevent meaningless interaction (Nitsche, 2008, p.43). Nitsche clarifies finally its role by
stating that “Evocative narrative elements encourage players to project meaning onto events, objects, and
spaces in game worlds. They help to infuse significance. Their value is not realized on the level of the
element itself but in the way players read and connect them. Creating these connections, players can form
narratives that refer to the game world” (Nitsche, 2008, p.44). An approach regarding the concept of quest
is the work of Vladimir Propp. He analyzed 100 Russian folktales and discovered some common elements;
he called these elements as universal functions. To represent these functions, he designed a notation in
which he called “The Morphology of the Folketale”. An image to illustrate his list of common functions can
be seen in Appendix (B) (Crawford, 2005, p.153).
Nevertheless Propp’s functions provide a pattern for the quest based concept (Nitsche, 2008, p.59). A
simple example of Propp’s tale is presented by Crawford as the following:
“A tsar, three daughters. The daughters go walking, overstay in garden. A dragon kidnaps them. A call for
aid. Quest of three heroes. Three battles with the dragon, rescue of the maidens. Return, reward”
(Crawford, 2005, p.155). Based on Propp’s functionality this example can be seen in codified form as:
“ΒδABC HIK W” for better understanding please see Appendix (B).
The quest is forming from diverse elements of story functions residing in the written text. The hero is
considered as the main part of the story journey. In other words, the Hero follows a given pathway along a
fixed trajectory. We can sum up by saying:



The concept of Quest, allows the user to construct a dramatic narrative structure.
Quest can be used as guideline for the spacemaker to position the evocative narrative elements.
Without narrative elements, computer games will be in danger, thus results meaningless
interaction.
Another approach for the quest is focusing more on the hero in which interprets quest as a process of
personal growth. A well known cycle model is “The Hero’s Journey” developed by Campbell the model uses
the idea of the monomyth and provides a basic frame work for quest. Vogler argues that “the
monomythical view toward a quest is relevant not only for analysis of narrative pieces but also for the
writing process. The writers own life can be seen as a form of quest” (Nitsche, 2008, p.59). Thus the concept
of monomyth will be described in the following section.
6.6.2 Monomyth:
A work published by Josef Campbell called “The hero with thousand faces” explored the interrelationship
between legends and myths of cultures. Campbell extracted a complex pattern which all of these stories
followed, and called this pattern or the monomyth ” the hero’s journey“.
According to Vogler’s adaptation of Campbell’s original work, the Hero’s Journey could be represented
along the monomyth circle or the story vehicle as the three acts structure. The upper half of the circle
corresponds to the ordinary world. The introduction of the hero is in the first act, and at the end of it the
hero prepares to cross the first threshold to enter the special world. The second act is counted as the
longest part of the journey. It consist of two parts, the ordeal at the end of the first part and the road back,
point as the end of the second part which represents the farthest point in the journey. With the road back
the hero’s journey directs back toward the ordinary world (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.95). Nitsche stresses
that the concept of monomyth or the quest model offers a way to connect the narrative elements through
a narrative framework; it supports a meaningful comprehension. He argues that “the concept of the
monomyth promises to support engaging game worlds as it offers some structural format but leaves its
realization open to the player” (Nitsche, 2008, p.65). In order to present the notion of hero’s journey in an
easy form Vogler stated the steps of story vehicle as the following eight steps:
The stages present Vogler’s interpretation of the hero’s journey:
The ordinary world: It is where the player meets the hero and is introduced to the back story. The
introduction can be combined with a prologue. There are two forms of prologue, the first explains what has
happened to the hero and what is about to happen, while the second provides a small piece of information
about the special world and that could be by either covering past events in the special world or by
foreshadowing and event to come. Foreshadowing is very valuable as it contrasts the special world to the
ordinary world. This causes confusion in the player, which may generate mental suggestions in the player.
Players that are sensitive to mental suggestions immerse in the game easily (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.96).
The call to adventure: It is the first hint that the hero gets in order to leave the ordinary world to enter
the special world. It considered as the trigger that initiates the story line (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.99).
The refusal of the call: It is where the hero rejects to leave the comfortable ordinary world to enter the
adventure of the special world. Multiple quests and sub quests leads to more refusals (Rollings & Adams,
2003, p.101).
