Chris Crawford - Interactive Storytelling

A few Fundamentals to Nature Of Stories:
Strong Structure:
"Stories must satisfy tight structural requirements to be acceptable."
There are fundamental expectations of a story that when you here a certain story you will believe that the tale your listening to isn't a story. - "Lesson #1 Stories are complex structures that must meet hard-to-specify requirements"

People:

In it's most basic form all stories are about people even if a person or people aren't physically mentioned the main part of a story is making it possible for the reader to relate to or understand from the perspective of a person telling the story. For example in itsy-bitsy spider obviously the spider isn't a person but the moral of the story to keep persevering  makes the reader relate to the story as if it really is a bout a person persevering up the water spout.

"Lesson #2 Stories are about the most fascinating thing in the universe: people."

Conflict:

All stories have conflict whether that be directly presented as good and evil in white and black or the bad guy looks ugly and horrific where the good guys are handsome admirable characters of which we as the audience would admire to become.

However stories conflict isn't always so direct, for example in Jurassic Park 2, the main conflict is between the business man and the scientist and their different views on how the dinosaurs should be treated, as creatures or as a money making scheme. The dinosaurs appear to be the main conflict but are actually not needed at all in the film as the main point of the story is that the business man should have listened to the scientist because he predicts that the creatures will act on their primal instincts. Basically the dinosaurs actions are natural to their instinctive hunter-gatherer ways, much like if a lion escaped at a zoo and ate someone, a very drastic example but it gets my point across. The film could have been done without the dinosaurs completely but that wouldn't make an interesting film or wouldn't make Spielberg any money.

Puzzles:

"Stories are not puzzles. It's true that puzzles often form a part of the story: indeed, puzzles play a large role in mystery stories." But again the puzzles and story is primarily about the people within them i.e. the Saw movies wouldn't be as good if the traps where made but no one went through them and we just had to figure out how to escape, we follow the people in the story and traps and see how and what they do to escape, the traps needn't be there either they could just get told by Jigsaw what they have done wrong and promise to change, but again this doesn't make compelling films but the puzzles are what gives the people within them the challenges to overcome. Giving the people within the stories something to beat or overcome makes a compelling story again like Itsy-Bitsy Spider, the Spiders puzzle is making it up the water spout, puzzles help make the story compelling by giving the people a challenge.

Plenty of stories do well without puzzles however but puzzles do add to a compelling story and especially game.

"Lesson #3 Puzzles are not a necessary component of Stories"

Choices:

Spectacle:

"Lesson #4 Spectacle does not make stories"

The Tyranny of the Visual:

Similar to the above as the age of technology is upon us and is greatly achieving more and more great things the modern day observers of film, tv and games are so fixated on the epic visual effects, fight scenes and CGI that if a younger modern audience was to watch a black and white film they would find it boring and not be drawn into the film because of the lack of technology, effects and visual pleasure they are used to from modern day technology, so from this we can say that yes you do not need visual pleasure to create a story but in a modern age like today they are needed i believe to make game or film a success as without visual dynamics now only a small minority of people will enjoy, understand and believe it, for example image Transformers with out the CGI, Star Wars without lightsabers and the force or The Matrix without the amazing special effects and wall running.

"The Rise of the Image, The Fall of the Word"

"What i want to concentrate on here is the way in which visual thinking has come to dominate out thinking, to the exclusion of everything else."

"Lesson #5 Visual thinking should not dominate storytelling"

Spatial Thinking:

I am going to be completely honest here i say that i didn't fully understand this enough to write and example in my our terms until i read this extract so instead of trying to put this is simpler terms i am going to add it in here because if it can make me understand it it can make anyone understand spatial thinking.

