Interactive Storytelling

This paper gives an overview of the UK network RIDERS – Research in Interactive Drama Environments, Role-Play and Story-telling, running for 36 months from September 2011. It discusses the three central themes of RIDERS: theoretical work on the conflict between interactivity and narrative content, problems, issues and tools relating to authoring, and directions in evaluation. It gives a brief overview of the current position in each of these areas and suggests how RIDERS activity might be able to contribute to them. Finally it summarises the overall RIDERS programme of activity.

This paper proposes that we think of traditional story patterns as an available abstraction technology, containing strategies of parameterization and encapsulation that could be useful for creating digital narratives with meaningful variation of story elements. An example domain of a woman with two or more potential sexual/romantic partners is used to illustrate how such an approach could leverage the dramatic compression of narrative traditions to identify meaningful variations, in order to support coherent composition by authors and increase dramatic agency for interactors.

Interactive virtual storytelling attracts a lot of research interests to create engaging, interactive and dynamic storytelling. However, it is still a great challenge to create an interactive storytelling system from text-based stories for novice. In this paper, we propose an easy-to-use Agent-Oriented Methodology for Interactive Storytelling (AOMIS) to guide novice to generate interactive storytelling system. In this methodology, interactive storytelling system is constructed as a multi-agent system of director agent and character agents. The interactive storytelling is simulated as the goal pursuing of the agents with respect to user interactions and context changes. By viewing the interactive storytelling in the perspective of goal-oriented agents, our methodology is a hybrid of plot-oriented interactive storytelling and character-based interactive storytelling.

A key challenge in computer-based interactive narrative is the conflict between user agency and authorial control of the story quality. Valuable lessons can be learned from improvisational and especially interactive theatre, where various narrative and interactive strategies have been developed to engage users in the process of co-creating the story. In this paper, we focus on the use of character status and status shifts. Specifically, we present and illustrate a computational model of status shifts based on the cognitive semantics theory of force dynamics.

A central problem for interactive storytelling research is how to create a story which procedurally varies as the result of a user’s actions, while still feeling like a story. Research has largely concentrated on how to provide coherent variations

each time

a user experiences an interactive story, without consideration for the relationship

between

subsequent experiences. This paper examines the issues that arise when designing an interactive story system which is intended to be

reread

as the result of a

reframing

. Through a discussion of several types of reframing drawn from non-interactive films, we argue that, when an interactive story makes use of a reframing to encourage rereading, the requirements for narrative coherence, selection and ordering extend

across

reading sessions. This introduces constraints in terms of what can be varied procedurally in response to user actions which do not occur in interactive stories which are not explicitly designed to be reread.

Chief among the inputs to decision making algorithms in narrative or game environments is a model of player or opponent decision making. A challenge that will always face designers is to specify that model ahead of time, when actual data from the environment is likely not to be available. Absent corpora of data, designers must intuit these models as best they can, incorporating domain or expert knowledge when available. To make this process more precise, we derive a theoretically grounded technique to transfer an observed user model from one domain to another. We answer the question: “How can a model obtained from observations of one environment inform a model for another environment?” We verify the accuracy of our techniques using data from previous user studies.

It is common within the interactive narrative research community to conflate

interaction

with

changing the outcome

of a story. In this paper we argue that reimagining interaction as

participation

in a story opens up an important new design space for digital narratives: one which emphasizes the readerly pleasure of transforming into a character rather than the authorial pleasure of rewriting the events of the story. We draw on theories of method acting and performance as a model for participating within a story and provide examples from several recent games that support this type of narrative.

In this paper, we investigate the use of

narrative play

as a means of encouraging rereading in interactive stories. To explore this, we created a storytelling game in which the reader/player takes on the role of a film director whose objective is to shoot a film in the face of a series of complications. We discuss the iterative design and playtesting of the prototype of our game, and argue that our design encourages a different type of rereading which involves a shift away from the usual concern for “narrative closure” and more towards a desire to

do better

. We also discuss the use of storytelling games as a way to explore new forms of interactive storytelling by focusing on the mechanics of interactive storytelling, rather than technical implementation details, without losing sight of the need for an eventual computer-based implementation.

