Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
metaphors to address the mathematical constructs used to create inclination
equations in the role scripts. These scripts still read too much like program
code rather than theatrical instructions.
Assumption #3: Ease of editing
The delivered product of interactive storytelling, a storyworld, is unavoidably
large; all small storyworlds are boring. Thus, building storyworlds is a big task
demanding months or years of labor. This in turn implies that the creation of a
storytelling engine alone is insufficient; we must also provide the artist with a
powerful editor for building his/her storyworld. The Erasmatron provides such
an editor.
Software designers all too often confuse potential with power. A general-
purpose programming language such as C++ has vast expressive potential be-
cause one can code up anything with it. But the exercise of this potential is
constrained by the ability of the user to articulate an expression in a reasonable
period of time. There can be no doubt that C++ has the expressive potential to
write a program capable of, say, writing profound novels. However, such a pro-
gram would require billions and billions of lines of code and simply could not
be written in any reasonable period of time. Thus, the true power of any soft-
ware system arises just as much from its overall ease of use as from its intrinsic
potential.
The most tedious task in the Erasmatron is the specification of algorithms
for how the characters will choose among their options in any given role. Such
algorithms must be expressed in a small programming language, akin to a cus-
tom macro or scripting language. Yet scripting languages in most products are
ghastly monstrosities utterly inaccessible to the non-technical designer. I there-
fore went to great lengths to build a scripting language that would be easy for
a non-technical designer to learn and use. As part of this effort, I developed a
number of innovations that might be of general applicability.
Mouse-driven input
The first of these is not at all unique, but my experience demonstrates the
value of an under-utilized technique. I replaced keystroke code entry with pure
mouse data entry. The scripting language consists of some 500 code tokens,
which are accessible through a set of menus. By stacking these menus as pop-
upmenusalongtheleftedgeofthewindow,Iwasabletomakeallcodeto-
