Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
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An actor or prop may transform to a new state that does not satisfy the class
requirements of an associated action. A character enters from “a doorway”,
but the doorway subsequently turns into “some scenery”
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Actions have no causality. A character may be dancing with a second char-
acter while attacking that character at the same time.
It is certainly possible to constrain the system to avoid these situations, or one
can consider these situations as an emergent phenomenon of the system.
Mode of interaction
Given the three sample situations and the breakdown of story elements above,
it should be clear that the form of interaction in this system is different in
nature than the modal dialog used by many narrative environments. With a
modal dialog an explicit list of user choices is displayed. In some situations the
user is in control of a specific character who is engaged in a dialog with another
character. The user may not know the specific result for any of choices, but she
does know that by making a choice, she is actively choosing a specific mode
of interaction between elements in the narrative. In the case of a character-
to-character dialog, she is aware that the choice will result in one character
“saying” something to another character.
When the user is in control of a character, that character is an avatar for
the user. Dialog with the avatar can be interpreted as an internal element of the
narrative, as well as an external dialog between the user and the system. As to
the user awareness of the interactive process, the user in a dialog may expect
other characters in the dialog to respond in kind, yet the exact nature of this
response is not guaranteed or predictable.
In the case of Dr. K-, the user does not directly control any of the actors
or elements. Here the choices are implicit - any fragment of the story can be
selected, and the dialog between the user and the story elements, such as it is,
takes place outside the story. Additionally, there is little user knowledge about
how a selection will influence the story. Choosing to interact with “a charac-
ter” may cause the character to change into “a child”, or the issue of character
identity may be ignored by the story engine entirely in favor of some other
outcome. The user does not choose the mode of interaction.