Research on the emerging form of interactive digital narrative (IDN) concerns both theory and practice. The approach discussed here combines a theoretical framework introduced previously with a concrete implementation in the form of the Advanced Stories Authoring and Presentation System (ASAPS), a software package that aims to foster experimentation by providing tools which are easy to use. Furthermore ASAPS differentiates itself from other authoring tools by emphasizing extensibility and collaboration with other software. Therefore, the first implementation of this tool set foregrounds a flexible, modular architecture over computational sophistication.

This article describes a framework for the mixed-initiative collaborative creation of introductions to improvised theatrical scenes. This framework is based on the empirical study of experienced improvisational actors and the processes they use to reach shared understanding while creating the scene. Improvisation is a notable creative act, where the process of creating the scene is as much a product as the scene itself. Our framework models the processes of narrative scene establishment. It is designed to allow for the collaborative co-creation of the narrative by both human and computational improvisers. This mixed-initiative approach allows either type of improviser (AI or human) to deal with the ambiguities that are inherent to improvisational theatre. This emphasis on equal collaborative creation also differentiates this framework from existing work in story generation and interactive narrative.

This paper proposes a new perspective, based on the concept of social masks, for the simulation of a realistic NPC (Non-Player Character) behavior. The Mask Model goal is to support AI techniques for autonomous agents by encouraging or discouraging behaviors according to the social environment and by providing knowledge about possible reactions to the agent actions. In this approach, the NPC tendencies are controlled by the interactions of three overlapping mask layers: self-perception layer, social layer and interpersonal layer. The masks mould the tendencies, the feelings and the ethics of a NPC. By changing the links between characters and masks, a wide variety of different behaviors and story-lines may arise. The paper present an algorithm for the selection of the actions and an example implementation.

This paper presents a method for learning models of character linguistic style from a corpus of film dialogues and tests the method in a perceptual experiment. We apply our method in the context of SpyFeet, a prototype role playing game. In previous work, we used the

Personage

engine to produce restaurant recommendations that varied according to the speaker’s personality. Here we show for the first time that: (1) our expressive generation engine can operate on content from the story structures of an RPG; (2)

Personage

parameter models can be learned from film dialogue; (3)

Personage

rule-based models for extraversion and neuroticism are be perceived as intended in a new domain (SpyFeet character utterances); and (4) that the parameter models learned from film dialogue are generally perceived as being similar to the character that the model is based on. This is the first step of our long term goal to create off-the-shelf tools to support authors in the creation of interesting dramatic characters and dialogue partners, for a broad range of types of interactive stories and role playing games.

In this paper we present a novel ontology-based model for the representation of the dramatic features of narrative media (video, text, audio, etc.), focused on the notions of the character’s motivated actions. We describe the theoretical background, composed of narratological theories and rational agent theories, that support the proposed ontological formalization. We sketch the ontology and an encoding example.

Most stories constructed by game designers are inherently linear in nature, with the result that player interactions have limited impact on the direction of the game narrative. Massively multiplayer online role-play games (MMORPGs) typically contain thousands of linearly scripted storylines, and stories generally do not adapt to player interactions or changes in the gameworld state. However, there is some evidence that interactive storytelling techniques may have the potential to enhance narrative experience in these online worlds. An important challenge is the need for ongoing stories to be seamlessly adapted when story plans are invalidated by unforeseen events in the game world, such as the actions of player characters. In this paper we present novel techniques for repairing story plans while maintaining plot coherence and demonstrate their ability to enhance the robustness of adaptive storytelling in dynamic game worlds.

Interactive narrative environments offer significant potential for creating engaging narrative experiences. Increasingly, applications in education, training, and entertainment are leveraging narrative to create rich interactive experiences in virtual storyworlds. A key challenge posed by these environments is building an effective model of the intervention strategies of

director agents

that craft customized story experiences for users. Identifying factors that contribute to determining when the next director agent decision should occur is critically important in optimizing narrative experiences. In this work, a dynamic Bayesian network framework was designed to model director agent intervention strategies. To create empirically informed models of director agent intervention decisions, we conducted a Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) data collection with an interactive narrative-centered learning environment. Using the collected data, dynamic Bayesian network and naïve Bayes models were learned and compared. The performance of the resulting models was evaluated with respect to classification accuracy and produced promising results.

