Chris Crawford on Interactive Fiction

retroFuture

Pretty sure this will be of interest to some of you... an interview with Chris Crawford on interactivity, Boolean vs arithmetic logic and how obsession with graphical fidelity impeded development of richer interactive experiences.

Tuism

I wish he didn't spend the first 2 minutes saying that other people don't like what he says :P

What he talks about arithmetic solutions is a very good point - I realise that he's talking about interactive fiction in particular, but most games these days give the players a whole set of tools and rules, and let them discover how they want to solve "the puzzle". For example Magic, or Netrunner, or DOTA, or any of the multiplayer games.

Guess the hardest part about building that kind of "mechanic based" solutions in interactive fiction (trying to tell a story, a narrative) is difficult because then the creator has to either create a system that can generate all those possibilities on the fly through an algorithm, or simply generate a million branches for the players to hit, which is really really difficult and time-consuming.

Guess Dwarf Fortress fits this concept very well :)

EvanGreenwood

I can understand that he may have been frustrated in 1980, but it sounds a little off (with Twine exploding, and games like Prom Week) that he is unhapppy about the state of games in 2012.

I mean, if he wants to make a cool interpersonal game he can. Other people are exploring this space without him.

Seems pretty fun to me, and smarter than his solutions to the same problem. Also: http://www.interactivestory.net/

Although I'd be interested to try Storytron if he ever gets it working properly.

Also:



I think his general problem is that he doesn't value entertainment or accessibility in games, he has special interest values that don't coincide with the market values, and all his gripes come from entertaining and accessible games (like the Sierra quests he mentions) succeeding where more boring and oblique (but valuable in by his estimation) games fail.

I think his "arithmetic solutions" are a really awkward way of talking about game problems that don't only have a single possible input and outcome. It specifies an underlying structure that isn't necessarily necessary to achieve his desired results (i.e. he wants players to be able to explore the space for a custom solution. i.e. an open ended puzzle).

In any case, it's 2013 now. The avenues for making less entertaining, or entertaining in subtler or unique ways, or just conceptually interesting, games are expanding. Though with him whining from the sidelines as far as I can tell.

Gazza_N

Guess the hardest part about building that kind of "mechanic based" solutions in interactive fiction (trying to tell a story, a narrative) is difficult because then the creator has to either create a system that can generate all those possibilities on the fly through an algorithm, or simply generate a million branches for the players to hit, which is really really difficult and time-consuming.

Why work with a forest of static decision trees? Surely in order to have a dynamic, emergent IF, you need the same sorts of dynamic reactive systems as with "normal" games?

I've always wondered what would happen if one were to take a standard game environment simulation and wrote a "string renderer" that outputs text descriptions of the current scene and gamestate every couple of seconds instead of spitting out polygons. Think, say, Deus Ex, simulated with reduced fidelity, with revised descriptions of the scene that updated intermittently. Surely that would provide a more satisfying, reactive IF than an increasingly complicated Choose Your Own Adventure deathweb?

Tuism

I think there's something that this guy was definitely hung up about - he's specifically relating to "interactive fiction", that is, constructing narrative. Like writing a book, producing a movie, etc.

He wants narrative and story, not mechanics and fun. It's pretty clear from the way he spoke he didn't care about games like Tekken, where exactly what what he spoke about is being exercised - multiple possibilities, expansive ways to "solve" the game. But it's not the narrative and story driven experience he likes.

So I totally agree that an engine that could sophisticatedly generate narrative content based on player decisions could fulfill what he's talking about. A complex narrative engine with endless possibilities that were not repetitive instances (not merely "hunt pirate X for Y reward on planet Z").

@blackshipsfillthesky's examples are very good explorations into that, Prom Night was interesting, Sims was... a bit nonsensical, but worked at the concept. I would say some online MMOs do the best job at it because its narrative is generated by real human beings (Eve's last epic battle was amazing to read about, so that's a real morphing narrative engine), but it would be absolutely amazing if Skyrim was less mechanical and even more organic, for example. But it'll take a lot of time and resource to generate "infinite possibility engine" for games.

edit: Oh yeah and he sounds absolutely ancient and he seems to not have learnt or caught up to any new developments in what he's ranting about, but I think even the cutting edge of what's out there hasn't caught up with what he wanted yet. Not that he's doing anything about it besides repeatedly ranting (which year was this interview taken?)

retroFuture

@BlackShipsFilltheSky I in 2 minds about how I feel about Chris Crawford. I think there is much value he adds to the discussion on interactive fiction, and I'm sure that he will be the giant on who's shoulders many future designers can stand. However, I do agree with you that he seems to be largely out of touch with what's been happening in the field, as is demonstrated by the examples you posted. I also think that over 20 years spent on tackling this problem with little to give to the public is not wise. According to the Storytron website, the project has been put on hold due to it's virtually unusable levels of complexity.

EvanGreenwood

Yeah, I thought about it again, and I'd totally agree with most of what he's saying 6 years ago.

Also, pushing for games about people/characters/social interactions instead of winning objects or points is a good goal.

The editing of the video might also do some injustice to him. It doesn't always say which questions he is responding to (so his responses might have had better context if the unedited video had been posted, though obviously an unedited video might have been unwatchable).