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Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling
As a game designer or new media storyteller, you know that the story is critical to the success of your project. Telling that story interactively is an even greater challenge, one that involves approaching the story from many angles. Here to help you navigate and open your mind to more creative ways of producing your stories is the authority on interactive design and a longtime game development guru, Chris Crawford. To help you in your quest for the truly interactive story, Crawford provides a solid sampling of what works and doesn't work, and how to apply the lessons to your own storytelling projects. After laying out the fundamental ideas behind interactive storytelling and explaining some of the misconceptions that have crippled past efforts, the book delves into all the major systems that go into interactive storytelling: personality models, actors, props, stages, fate, verbs, history books, and more. Crawford also covers the Storytron technology he has been working on for several years, an engine that runs interactive electonic storyworlds, giving readers a first-hand look into practical storytelling methods.
362 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 6, 2013
Crawford is a well-known idealist in the gaming industry, and nowhere does it show more than in this book. The whole purpose behind this book is Crawford criticizing games in favour of interactive storytelling, and then "selling" his way of crafting interactive storyworlds - all the while stating how difficult it is, but also how much more "artful" than video games.
His analysis of the industry circa 2004 goes to show that he has been a recluse since 1992, and has looked down on games since, or maybe even before that. While he puts out some good arguments for trying to create interactive storytelling applications, and some of the observations about video games are correct, it is clear that his focus on turning his eyes away from the video game industry has made him blind to some real advancements in the fields he cares about the most (like character interactions and emergent storytelling). What I found the most frustrating about this entire book, however, is that it isn't obvious what the use of interactive storytelling would exactly be, other than an experiment to show you can do it.
What Crawford suggests throughout the book is to create a system akin to creating a narrative AI, and the strangest thing about it is that he goes the whole way from stating that the biggest problem with games is lack of choice and that interactive storytelling is all about choice and effect... all the way to encouraging designers to create roadblocks and pointing players in the "right" direction. So what is this supposed to be, in the end? A similation? A game with narrative focus? A game with its conflict going away from mechanics (which, by the way, is a silly way of putting it when the book spends 50% of its length explaining the MECHANICS of such conflicts)?
Not only that, Crawford also states, many times, that he himself hasn't yet created a fully satisfying system - and the guy has been at it for more than 20 years! From what he wrote about the specifics of the system, it seems it is quite basic, despite all the hard work he had to accomplish to bring it to life. I kept wondering if toiling over such a system was worth the time and effort, and after reading this book, I'm pretty sure it serves no purpose other than showing people it can be done... and then nobody would have any reason to experience these "storyworlds" and even less reason to be astonished.
This is the point when Crawford would criticize me and fall back on his ultimate defense - I just don't get it, and I haven't understood or realised the potential and importance of the genre. The thing is, I'm pretty sure Crawford is in a vast minority of people who had done that, and 8 years after this book was completed, I still fail to see how interactive storytelling would be "the next big thing"... and I'm pretty sure Crawford is lamenting the fact and asking himself "Why are people so thick and can't see the genius in this method?". Of course, he has his answer - the video gaming industry is to blame. Action games are to blame. And, since interactive storytelling is supposed to be "art" (though how exactly is it anything more than a simulation system build on tons and tons of code, I fail to understand), surely it is in the right, yes?
I'm sorry to say, but the only person who this book will be useful to in its entirety is Crawford himself, who can look at it, sitting on his bookshelve and pat himself on the back for all the great, revolutionary ideas he has, which will someday be relevant, damn it! Everyone else can find some basic assumptions about the gaming and interactive industries which will provoke some thought and maybe discussion, but besides that, this is 350 pages of self-congratulating, self-appreciating theory which has yet to bear any real weight apart from being an experiment. Interesting experiment, to be sure, but probably not something that will have a big, if any, effect on how we create interactive experiences.
His analysis of the industry circa 2004 goes to show that he has been a recluse since 1992, and has looked down on games since, or maybe even before that. While he puts out some good arguments for trying to create interactive storytelling applications, and some of the observations about video games are correct, it is clear that his focus on turning his eyes away from the video game industry has made him blind to some real advancements in the fields he cares about the most (like character interactions and emergent storytelling). What I found the most frustrating about this entire book, however, is that it isn't obvious what the use of interactive storytelling would exactly be, other than an experiment to show you can do it.
What Crawford suggests throughout the book is to create a system akin to creating a narrative AI, and the strangest thing about it is that he goes the whole way from stating that the biggest problem with games is lack of choice and that interactive storytelling is all about choice and effect... all the way to encouraging designers to create roadblocks and pointing players in the "right" direction. So what is this supposed to be, in the end? A similation? A game with narrative focus? A game with its conflict going away from mechanics (which, by the way, is a silly way of putting it when the book spends 50% of its length explaining the MECHANICS of such conflicts)?