In this paper we present an architecture for Interactive Storytelling systems that dynamically selects persuasive manipulations to increase the likelihood of the users experiencing the story as intended by an author. We also describe a study using a text-based interactive storytelling system where the architecture was applied.

Improvisational theatre (improv) is a real world example of an interactive narrative environment that has a strong focus on the collaborative construction of narrative as a joint activity. Although improv has been used as an inspiration for computational approaches to interactive narrative in the past, those approaches have generally relied on shallow understandings of how theatrical improvisation works in terms of the processes and knowledge involved. This paper presents a computational model for finding the tilt in a narrative environment with no pre-authored story structures, based on our own cognitively-based empirical studies of real world improvisers.

Computer role-playing games (CRPGs) have strong narratives, but in general lack a density of interesting and meaningful choices for the player within the story. We have identified two main components of player interaction within the story—quests and character interaction—to address in a new playable experience, Mismanor. In this paper we focus on the character interaction aspect. In particular, it describes how we use the Comme il Faut system to support emergent social interactions between the player and the game characters based on player’s traits and the social state of the game world. We discuss the design and creation of the game as well as the modifications to the systems required to support this new CRPG experience.

The purpose of this article is to aid the design of support tools for storytelling games, and to ease the analysis and understanding of storytelling games by expanding the hitherto available framing. Based on interviews with players, it outlines frames in storytelling games, expands the concept and suggests how this can be used in designs with examples from current and future storytelling support tools.

Although young men who have sex with men (MSM) are at high risk for contracting HIV, few interventions address the affective/automatic factors (e.g., sexual arousal, shame/stigma) that may precipitate young MSM’s risk-taking. A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded DVD interactive video intervention that simulated a “virtual date” with guides/mentors reduced sexual risk over 3-months for Black, Latino and Caucasian young MSM. In the current work, limitations of the DVD format (e.g., number of different risk challenges MSM encounter; DVD quickly becomes dated) were addressed with 3-D animated intelligent agents/interactive digital storytelling using a Unity Game platform. The development (e.g., design, art, social science formative research, etc.) of this NIH funded game for changing risky behavior is described as well as the ongoing national randomized “on-line” evaluation over 6 months.

This paper describes a framework for controlling the varied activities of groups of background characters (representing extras or supernumeraries). Our platform is built upon an event-centric agent control model, which shifts behavior authoring from writing complex reactive agents to authoring particular activities. This approach allows us to achieve diverse, complex, and collaborative activities while the agents themselves stay simple and generic. An event is defined generically on agent roles, and can be dispatched to any set of agents that can fill those roles. This allows us to control macro-level group behavior with a centralized entity called the Group Coordinator that dispatches events to agents based on their situational and locational context (which can be controlled by an author). What results a structure for controlling macroscopic behavior for groups of background agents.

Process dramas emerge through the interplay of a number of factors including the types of participants and the context of the interaction. The term ‘process drama’ was coined by Cecily O’Neil, whose approach to theater in education practice explores the interplay of structure and spontaneity in dramatic workshops directed towards a thematic dialogue. The analysis presented here refers to O’Neil’s model in order to explore the factors that influence what is arguably the focal point of computer-mediated multi-user dramas, the individual user’s real time experience of that drama. It is proposed that

The User Drama

can be identified as a six phase process: 1) Perceive and Expect, 2) Invest and Express, 3) Experience Results, 4) Loop, 5) Merge and 6) Reflect.

Game Books can offer a well-written, but non-linear story, as readers always have to decide, how to continue after reading a text passage. It seems very logical to adopt such a book to investigate interaction paradigms for an interactive storytelling scenario. Nevertheless, it is not easy to keep the player motivated during a long-winded narrated story until the next point of intervention is reached. In this paper we tested different methods of implementing the decision process in such a scenario using speech input and tested it with 26 participants during a two player scenario. This revealed that with an omitted on-screen prompt the application was less easy to use, but caused considerably more user interaction. We further added additional interactivity with so-called Quick Time Events (QTEs). In these events, the player has a limited amount of time to perform a specific action after a corresponding prompt appeares on screen. Different versions of QTEs were implemented using Full Body Tracking with Microsoft Kinect, and were tested with another 18 participants during a two player scenario. We found that Full Body Gestures were easier to perform and, in general, preferred to controlling a cursor with one hand and hitting buttons with it.