The meeting with the mentor: It is where the hero meets the helper. When the hero wants to take an
action; it is the duty of the helper to provide the necessary information to the hero, in order to know which
action should be taken first. The mentor can be a single character or different characters that pass the
information to the hero; even the mentor does not need to be a character, the information to the hero
should be provided no matter who will fill the role of the mentor (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.102).
Crossing the first threshold: The hero accepts the call to adventure, and decides to leave the ordinary
world he takes the first step to cross the threshold from the comfortable and safe ordinary world, to the
dangerous special world. When the threshold is crossed, there is no turning back and it is what called the
point of no return (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.103).
Tests, allies, and enemies: In this phase the hero meets with many characters in the journey, who may be
allies or tricksters, but mostly enemies than allies. In this phase the hero learns the most unfamiliar rules of
the special world; he is tested and prepared to face the biggest suffering that lies ahead namely the ordeal
(Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.104).
The approach to the innermost cave: after the hero succeeded to adapt himself to the rules of the
special world; he approaches the innermost cave. This considered as the core of the story, where the hero
seeks to find the reward. This story element is mostly used to help the hero to prepare for the ordeal by
gathering information or prepares mentally for the coming tasks (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.105).
The ordeal: This phase represents the crucial test. The hero passed through different small tests, thus the
ordeal considered as the major test. The hero can either be defeated by the enemy and that means failure
or he defeats the enemy leading to the success toward the reward (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.106).
The reward: After passing the ultimate test, the hero gets his reward. The reward can be in many forms,
sometimes it comes as a negative option in which the hero did not expect. This might surprise him; the
Hero would rather avoid but cannot. Some games ends at this phase, others ends and shows the remaining
story as cut scenes and for some other games this phase represent the beginning of the final phase
(Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.106).
The road back: After winning the reward, the hero prepares himself to go back to the ordinary world. As
we mentioned in the earlier phace most games show this phase and the remaining two other story
elements as cut scenes (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.108).
The resurrection: This phase represents the resolving of all the outstanding plot threats. It is the final test
for the hero before being able to enjoy his reward. In this face the player will have a clear overview about
how the hero evolved throughout the story (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.109).
The return with the reward: It represents the last stage in the circular story form, the story returns to its
starting point. The story is over and the hero returns with his reward. The player is able to compare the
hero before and after story ends (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p.109).
According to Nitsche the basic monomythical structure can be supported by the use of evocative narrative
elements; the model of the Hero’s Journey is considered as a useful model for the comprehension. Nitsche
points out the importance of the model of the Hero’s Journey due to the following reasons (Nitsche, 2008,
p.61).
1. It depends on a voyage of discovery, the player develops his game space skills, some players might
start a quest and they never finish it, they might be side tracked because of other tasks, others
might need social collaboration in order to explore the quest.
2. The fact that the use of the model is widely spread in film and television narratives and literature;
this will make the player familiar with the structure and helps them in reading game events. Thus
the video game could utilize the wide spread of the monomythical model for its own aim to
improve the engagement of the player. This fact corresponds to one of Jenkins strategies described
earlier, namely Evoked Narratives.
3. Nitsche argues that the “original concept does not dictate dramatic high points at predefined
moments within a certain timeframe”. The adaptation of the concept to the film industry has
forced the circle to unfold within a fixed time frame. This was not the case in the original model by
Campell, Nitsche suggests that stories could be arranged on different parts of the circle (Nitsche,
2008, p.62).
It is clear that there is an interrelationship between the concepts of quest and monomyth. As we
mentioned earlier, the quest has been defined as the player’s travel in the game space. Thus the concept of
monomyth gives a guideline, and arranges the player’s travel in the space, in a narrative framework. The
monomythical concept or steps provide the player and guides him through different dramatic events; with
the overall steps forming a dramatic arc. Therefore the concept of monomyth provides the player with
engaging game worlds. Player’s engagement with such dramatic events can be considered as an important
step by the developers. Other scholars, uses other techniques to reach the same goal. The following section
will describe different approaches used to improve the player’s engagement with dramatic events.
