Interactive Storytelling: A Cross-Media Approach to Writing, Producing and Editing with AI

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
	1.1 Preliminary definitions
		1.1.1 The fascination with interactivity
		1.1.2 Digital, virtual, interactive
		1.1.3 Interacting, participating, collaborating
	1.2 Telling stories through actions
		1.2.1 Dramatic media
		1.2.2 Actions and events
		1.2.3 Dramatic action
		1.2.4 Narrative action
		1.2.5 Sequence of actions
		1.2.6 Generating events
	1.3 General issues
		1.3.1 Author, authorship, control
		1.3.2 Characters or stories
		1.3.3 The field of investigation
		1.3.4 Database, narrative and video contents
		1.3.5 Delimiting the field
	1.4 A general model of analysis
2 Dynamic elements: The units
	2.1 What are units?
	2.2 The logical relationship between the units
	2.3 Organising the multilinear project
	2.4 What separates the units
	2.5 Tagging the units: the metadata
	2.6 Exercises
		2.6.1 The flow chart of dynamic elements
		2.6.2 The user actions
3 Dynamic elements: The agents
	3.1 Agent and audience
	3.2 Intelligent agents
		3.2.1 Planning as improvisation
		3.2.2 Planning as directing
		3.2.3 Scripting as planning
	3.3 Emotions and agents
		3.3.1 The (mental) reality of emotions
		3.3.2 The social component of emotions
		3.3.3 Emotions as a behavioural driver
	3.4 Exercises
		3.4.1 Describing the state of the world
		3.4.2 Writing the actions
		3.4.3 Writing preconditions and effects
		3.4.4 Simulating the execution
		3.4.5 Starting from the goal state
		3.4.6 Reusing the plan
4 Display: Audience, system, emotions
	4.1 Participation
		4.1.1 Narratology vs ludology
		4.1.2 Interaction vs narration
		4.1.3 Balancing the agency
		4.1.4 Intensity of the process
		4.1.5 User’s action
		4.1.6 Intelligible actions
	4.2 Writing the interaction through the units
		4.2.1 Interaction by navigating the map
		4.2.2 Interaction by dialogues and behaviours
		4.2.3 Interaction by physical actions
	4.3 Emotions in computational systems
		4.3.1 Coding characters’ emotions
		4.3.2 The emotions of the audience
	4.4 Cross-media contents’ communication
	4.5. Exercises
5 Engines and systems: Supporting creativity and dramatic tension
	5.1 Systems and automation
	5.2 System classification
	5.3 Fully manual authorship
	5.4 Manually authored database and automation for plot generation
		5.4.1 Plot grammars
		5.4.2 Constraints on plot generation
		5.4.3 Planning for plot generation
		5.4.4 Plot generation based on dramatic tension
	5.5 Database and automation
	5.6 Emergent narratives: joint automation of plot and database
		5.6.1 Constraints on the plot and modifications of database elements
		5.6.2 Plot and database modelled with constraints
		5.6.3 Full plot automation and database simulation
	5.7 General considerations regarding storytelling systems
	5.8 Exercises
		5.8.1 The form of the story, or the application of a template
		5.8.2 The constrained plot generation: preconditions and effects annotation
		5.8.3 The dramatic tension of the story
6 Examples of interactive storytelling: Description and analysis
	6.1 1966: Eliza
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.2 1976: Adventure
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.3 1978: Aspen Movie Map
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.4 1987: Afternoon, a Story
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.5 1987: City in Transition: New Orleans, 1983–86
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.6 1991: Angels
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.7 1993: Myst
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.8 1996: Pokémon
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.9 1999: Desert Rain
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.10 2001: Can You See Me Now?
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.11 2003: Façade
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.12 2005: FearNot!
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.13 2006: DramaTour
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.14 2012: The Walking Dead
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.15 2013: Nothing for Dinner
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.16 2018: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.17 2019: The Invisible Guardian
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
	6.18 2020: Down the Rabbit Hole
		Description
		Analysis
		Further details
Index