Engagement in interactive experiences is a complex, multi-dimensional concept that can be determined by a variety of factors which are dependent on user preferences and media content. However, one fundamental requirement of any interactive experience is the desire to continue the experience, and this study is concerned with investigating engagement in interactive narratives by focusing on this aspect. In the present approach, engagement is described as the user’s desire to continue an activity in order to accomplish an objective while experiencing affect. In order to investigate engagement during run time, this description is used as a foundation for formulating an intrusive method and the Engagement Sampling Questionnaire. The application of the method and the questionnaire is exemplified by an investigation of continuation desire in the experiential learning scenario, “The First Person Victim”, where participants experience a non-pleasant emergent narrative concerned with being a victim of war.

In this paper we present the StoryStream system, a mobile application that constructs a documentary type of narrative of user generated non-fiction stories, which are orally presented to a visitor of a neighbourhood while he or she freely explores the surroundings. The aim of the system is to enhance the exploration experience by providing context related information that adapts to the information interests of the user.

How human users perceive and interact with interactive story-telling applications has not been widely researched so far. In this paper, we present an experimental approach in which we investigate the impact of different dialog-based interaction styles on human users. To this end, an interactive demonstrator has been evaluated in two different versions: one providing a continuous interaction style where interaction is possible at any time, and another providing system-initiated interaction where the user can only interact at certain prompts.

We present a case study of interactive story creation, in which we applied a proof mechanism based on Linear Logic to the authoring process. After initial scenario modeling for dynamic plot generation based on planning, we used the mechanism in iterations of refinements to find possible problems within a huge possibility space of resulting discourses. We describe first results of our case study, discuss prospects and limitations and point out future work.

Research into Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) is often undertaken through a process of conceptualization, design, prototyping, and evaluation. In this paper we describe a framework of questions intended to interrogate the fundamental intellectual commitments that underlie the design of interactive narratives. We close with a brief description of two interactive narrative systems that were developed to demonstrate how different design commitments can result in new and interesting IDS experiences. We contend that examining the underlying intellectual commitments of our designs reveals new avenues for research and design in IDS that are as yet unexplored.

Within an interactive storytelling context, stories are essentially nonlinear, i.e., they correspond to multiple alternative sequences of events and each event can usually have multiple different outcomes. In this context, branching-time logics tend to be a coherent option to handle the possible states of an interactive story. In addition, important properties of the stories, such as the emotions they generate, continuously vary over time. In this paper, we describe an implemented method to check whether (parts of) interactive stories satisfy continuous-time constraints specified by means of a temporal modal logic, assuming that the time is continuous and branched. The method was applied to a story context with variants of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are interactive narrative experiences that engage the player by layering a fictional world over the real world. Mobile ARGs use geo-location aware devices to track players as they visit real-world locations to progress the story. ARG stories are often geo-specific, requiring players to visit specific locations in the world and, as a result, ARGs are played infrequently and only by those who live within proximity of the locations that the stories reference. We present a solution to the geo-specificity problem called

location translation

, which transforms ARG stories from one geographical location to another, making them playable anywhere. We show that location translation addresses fundamental scalability challenges that arise from geo-specificity.

Video games increasingly take place in dynamic worlds with more autonomous characters and highly variable and moldable narratives. However, our tools for studying how players interact with these complex worlds are severely limited. In this paper, we propose different visualizations that can be used to more effectively analyze interactive narrative systems, and present a case study that applies these techniques to analysis of player logs from the interactive drama Façade.

Graphic designers and visual artists express their narrative intentions using visual tools which essentially include the styling of shapes. In classic art forms design decisions are limited to the initial creation process. Although technical progress makes it possible to adjust content-wise dramaturgy in real-time, the graphical design process often still has static characteristics. In our current work we therefore study how dramaturgical non-linearity can be combined with a flexible visual shape language to conform content-wise narration to visual expressiveness in real-time.

This paper describes the interface component of a visual collaborative storytelling system that enables participatory narration by means of tangible user interaction. The essential feature of the interface is to incorporate participants’ creative actions by embedding metaphorical schemes through its mechanics and from the visualisation of self-organising content to support collaborative narrative comprehension.