Not only that, Crawford also states, many times, that he himself hasn't yet created a fully satisfying system - and the guy has been at it for more than 20 years! From what he wrote about the specifics of the system, it seems it is quite basic, despite all the hard work he had to accomplish to bring it to life. I kept wondering if toiling over such a system was worth the time and effort, and after reading this book, I'm pretty sure it serves no purpose other than showing people it can be done... and then nobody would have any reason to experience these "storyworlds" and even less reason to be astonished.
This is the point when Crawford would criticize me and fall back on his ultimate defense - I just don't get it, and I haven't understood or realised the potential and importance of the genre. The thing is, I'm pretty sure Crawford is in a vast minority of people who had done that, and 8 years after this book was completed, I still fail to see how interactive storytelling would be "the next big thing"... and I'm pretty sure Crawford is lamenting the fact and asking himself "Why are people so thick and can't see the genius in this method?". Of course, he has his answer - the video gaming industry is to blame. Action games are to blame. And, since interactive storytelling is supposed to be "art" (though how exactly is it anything more than a simulation system build on tons and tons of code, I fail to understand), surely it is in the right, yes?
I'm sorry to say, but the only person who this book will be useful to in its entirety is Crawford himself, who can look at it, sitting on his bookshelve and pat himself on the back for all the great, revolutionary ideas he has, which will someday be relevant, damn it! Everyone else can find some basic assumptions about the gaming and interactive industries which will provoke some thought and maybe discussion, but besides that, this is 350 pages of self-congratulating, self-appreciating theory which has yet to bear any real weight apart from being an experiment. Interesting experiment, to be sure, but probably not something that will have a big, if any, effect on how we create interactive experiences.
August 7, 2018
Very good seminal work on the differences between static storytelling and interactive storytelling.
June 23, 2021
A few interesting insights, but not exactly what I was looking for.
June 12, 2012
Interesting take on interactive storytelling even if I find that some of Mr Crawford's conclusions or avenue of attack are flawed. Many sections of the book almost read like a design document and as such are probably the most interesting.
Where I believe Crawford is the most off is in his attempt at re-creating the written novel while saying that this is the wrong way to go (at very least, it sure feels that way in that the systems are focused on text entry -or reverse parsing- and paragraph construction). I really believe that where the industry/designers will be successful in doing real interactive fiction will be in slowly introducing non-violent interaction "verbs" and using the 3D space better, which will allow them to create worlds where the player truly have an impact beyond "i kill you". It is a very complex problem but one that shall prove very fascinating.
BTW, the last chapter is probably the worst part of the book, but this is probably tainted by the fact that it is an attempt at predicting where the field is going seen through Crawford's nasty experience with the publishing industry. Read that chapter at your own risks.
Where I believe Crawford is the most off is in his attempt at re-creating the written novel while saying that this is the wrong way to go (at very least, it sure feels that way in that the systems are focused on text entry -or reverse parsing- and paragraph construction). I really believe that where the industry/designers will be successful in doing real interactive fiction will be in slowly introducing non-violent interaction "verbs" and using the 3D space better, which will allow them to create worlds where the player truly have an impact beyond "i kill you". It is a very complex problem but one that shall prove very fascinating.
BTW, the last chapter is probably the worst part of the book, but this is probably tainted by the fact that it is an attempt at predicting where the field is going seen through Crawford's nasty experience with the publishing industry. Read that chapter at your own risks.
September 7, 2013
An interesting read about the logic behind interactive storytelling.
I personally found the first chapters of the book most interesting as they described the theory behind creating an truly interactive story.
Sadly, I must admit that I skipped most of the other half of the book as it contained programming instructions on how to automate storytelling - this topic does not interest me currently so it wold be a waste of time for me to read it. I may however return to it later so it is good to know I have a reasource to turn to if the need arises.
Overall, this book has given me a basic approach on how to generate a story - just a little bit of information but just THE little bit I needed :)
I personally found the first chapters of the book most interesting as they described the theory behind creating an truly interactive story.
Sadly, I must admit that I skipped most of the other half of the book as it contained programming instructions on how to automate storytelling - this topic does not interest me currently so it wold be a waste of time for me to read it. I may however return to it later so it is good to know I have a reasource to turn to if the need arises.
Overall, this book has given me a basic approach on how to generate a story - just a little bit of information but just THE little bit I needed :)
July 17, 2013
I'm going to have to re-read this when I am back to working on my interactive narrative projects. There's a lot here, and some of it explains why the interactive narrative story I was working on didn't go so well.
January 30, 2015
A great reading for anyone interested in interactive storytelling and what we can do with it. Worldly acclaimed game designer Chris Crawford just knows what he's talking about.
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May 25, 2015tuebl
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews