Procedural Storytelling in Game Design

Length: 408 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: A K Peters/CRC Press
Publication Date: 2019-03-13
ISBN-10: 1138595306
ISBN-13: 9781138595309
Sales Rank: #105907 (See Top 100 Books)

This edited collection of chapters concerns the evolving discipline of procedural storytelling in video games. Games are an interactive medium, and this interplay between author, player and machine provides new and exciting ways to create and tell stories. In each essay, practitioners of this artform demonstrate how traditional storytelling tools such as characterization, world-building, theme, momentum and atmosphere can be adapted to full effect, using specific examples from their games. The reader will learn to construct narrative systems, write procedural dialog, and generate compelling characters with unique personalities and backstories.

Key Features

Introduces the differences between static/traditional game design and procedural game design Demonstrates how to solve or avoid common problems with procedural game design in a variety of concrete ways World’s finest guide for how to begin thinking about procedural design

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Foreword
About the Editors
Contributors
SECTION 1: Introduction
	CHAPTER 1: Getting Started with Generators
		Building Your Artist-in-a-Box
		From Rules to Generative Methods
		Ways that Generators Fail
		Notes
	CHAPTER 2: Keeping Procedural Generation Simple
		Two Examples from Spelunky
		Perception versus Reality
		Using Context to Take Your Work from Trivial to Impressive
		The Problem Might Not Be Your Procgen
		Conclusion
	CHAPTER 3: Generated Right in the Feels
		Note
	CHAPTER 4: Adapting Content to Player Choices
		Choosing Which Parts to Adapt
		Combining Bits
		Creating the Right Bits
		Papering over the Seams
		Control over Specificity
		ACompletely New Way of Creating Content
		The Big Picture
		Notes
	CHAPTER 5: Ethical Procedural Generation
		Talking in Code
		The Big Wide World
		You Are What You Eat
		Talking the Talk
		The Future
SECTION 2: Structure and Systems
	CHAPTER 6: Retrospective: Murder on the Zinderneuf (1983)
	CHAPTER 7: Designing for Narrative Momentum
		Only Forwards Design
		Opening the Flow
		The Design of Ink
		The Weave Structure
		Content as Conditionals
		Sequences and Loops
		Narrative Momentum in aGraphical Context
		Knowledge as an Acyclic Directed Graph
		Knowledge Webs
		Using the Knowledge Model
		Conclusion
	CHAPTER 8: Curated Narrative in Duskers
		Explore, Adapt, Survive
		When All You Have Is aHammer
		Order Matters
		Let the Player Drive
		Narrative as aLure
		Compiling It All Down
	CHAPTER 9: Uncanny Text: Blending Static and Procedural Fiction
		Southern Monsters
		Battlecakes
		Playful Text
		The Domovoi
		Memory Blocks
		Matul Remrit
		The Future
	CHAPTER 10: Dramatic Play in The Sims
		Design Examples in The Sims
		Dramatic Design Patterns in Other Games
	CHAPTER 11: Memorable Stories from Simple Rules in Curious Expedition
		Three Levels of Abstraction
		Same Event, Different Interpretations
		Story Arcs
	CHAPTER 12: Amplifying Themes and Emotions in Systems
		The Emotions of Colonialism in Triple Town
		Identifying aTheme
		Using Theme to Amplify Gameplay Emotions
		Triple Town as aNarrative Failure
		Failures of Communication
		Failures of Taste
		Closing Thoughts
		Notes
	CHAPTER 13: Emergent Narrative in Dwarf Fortress
		Designing for Emergent Narrative
		The Player’s Perspective and Exposition
	CHAPTER 14: Heavily Authored Dynamic Storytelling in Church in the Darkness
		Motivations
		Inspirations
		Core Systems
		Player Choices
		Conclusion: Why Build It?
SECTION 3: Worlds and Context
	CHAPTER 15: Generating Histories
		Entities and Events
		Subjectivity in History
		History Generation in Practice: Caves of Qud
		Conclusion
		Notes
	CHAPTER 16: Procedural Descriptions in Voyageur
		Setting the Stage
		Improv: The Tool
		Filtering, Reincorporation, and Sources of Truth
		Where World Models Come From
		Conclusions
	CHAPTER 17: Generating in the Real World
		How Do Analog Works Use Procedurality?
		Why Bother to Bring the Digital into the Physical?
		An Attempt
		Case Study: Computational Flâneur
		But IJust Want to Keep Making Digital Things!
	CHAPTER 18: Dirty Procedural Narrative in We Happy Few
		You Have aSuperpower
		Mental Work Makes Emotional Engagement
		Pull vs. Push
		Dirty Narrative Is Dangerous
		The Holy Grail
	CHAPTER 19: Beyond Fun in Frostpunk
		Making Sense of the World
		Developing Frostpunk
		Prototype 1: Society
		Prototype 2: Prophet
		Prototype 3: Player Agency
		Final Stretch
		Notes
	CHAPTER 20: Procedural Storytelling in Dungeons & Dragons
		Moves
		Dangers
		Failing Forward
SECTION 4: Characters
	CHAPTER 21: Maximizing the Impact of Generated Personalities
		Tip 1: Define the Player’s Interpretation Process
		Tip 2: Personalities Are Already Subtle
		Tip 3: Comedy Is Close at Hand
		Tip 4: Allow after-the-Fact Investigation
		Tip 5: Reactions ≥ Actions
		Tip 6: Change Is Powerful
		Summary
		Notes
	CHAPTER 22: Procedural Characters in State of Decay 2
		Blandness
		Contradictions
		Contradiction Winnowing
		Identity Contradictions
		Order of Operations
		ORDER OF OPERATIONS, REDESIGNED
		Summary
	CHAPTER 23: Plot Generators
	CHAPTER 24: Generating Personalities in The Shrouded Isle
		Character Generation
		Interaction
		Trait Modification
		Analysis and Conclusion
	CHAPTER 25: Dialog
		Use Cases
		Context-Sensitive Vocalization
		Automatic Triggers
		Memory
		Repartee
		Complex Responses
		Data-Driven Context
		Usability
		Data Structures and Their Implementation
		Authoring Tools
		Conclusion
		Note
SECTION 5: Resources
	CHAPTER 26: Tarot as Procedural Storytelling
		Notes
	CHAPTER 27: Things You Can Do with Twitterbots
	CHAPTER 28: Creating Tools for Procedural Storytelling
		What Can Authoring Tools for Procedural Storytelling Do?
		Things to Think about while Planning aNew Tool
		As You’re Building
		Notes
Index