In this paper, we introduce Calliope, a portable paper-based platform for interactive story making that allows physical editing of shared digital media at a distance. The system is composed of a network of creation stations that seamlessly blend analog and digital media and documents the creative process with no need to interact directly with a computer. The system enables the use of any object to be used as material for creation. This offers opportunities of collaboration to peers who’s expertise might not be in the same medium.

Generating interactive narratives as movies requires knowledge in cinematography (camera placement, framing, lighting) and film editing (cutting between cameras). We present a framework for generating a well-edited movie from interactively generated scene contents and cameras. Our system computes a sequence of

shots

by simultaneously choosing which camera to use, when to cut in and out of the shot, and which camera to cut to.

We have created an interactive storytelling system for public spaces that is collaborative, easy and entertaining to use, and allows for a natural interaction. The system consists of a table, a ceiling mounted projector that projects onto the table, and a 3D camera for tracking hands and for object recognition. The main feature of the system is the projection on top of the palm of the hand of the users; thus, the hand becomes also a viewing surface. This allows for very natural gestural interaction, such as holding and passing objects between users. For example, in the course of narrative, users can hand over a story character or object to each other. We also employ projection based augmented reality to animate real objects on the table. Apart from entertainment, the system shall be employed for concrete educational interactive storytelling applications in public spaces.

The development of digital journalism, an important area of storytelling, has focused primarily on incorporating interactive multimedia components to traditional linear news stories. In this paper, we propose a new approach that places central focus on text, the core of journalism, based on insights from fictional interactive digital storytelling. Drawing upon the convention of interactive fiction, we present our preliminary work on

interactive non-fiction

.

Narrative is generally crafted around a Three Act structure that dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics. This paper asks to what extent the beginning, middle and end of a linear story remain relevant in interactive environments where drama can result as much from the interplay of rules and multi user participation. In this context drama appears to build through short, yet ongoing cycles of variable engagement. This allows for an alternative, structural approach to the application of Aristotle’s Poetics in multi-user interactive environments involving three component layers, rather than three linear acts: The Source Drama, The User Drama and The Multi Drama.

We define a Performatology approach as combining performing arts theory with AI to design Performative Embodied Agents (PEAs) that simulate skilled acting. Our position is that NPC characters for interactive drama, in the traditions of theater and cinema, should be animated by agent behavior modeled on the physical acting of live performers. We propose that agent behavior problems related to generating embodied fictive characterizations are at least in part gestural acting problems that have been addressed in the arts domain. Actors, puppeteers, and animators have successfully portrayed fictive characters that are both believable and appealing to audiences, and therefore similar agent generated characters should attempt to simulate their techniques.

The design of role-playing games (RPGs) is very complex, involving an intricate interweaving of narrative, quest design, and level design. As an important means for conveying the game’s story, quests dictate the setting and contents of levels. Levels provide challenges for the player to overcome in the service of completing quests, and their structure can invite the inclusion of certain kinds of quests. This paper presents an analysis of design patterns present in existing RPGs that aims to better understand such relationships. These patterns identify common design practices for quests and levels at many different levels of granularity.

This article introduces OPARIS, an OPen ARchitecture for Interactive Storytelling, which aims at facilitating and fostering the integration of various and heterogeneous Interactive Storytelling components. It is based on a modular decomposition of functionalities and a specification of the various messages that different modules exchange with each other.

As part of our broader initiative on promoting the education in the field of computer science and ICT at high schools and universities, we have created the StoryFactory tool, which enables students to script short movies in a 3D virtual world. In an engaging way, StoryFactory introduces challenges posed by scripting 3D virtual characters and screenwriting. The tool is supposed to be used in ICT and/or media education classes. Here, we present the tool along with first results from its evaluations.

Designing interactive narrative has been focused intensively on creating “smart” storytelling systems that react intelligently to players. Such systems, however, take a lot resource to develop and, as a result, rarely produce a full-scale narrative experience. This paper studies the structure of the interactive narrative game Heavy Rain and reveals some economic design strategies that address the problem.

This paper describes a system that situates the viewer at the center of a surrounding video space. The system proposes that the main program on an ordinary television screen be augmented with content that is accessible through an orientation-aware hand-held viewing device.

