Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling

Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling

Chris Crawford

Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling
Chris Crawford

Published by New Riders. For information on New Riders Games books, contact:

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Acquisitions Editor: Wendy Sharp
Development/Copy Editor: Lisa M. Lord
Production Coordinator: Andrei Pasternak
Technical Reviewers: Mark Barrett, Aria Danika
Compositor: Amy Hassos
Indexer: Lynne M. Grimes/Interactive Composition Corporation Cover Design: Charlene Charles Will
Cover Illustration: Andrei Pasternak
Interior Design: Mimi Heft

Notice of Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact
[email protected]
.

Notice of Liability

The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit Press shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks

Throughout this book, trademarks are used. Rather than put a trademark symbol in every occurrence of a trademarked name, we state that we are using the names in an editorial fashion only and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Some of the methods, systems, and algorithms described in this work are covered under U.S. Patents #5,604,855 (Feb. 18, 1997) and #5,805,784 (Sep. 8, 1998).

ISBN 0-321-27890-9
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Printed and bound in the United States of America

I dedicate this book to my long-suffering wife Kathy, who has supported me emotionally and financially for thirteen years as I have worked on interactive storytelling, patiently enduring my endless promises that “commercialization is just around the corner.”

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to Laura Mixon for serving as sounding board, mother confessor, critic, and fellow explorer as I have groped through the complexities of interactive storytelling. Thanks also to Dave Walker for his many contributions to the development of the Erasmatron technology, both technical and artistic.

Lisa Lord, Mark Barrett, and Aria Danika struggled through the morass of my verbosities and helped me clean up the mess, de-polysyllabic-ize my vocabulary, and actually make some sense. Linda Harrison, Stephanie Wall, Wendy Sharp, and Andrei Pasternak provided top cover, bottom cover, and side cover for the project. The gestation period for this book, about 21 months, was the same as an elephant’s, and now we all know what an elephant pregnancy feels like.

Contents at a Glance

Introduction

Part I: From Story to Interactive Storytelling

Chapter 1
Story

Chapter 2
Interactivity

Chapter 3
Interactive Storytelling

Part II: Styles of Thinking

Chapter 4
Two Cultures, No Hits, No Runs

Chapter 5
Abstraction

Chapter 6
Verb Thinking

Part III: Strategies for Interactive Storytelling

Chapter 7
Simple Strategies That Don’t Work