6.7 Dramatic Engagement:
In this section the term engagement will be described by different scholars with different backgrounds for
example from the film point of view, in theater, and from both theater and interactive narrative
backgrounds: Some of the approaches towards interactive narrative will also be demonstrated, for example
the approach of using dramatic techniques that have been used for linear media such as theater to be
adapted for non linear or interactive media. Boorstin, as a film theorist divides the concept of engagement
into three different categories, stressing that a person can watch a film from three eyes or perspectives:
Voyeuristic eye: “the feeling of joy resulting from discovery and learning”.
Vicarious eye: “the feeling of empathy through an understanding of characters’ emotions and choices”.
Visceral eye: “the feeling of enjoyment as a result of simple emotional reactions to audio-visual stimuli” (ElNasr, 2007, p.3).
Blythe and Hassenzahl made a distinction between fun and pleasure; describing fun “fun as a distracting
activity that leads to satisfaction, and pleasure as a deeper form of enjoyment where participants become
absorbed in an activity” (El-Nasr, 2007, p.3). They define engaging activities as “activities that stimulate
memory, evoke anticipation, and provide opportunities for personal growth”. According to El-Nasr their
description of pleasure corresponds to the types of engagement defined by Boorstin, namely the
Voyeuristic and Vicarious eyes perspectives. Furthermore Koster describes fun as “the process of learning
and exploration” his view corresponds to one of Boorstin’s perspectives of Voyeuristic eye. Koster argues
that “an experience stops being engaging when we stop learning” (El-Nasr, 2007, p.3).
Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek described fun in games in eight categories, fun as sensation (Game as sensepleasure), fantasy (Game as make-believe), narrative (Game as drama), challenge (Game as obstacle
course), fellowship (Game as social framework), discovery (Game as uncharted territor), expression (Game
as self-discovery) and submission(Game as pastime) (Hunicke, LeBlanc & Zubek, 2004, p.2). Similar work by
Malone which described the elements that affects engagement in video games as: challenge, fantasy and
curiosity (El-Nasr, 2007, p.4).
Laurel argues that “The most engaging interactive narrative relies upon flow, that is, uninterrupted
participation in the unfolding action. Poor interaction design can interrupt flow and degrade the
experience” (Stephen, 2002, p.37). She claims that engagement contains cognitive components, mostly
understood as emotion. She makes similarities between the concept of engagement and the theatrical view
of the “willing suspension of disbelief” which was introduced by the critic and poet Coleridge. The willing
suspension of disbelieve is a state of mind that a person has to reach to enjoy a representation of action.
Coleridge thinks that no one could claim that a play on a stage is a real life substance; he argues that, if a
person wants to enjoy a play, he should temporarily suspend his knowledge of the actions being pretended,
by doing so willingly the person will experience some other emotional responses. Laurel exemplifies this
concept as, a person might feel fear when the heroine is under threat, but the same person would have
different type of fear if he was the one who was tied to the railroad track. We experience the excitement of
fear if we pretend that the actions are real; while knowing that the actions are pretended avoids us feel the
real pain of the fear (Laurel, 2007, p.113).
According to Laurel, Coleridge’s phenomenon of “willing suspension of disbelief” can occur very likely in
drama and computer games, in a very similar way we feel for the characters, also when we are represented
by the characters (Laurel, 2007, p.113). She argues that, it is essential to distinguish between the activity
and the artifacts. The artifacts are real such as actors, lightning, while the activities and the
representational context by the actors are pretended. With a representational context we experience more
pleasure and enjoying feelings than we experience in real life, while with the first we avoid the pain and
harm which we might experience in real life situations (Laurel, 2007, p.114).
Laurel claims that one of the important factor in engagement is reversibility (Laurel, 2007, p.114). Laurel
calls it the ability to take something back, for instance, she experienced a power failure while she was
working on a work document, which leads to many unpleasant real life emotions due to the interruption in
the flow of representational activity, and because she did not save the latest work and lost some
paragraphs. We might ask what if she didn’t save her work at all and lost all the work? In that case the level
of experiencing unpleasant real life emotions would be at the highest, the reversibility would be at the
lowest, thereby lowering the motivation to engage in the same representational activity.