In this paper we describe The Reading Glove: a non-linear adaptive tangible narrative system in which interactors piece together a narrative puzzle by interacting with a collection of physical artifacts. The Reading Glove uses an adaptive system to assist the reader in making sense of the complicated web of narrative information.

We present an adaptive educational narrative that combines an interactive storybook with drama management. By understanding our underlying value system, we are able to create an adaptive narrative that provides features adequate for the target context. Our value system and design needs invite a reexamination and reapplication of interactive storytelling systems, and results in an adaptive narrative framework that is both feasible and extensible to a wide range of experiences.

Dolls, employed as tangible interfaces, have the potential to provide an easy to learn interaction device that allows children to animate virtual characters in an intuitive way. We assume that dolls and action figures are more compelling, easy to use, and immersive for children than standard interfaces to create movies. We present Voodoo, a prototype of a system where children take over the role of a movie director, animating virtual characters with action figures. Voodoo translates the action figures movements into animations, based on movement patterns and on the narrative context of a well-known story. We maintain that our approach will easily and joyfully empower children to create animated stories.

This workshop demonstrated how to use arithmetic methods in personality models for characters in interactive storytelling. We began with the selection of personality attributes and the relationships between first person, second person, and third person attributes. The mathematics of “bounded numbers” was explained. We then worked on modeling and behavior problems suggested by participants.

An important step towards a theoretical understanding of interactive digital narrative is a classification system for existing artifacts. Many artifacts in Interactive Digital Storytelling provide a challenge to taxonomies derived from literature or film. The lack of a thorough classification system is also a serious hindrance to theoretical work, as it precludes a mapping of the overall field and a comparison of artifacts along categories shared by many researchers. In order to minimize confusion and misunderstandings in the academic discussion within the field and with outside disciplines, the workshop explored ways towards a shared taxonomy for Interactive Digital Storytelling.

This workshop has been dedicated to discussing the user experience of Interactive Digital Stories (IDS) and the empirical measurement of it. Although technology development has made substantial progress, theory and empirical studies on the user perspective have not received much attention in the community so far. The workshop has introduced a measurement toolkit for testing user experiences of IDS software, gives hand-on insight and stimulates discussion on conceptual as well as methodological issues in user-focused research on IDS.

The aim of this half-day participatory workshop was to explore new tools for interactive story generation through the playing of theatre games. The expected outcome of this session was the creation of an interactive role-playing game that could be presented at a conference luncheon or final wrap-up. The theme and characters of the gameplay were determined by the participants at the workshop and dealt with a current social or political issue, enabling conference attendees to contribute alternative solutions for a serious global issue. The take-away for game developers was a new tool to tap into theatre’s innate ability to represent real life conflicts, allowing participants to construct and animate scenarios to test out different solutions from within.

The Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) field has produced numerous research prototypes over the last years [1]. These prototypes cover several different technological domains, including: drama management; human computer interaction; language understanding and generation; behavioral modeling; 3D rendering, modeling and animation. Research in the field usually focuses on one specific area. However, it is often the case that other dimensions need to be integrated with one’s core contribution to provide the end-user with a whole experience that can be assessed. As a consequence, researchers in IDS tend to become “one-person bands” trying to unite being scientists in multiple fields; engineers in an array of domains; and developers at home with many technologies and processes. Game technologies aim to simplify this challenge by providing, in particular, sophisticated game engines. But since game engines do not cover all IDS needs, important development/integration efforts still remain to be addressed beyond the central scientific investigation itself. This workshop aimed at helping IDS researchers to identify and adopt existing IDS-relevant technologies, for them to be able to deliver prototypes that are more varied - or better tailored to their needs and goals - with less effort.

This workshop explored alternative approaches and tools for the creation of interactive digital stories. These tools were derived from elements of geek culture. Geek Culture [1] is an umbrella term for the subculture of fans of cultural artefacts and activities traditionally considered to be geeky such as role-playing games, sciencefiction, computers and comic books. In this workshop, we were specifically examining pen & paper role-playing games and comic books. It included an introduction to those elements of geek culture we wished to examine, participatory exercises that employed those elements, and post-exercise discussion. The workshop was designed to make the participants aware of tools that may be borrowed from other similar media for use in interactive digital storytelling.