"Lesson #6 Stories take place on stages, not maps"

Temporal Discontinuity:

This i have understood thankfully. Basically this in the order and length of time in real life and within the film, television or theatrical industry. A key example to this is that in films a gap of many years is simply shorten for our viewing needs by the line "a few years later" but we don't fully know what has happened in those years and we don't care all we want to know is how do they look now or what is going to happen not what happened in the bit we didn't see. Films, theatre etc can use this to their advantage as travelling miles across an ocean doesn't take days it takes minutes showing us the main point of the story if it is needed i.e. what the people are doing on the boat, if nothing interesting or nothing that continues the story is going to happen on the boat then the boat is simply shown leaving one place and arriving at the next, our brain fills in the blanks.

However with computer games this is not done so much, in fact the main concern for game creators is actually the physical time it takes a player to finish a game from start to finish, perhaps some games include captions like "some time later" for example when the player is knocked unconscious and the surrounding area has changed dramatically  or something similar, otherwise the caption is not used and you would normally see the player standing up as the screen fades in from a black screen.

-Dan 

Dave Perry & Russel DeMaria - Game Design: a Brain Storming Toolbox

What is a Puzzle?:

"A baffling problem that is said to have a correct solution"

There is a solution to the puzzle and it can be found in many ways by deduction, induction or random chance.

Challenges and puzzles are different, a puzzle can contain a challenges but challenges aren't always puzzles.

Dilemmas:

Puzzles which don't have definite correct answers and choosing an answer can have a drastic knock on affect so which choice do you make? this is a dilemma.

Puzzles in Games:

Putting pieces together:

One type of puzzle where the player has to find pieces of something to accomplish the goal for example finding pieces of armour, ingredients for a potions, parts of the Animus Data Fragments (Assassins Creed Revelations)

Missing Persons, Creatures, or Things:

Putting it simply in any game where you have had to go and find a mystical being or creature to reach the next level or mission, or where a person has got lost, kidnapped, or wandered off, this is an example of missing persons etc.

Hard Choices:

Making tough decisions without knowing the result of the decisions you are making, "The red pill or the blue pill" from Alice in Wonderland and The Matrix is a key example as neither characters knew the full consequences of what they were taking.

What's behind the door - again making a decision without knowing the end result i.e. picking a door to walk through without knowing what is on the other side.

Freeing the prisoners - basically picking between characters and determining the good and the bad and normally who lives and dies - Who do you Save?

Sacrifice - self explanatory

Kill Tasks:

Killing a monster, creature, taking out a hit on a target etc. to complete a task or to unlock an event which is key to the progression of the story. To make the kill tasks more interesting alterations to the target can be made so that the player has to figure out how to kill them, who the target is in a big group of people, the target is a friend or on your team etc.

Getting it Right;

To answer the puzzle correctly the NPC (Non Playable Character) will give hints and tips from the environment or documents which will aid you in making a difficult decision, normally giving you hints at what you will receive if you do the task a certain way.

Unusual Objects You Can Carry or Move:

In game if you come a cross something unusually big or different that you can interact with, pick up or move there is normally a puzzle associated with it.

Ordering Things:

Doing things in a certain order to achieve the overall goal of the puzzle. Like completing smaller puzzles to complete the larger puzzle but having to answer the puzzles in order.

Buttons and Switches:

Many buttons and switches are used in games and will either give a single answer to what happens if i press this button? or multiple choices, of what to do or where to go, the difficult part of this is deciding what way to go and if there is a way back and also where is the button that opens this door etc. This is very useful as it makes the player stop and think, a small puzzle.

Keys

Keys are exactly the same as buttons, you have to find them and use them in the right order and may have to use more than one to open the door, case, safe etc. they can also be used as a reward for accomplishing smaller side missions which means that the player has to figure out what side mission to complete to continue in the main missions, creating yet another puzzle for the player to accomplish to progress but making it not as annoying. Also keys aren't just keys they can be a specific weapon that is the only weapon which can kill certain enemies, a note, a glass of wine, a headline etc.

Configuration:

Configurations puzzles are puzzles of which the player has to move objects to certain places or move multiple objects in a specific order to accomplish the goal to progress. There  is usually an immediate effect once the configuration is completed so the player knows they have done it correctly.