Laurel outlines that engagement occurs when we leave ourselves to a representational action. We accept
the notion of feeling and thinking in terms of conventions of mimetic context, so we obtain many new
action possibilities and emotional experiences. To engage refers to the ability to experience a mimetic
world directly without any mediation (Laurel, 2007, p.112).
Another approach to engagement is done by El-Nasr. She tries to apply and adapt some of the techniques
used in theater into an interactive narrative application, assuming that applying these techniques will
maintain user’s engagement. According to her, it has been claimed by Baid, Boorstin, Foss, Kawin and
Bucklan that the use of dramatic techniques in traditional media, the knowledge and experiences gained in
the field of acting, screenwriting and directing, can be applied and used to enhance engagement and
dramatic quality of an interactive narrative (El-Nasr, 2007, p.3). The Vicarious eye type of engagement has
been comprehensively studied in film, theater and performance arts. Therefore her hypothesis is that,
applying performance arts techniques will enhance the engagement and dramatic quality of interactive
narratives. She emphasizes the importance of adaptation by “Applying techniques from performance arts to
interactive narrative without adaptation is bound to disappoint due to the differences in the two media” (ElNasr, 2007, p.10). With the two media, she refers to the characteristic differences in traditional media and
interactive media. The following will concern the different techniques proposed to be adapted in
interactive media.
The following present the techniques proposed by El-Nasr:
6.7.1.1 The plot structure and magnitude:
The quality of plot has been defined by Aristotle with five basic principles; Completeness, magnitude, unity,
structure, and universality (Halliwell, 1998, p.257). Recalling the plot structure definition in narrative
chapter as the order of events in time, the events are important parts of the plot; if any part is removed the
plot will lose its meanings. Additionally Baid also claims that the order of events and their dramatic
progression in time are important factors that affect the plot quality (El-Nasr, 2007, p.11). The dramatic
tension in movies rises over time to reach a peak and falls in tension to be released; hence it can be
visualized as a dramatic arc. Bnedetti defines a play as a collection of scenes, each scene consists of beats,
each beat has its own local dramatic arc, and the overall shape of the scenes will form a global dramatic
arc. Therefore the plot quality will depend on the choosing and ordering the events to form the structure
(El-Nasr, 2007, p.11).
The second factor is the amount of time spent with each event that affects the performances engagement
(Aristotle magnitude). El-Nasr illustrates this concept with an example of a scene where a person opens a
door that leads to an unknown place. Her contribution is a way of showing the character slowly reaching
the door, slowly opining the door with a hesitation to walk in the unknown place, according to her slowing
the pace of the scene will add different dramatic qualities to the scene. She claims that “orchestrating the
pacing and magnitude of each event is as important to engagement as plot structure” (El-Nasr, 2007, p.12).
6.7.1.2 The Ticking Clock:
According to El-Nasr this concept has been used as a dramatic tool in many traditional linear media, play
writers employ dialogue, audio visual events to plan future events, for instance in the movie, Saw the killer
locks two people in a room and gives them chance to find an exit until 6:00 pm. Shots of ticking clock at
different points were interjected by the director in order to rise the anticipation of a death event. In an
interactive narrative, El-Nasr proposes an idea of adding a trigger that can execute a cut scene with future
event at the right time; nevertheless she admits that this concept might not be proper for interactive
narrative. As we mentioned earlier, in linear media the director can foresee the audience’s state of mind
and then plans the effects within the scenes to arouse anticipation. This is not the case in interactive
narrative, the concept of ticking clock could be applied if a system is developed and uses a user modeling
algorithm to predict user’s state of mind (El-Nasr, 2007, p.13).
6.7.1.3 Character Arc:
El-Nasr argues that this concept corresponds to Boorstin’s Vicarious eye as a type of engagement in which
the user feels empathy through an understanding of characters’ emotions. This concept has been defined
by Freeman as the Character arc principle where the character growth occurs over time. Josef Campbell the
man behind the concept of Monomyth describes an example of such concept as, the birth of a hero where
he struggles and unwillingly becomes the hero in the end of the story (El-Nasr, 2007, p.14). Freeman
suggests adapting this concept to the non-playing characters. While El-Nasr argues that the main source of
player’s engagement is the interaction, and since the player does not spend much time with NPC’s she
suggests adapting this technique to the participant’s character, the main goal is to give the player the
opportunity to develop his character by the actions and choices he executes in the game (El-Nasr, 2007,
p.14).
6.7.1.4 Defining Characters’ Tactics:
According to El-Nasr, Stanislavski claims that, an actor defines his characters objectives and tactics; that is
he defines the set of behaviors that he uses to reach his characters goals. Benedetti outlines that during
performance, the actors observe other characters to evaluate if their tactics leads to success or failure;
hence they change tactics if they anticipate failure. It is important for the actors to choose personality that
suite their characters. Another crucial factor is the awareness of success or failure of tactics that influences
the characters believability (El-Nasr, 2007, p.15).
6.7.1.5 Defining Characters’ goals:
Bruder emphasizes the importance of the goals that the actors choose for their characters. The goal should
include other characters in the scene, and include conflict with other characters; this process is relevant to
generate and maintain conflict in the scene.
Field claims that “Drama is conflict” (Field, 1984, p.56), additionally Barber claims that, a conflict is what
makes a narrative dramatically interesting (Barber, 2008, p.28). According to El-Nasr this concept can be
applied to interactive narrative by predefining the rule for at least one character in the scene which is in
opposition with the user’s goals. This will ensure conflict and sustain drama (El-Nasr, 2007, p.16).
6.7.1.6 Emotions through action and activity:
Bethune states that “An actor cannot play an emotion; an actor can only play an action; emotion must arise
out of action” (Bethune, 2004). The actors play actions, they use different parameters to encode the
emotion in the action. These parameters include speed, direction, shape and intensity. El-Nasr describes
the significance of having activity for an actor rather than being what she calls empty handed in the stage;
this will prevent having unconvincing and unbelievable characters (El-Nasr, 2007, p.16).
To summarize most of the important aspects regarding engagement, the engagement type of vicarious eye
(concerns the feeling of empathy for character’s emotions) can be considered as an important aspect to be
taken into consideration in developing an interactive narrative application. This is due to the fact that this
type of engagement has been widely studied in films and theater. It is important to consider these
techniques to serve interactive narrative purposes. The most important factors that have to be taken into
consideration can be; firstly the willing suspension of disbelief. Increasing the willing suspension of
disbelieve for the player will lead to increase the level of engagement. Secondly is the plot structure; the
right choices and the right order of events determine the quality of the plot, this factor goes together with
the aspect of pacing, balancing between the time spent for each event and their proper order will have a
direct affect on player’s engagement in the game experience. Thirdly it is essential to have different goals
for the characters in the game to maintain conflict leading to dramatic events. Fourth applying emotions to
the characters in the game can be an ideal step to strengthen the dramatic contents.
Summing up:





Engagement type of Vicarious eye namely the feeling of empathy by understanding character’s
emotions can play an important role in interactive narrative applications.
Flow or uninterrupted participation in an action will result a higher degree of engagement.
Increasing the “willing suspension of disbelief” will lead the user to a deeper degree of engagement.
Adapting the technique of character arc (the concept of Monomyth) can enhance player’s degree
of engagement.
Emotions in the game should involve actions to increase the believability of the characters.
6.8 Conclusion and our contribution:
The terms and aspects that have direct relationship in solving the problem presented in this report will only
be mentioned. According to our theoretical investigation of the components of interactive narrative; it is
essential to mention the importance role of the plot within the dramatic event. The characteristic of drama
is that it represents action rather than description. Thus, a recall to Aristotle’s statement is necessary: If
there is no action; there is no a story. In deed the role of action in developing a story is crucial; therefore
taking to consideration all the aspects of interactivity plays an important role in any interactive narrative
application. One of the most important statements is the essence of any story is the dramatic tension.
Therefore involving the player with dramatically tensioned events can be considered as an important and
challenging task. The quest and monomythical concepts provide the player with engaging environments,
meaning that a landscape where the player executes different actions and make sense of the surroundings.
This will lead to change the player’s state of mind and the process of emergent narrative in his
imaginations. These two concepts provide the player with the opportunity to construct freely different
story paths. For this process character simulation is yet another important aspect. Modeling realistic
characters will enhance the suspension of disbelieve for the player. By realistic characters we do not mean
only the external outlook of the characters; but also applying body and facial expression, hence the
characters ability to express emotions will have great impact on the aspects of drama.