Sequence of Tasks;

Self explanatory i believe - a set number of tasks which may or may not be completed in order (being done in order make the puzzle more challenging) to achieve an overall bigger goal, i.e. starting multiple mechanisms in order to open the massive door at the end of the great hall.

 Follow the Leaders:

Key examples of follow the leader are: Following an NPC's footsteps, an ordered sequence of lights etc.

Timing Challenges:

Another self explanatory one i think, basically the player has to complete a challenge with the added difficulty of having to complete it within a time limit or as quick as possible so that the player can beat his friends in competitions i.e. score boards etc.

The obscure Object of Desire:

Basically a challenge that the player will want to complete because of the rewards they will receive from it but the player is normally taunted for a period of time before they can actually accomplish or even start the challenge to receive the object of desire, like Prince of Persia when the Dagger of Time is visible for a long period of time but you cannot reach it for a little while making the player anxious to get it.

You Can't Do That...Yet:

Much similar to the object of desire but normally the player can see something they want but can't get it until they have unlocked something of better value or until a skill has been learnt or gadget unlocked later on in  the game and they have to venture back later on and remember where it is so they can get it once they have learnt the new trick etc. It tells you, you can come back and get it later basically.

Barriers:

Anything that impends your progress whether that be a physical barrier, locked door or difficult enemies.

Thinking Outside the Box:

A relatively normal situation or series events but with a twist so the player has to think of a different way to achieve the goal but an out of the ordinary way, i.e. escaping out of a room without using the doors or windows.

Managing Chaos (Too Much Too Fast):

Basically quite difficult decisions are thrown at you left, right and centre and you have to answer them all quickly, normally the challenges starts off slowly and build up in pace as the game progresses.

Moral Dilemmas;

Making decisions which are immoral or out of character and completely different to the rest of the decisions and choices your character has had to make. From this games can use the players thoughts and moral compass to their advantage meaning for example if a player is assigned to kill someone the choice they make whether to do it or not or give the appearance of doing it can open up different story lines and quests for the player to complete meaning the players decision is yet another difficult one.

Riddles:

To a degree all puzzles are riddles but more specifically some puzzles are purely riddles for example in Batman Arkham City and Asylum you have to find and answer the Riddler's riddles and in doing so you unlock items and gain more level progression points just by simply answering the riddle's correctly.

Riddle's can be given all at once, in parts or in clues that the player has to figure out without the telling of the riddle at all. Riddle's are normally told the player by an NPC or read from notes, books etc.

Signs and Wonders;

These are basically elements included in the game which divert or distract the player due to a noise, footprints or clues scattered around the world without being told what they are following or looking at actually does, it could be a trap, a big dragon ready to kill you or a massive treasure cove but finding these challenges and accomplishing them are very successful examples of puzzles in games.

Devices:

Devices are in all types of games ranging from doors to mobile phones and computers. Their purpose may be hard to work out or simple but the puzzle is getting them to work and to work to your advantage.They can also be hard or easy to operate but again the purpose of them is to use them to overcome a puzzle and to work. Also if a device is not operational being able to get the device to work is a great method of achieving a puzzle through a device.

Sudden Responsabilites;

Basically where an under experienced or under qualified character is given the sudden responsibility of a task which they are not able to complete without a lot of hard work and competing of puzzles and challenges. 

These can be short range of long range puzzles. from gaining a power up or achieving lots of mini puzzles to unlock your character full potential to save the world or achieve the end puzzle in the game, the responsibility set on to them at the start.

Sudden Loss of Power:

In games where the player has achieved greater power from something i.e. a mystical being, armour or special mythical item and then the power is suddenly taken away the player must find away to achieve the goals of tasks that would normally be easy with their old powers but now needs to find another way to figure out the puzzle.

Whodunit:

Basically a mystery and you have to figure out who done it normally by answering lots of mini puzzles or by figuring out a grand puzzle at the end of the game or a mini side mission where you have to find a missing person for example.