Based on the techniques used in linear media (e.g. films, theater) to maintain audience’s engagement; we
can come up with our hypothesis: Applying and adapting linear media techniques to interactive narrative
applications will enhance player’s degree of engagement.
Based on the mentioned hypothesis, we designed a model illustrated in figure (17); the model is called
IDM. It stands for Interactive Drama Model, this model will represent a combination of already existing
concepts and techniques developed by scholars from the field of linear media (e.g. films and theater) and
interactive media (e.g. computer games).
One of the important issues is to maintain the freedom for the player to interact in the virtual world. For
this reason we believe that the most proper plot structure to serve our solution is Ryan’s “Action space,
Epic Wandering, and Story-World”. As a reminder about the functionality of this plot structure, in the
overall geography of the structure, the interactivity occurs in macro level and the dramatic plotting in the
micro level. Therefore, adaptation of our contribution to the micro levels of Ryan’s plot structure is needed.
Now, a detailed description of our contribution is necessary.
First of all, we do not assume that this contribution is going to solve the problem described in this report.
Namely applying and adapting the techniques used in linear media to interactive narrative applications, is
going to enhance the participant’s engagement, to construct different story paths. But, we believe that
bringing several techniques and concepts from various perspective together might give some promising
results. Nevertheless, it is too early to predict, a further implementation and testing are required. After
describing several plot types and models implemented by scholars, Laurel’s model of flying wedge seems
more promising to work with. It can represent the meeting point between interactivity and narrativity; to
further support Laurel’s model we propose to apply and adapt the following concepts and techniques.
1. The concepts of quest and monomyth.
2. The strategies proposed by Jenkins: evoked, enacted, embedded and emergent narratives.
3. The technique of Emotions through action and activity.
Based on Grodal notion regarding the player’s mental state; we believe that the player is able to construct
his own story in his imagination. Therefore Laurel’s model can represent a good example of EN allowing the
player to explore, interact and make changes in the virtual world. As it is shown in figure (17), all the
elements of the Quest, more precisely the narrative elements are spread all over the area of flying wedge.
Figure 17 a model illustrates a combination of the flying wedge with the elements of Quest controlled by the drama manager
The player can start his journey with many story possibilities; the player is able to freely to choose his own
way through the game world. As we described earlier in the functionality of the flying wedge; the player
observe the surroundings, and explore his abilities in the environment then he starts to take the actions. At
this moment, the player begins to storify the unfolding events. He determines his behavior; as the story
develops future interactions will be narrowed down, the more the story develops the more the player
executes meaningful interactions as it is shown in figure (17).
The small circles represent evocative narrative elements, they represent suggestive markings to trigger
important narrative processes in the player’s imagination. They could be, evoked and embedded narratives,
evoked narrative such as an environment is designed and inspired from a movie. For example creating a
game version of God Father II, the player is familiar and visited the environment in his previous experience
of the movie. Embedded narratives could be by placing some elements or indications to other events
occurred in the visited place, thereby the player’s interpretation of the event will influence his future
actions as well as the constructed narrative. The three triangles in the same model represent three possible
story developments by three characters. The words necessary represents the story ending for the three
characters, they are also called climaxes. A drama manager will be involved in the process; it represents a
narrative system in which deals with the functionality of the space. It analyses the players executed and
predicts the future interactions. Accordingly, the drama manager makes sure that the player is involved
with proper AI based NPC’s, some of the NPC’s should have goals that contradicts the player’s goal. This is
to raise and strengthen the conflict and maintain drama in the game.
It is essential to mention that, the story path for each player will be dependent on; for instance his
decisions making, choices, and skills of using inside/outside the skull activities.
Additionally some of the dramatic techniques will also be used, for example, in the overall game
experience, expressing emotions will be possible for the player’s character and the NPC’s; we believe that
applying emotions will strengthen the dramatic events.
The overall experienced dramatic event can be represented and integrated in the dramatic plotting (micro
level) of Ryan’s plot structure “Action space, Epic Wandering, and Story-World”. As it is shown in figure (18)
the player is able to wander in the virtual world, while entering each site (individual dramatic events) the
player will be involved in a dramatic event, the dramatic events will be assured by the use of the model we
contributed. In the game experience there will not be a starting and ending points for the player, the player
is able to go forward and backward from the actual node that he is located, to the neighboring connected
nodes.
Figure 18 the flying wedge adapted into Ryan's plot structure in the micro levels
The original model of “Action space, Epic Wandering, and Story-World” by Ryan provides the player with
dramatic events only in the micro level. The player in our contributed model is free to enter each site, it is
important to mention that there are no causal relations between the different sites. In each site the player
can be involved in dramatic experience that is not related to the other site. We think that the player’s
journey from one site to another can represent Ryan’s internal exploratory interaction. In the following
section future perspective for our model will be presented.
6.9 Future perspective:
Further investigation in detail is needed in the field of interactive narrative. As we mentioned, a prototype,
implementation and test based on our model should be accomplished. The test results will determine and
validate our hypothesis. In case of promising test results, we would like to apply and adapt the aspects of
drama in a more complex form. For example our model involves dramatic events in the micro levels only;
the player is not involved in dramatic events in his way from one site to another, in other words there are
no causal relationships between the different sites. One way could be, as it is illustrated in figure (19) is to
use more complicated plot structure of “Action space, Epic Wandering, and Story-World”. Hence, apply a
single and big flying wedge on the macro level to cover all the sites. This way, all the different sites can be
considered as micro evocative dramatic elements instead of evocative narrative elements. As the story
develops and unfolds some of the mentioned micro elements will be eliminated by the flying wedge.
Figure 19 the flying wedge applied to the macro level
The mini flying wedges will assure player’s engagement with dramatic events in the micro level, and a big
flying wedge will guarantee the causal relationships between the different sites. Doing so, the overall
model will involve dramatic events in the micro and macro levels. It is essential to mention that for this
process a bigger drama manager will be required to determine the functional aspects of the NPC’s in the
macro level.
6.10 Appendix A:
Ergodic:
Ryan clarifies ergodic design and sensitivity to user input regarding digital text and other virtual and
electronic environments
As it is illustrated in figure (16) Ryan describes and distinguishes between three categories of Ergodic,
Interactive and Electronic, she gives examples of each and the potential combination of two categories or
more from the selective and productive interactivities points of views as the following.
Figur 20 illustration of the categories Ergodic, Interactive and Electronic (Ryan, 2001, p.209)
1. Nonergodic, nonelectronic, noninteractive texts. Standard literary text, books.
2. Interactive, nonelectronic, nonergodic text.
 Selective: The case of storytelling sessions for example the dialogue exchange between the
parent and the child. The story does not have a specific structure and its shaping comes as
a result of conversation.
 Productive: the case of conversation which it is an open ended, freely course-switching
exchange between two people.
3. Electronic, noninteractive, nonergodic text. An example is the texts broad cast on TV.
4. Ergodic, nonelectronic, noninteractive text. Architectural or art works that reflect the sun light in
different patterns over different day times.
5. Electronic, interactive, nonergotic text.
 Selective: For example library catalogue, the user sends queries and gets a whole static
predictable text.
 Productive: Electronic conversations in internet chat rooms.
6. Ergotic, electronic, noninteractive text. Reactive electronic poetry for example the Speaking Clock
by John Cayley.
7. Ergodic, nonelectronic, interactive text. Multi linear literary print texts that allows the user a choice
of reading sequence, an example is Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar which it is a novel that offer two
ways of reading, the first where it leads the user from chapter 1 to 56, and the second way is to
visit numerically from chapter 1 to 56.
8. Electronic, ergodic, interactive text.
 Selective: Electronic poetry, literary hypertext and surfing the Net.
Productive: Interaction which takes place in designed environment, computer games. Ryan claims that VR
installations and computer games can represent a combination between selective and productive
interactivities because the user’s participation in shooting, jumping and riddle-solving moves require more
skills and they are more actively involved than only selecting options from a limited menu (Ryan, 2001).
6.11 Appendix B:
The figure (17) demonstrates the list of Propp’s common functions to generate a story; each element is
assigned a unique code.
Figure 21 the list of common functions (Crawford, 2005) 154
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