Mental Puzzles;

"Some puzzles require a lot of concentration and mental effort, such as;

Spotting the difference, Chinese puzzle boxes, fitting pieces together, Sudoku, arranging and ordering, chess games, finding what's wrong, matching patterns."

Puzzle Based Games:

From this we can see that the puzzle types mentioned above are normally sub games or mini games that are a part of a larger game giving the player more tasks to accomplish.

But some games are completely based on the completion of puzzle aspects and to continue and win the game overall the game must stick to these puzzle mechanics. A key example of a game that uses puzzle elements of which the entire game depends on that struct is Tetris.

Codes and Cryptography:

A means of communication by which the player has to figure it out to understand it i.e. an alien language, cav man scribbles on a cave wall, message from an ancient race etc. And upon doing so the player receives enlightenment and of course a prize.

You need to figure out these languages, scripts etc but looking at the code they use and connecting the dots to understand it, or to have a key to figuring it out whether that key be physically a key or not.

Shouldn't be over used in games as a lot of players don't like searching for hours to find out the hidden meaning of the a coded message or the message hidden in a long list of names or images.

Goals:

Goals are what need to be accomplished to finish or move on in the story whatever the goal takes the form of, killing someone, finding something etc.

Methods you might use:

Simply out how will the player achieve these goals? and what does accomplishing and being set these tasks to achieve open up to the player. i.e. from accepting to attempt the task he receives a gold coin but for completing the task and achieving the goal he receives a bag of coins as an example.

May be best to add more than one way to solve the puzzle if the puzzle is very difficult as not all players will look at the puzzle in the same way as each other but for more simpler puzzles the amount of correct ways to answer the puzzle doesn't need to be as much. Also answering one thing or doing one thing can open up new decisions and choices to make making the game have a lot more depth.

Tools, Skills and Objects;

These are normally determined when creating the puzzle so as a designer, you know what the player needs to have obtained , do in a certain order or posses on his person to complete the puzzle and achieve the goals i.e. the correct keys to the safe or the overpowered weapon of god which no enemy can with stand as an example.

Output:

When the player is faced with a decision they have to decided how to over come it for example, when opening a generic treasure chest do you: use the key, pick the lock, smash it, take the whole chest, leave it or burn it so no one else can have it?  and from this the way they overcome what they are shown can or will unlock different paths for them to follow, i.e. what they just broke may have been a key element to make this next battle easier  or because they touched it a demon appears and kills you etc.

-Dan

Jesse Schell - The Art of Game Design

Puzzles are in all forms of games. At any point in a game when a player has to stop and think they are in the middle of solving a puzzle in the game whether it is abruptly facing you like a game where you have to move certain mechanisms to open a door or the puzzle can be subtle for instance choosing what upgrade to grab.

The Puzzle of Puzzles:
Puzzles are a part of games but are they a game?
"Chris Crawford once made the bold statement that puzzles are not even really interactive, since they don't actively respond to the player."
This is like the first explorers who first saw Penguins and would have probably not known how to define them i.e. they look like birds but cannot fly?

Scott Kim - ""A puzzle is fun, and has a right answer" The irony of that is that once you find the right answer, the puzzle ceases to be fun."

The main reason people do not class a puzzle as a game is because it is not replayable.
Which makes us think they aren't games as most games have enough dynamics to give a player the sense of replay ability.

"When a game has a dominant strategy, it doesn't cease to be a game, it just isn't a good game."

Dominant strategy - when a single strategy will defeat a game every time.

"A puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy"
They are just games which aren't fun to reply.
"Puzzles are just miniature games whose goal is to find the dominant strategy"

Aren't Puzzles Dead?:
Most people believe puzzles are old fashioned but puzzles are still in the games we play today, not as abruptly but they are still there, remember the rule, a puzzle is anything that makes the player stop and think.
In the early years of the game industry puzzles designed to test your mental ability were the craze whereas know a days the new craze is to test how quickly you can move your hands on a keypad or controller. But puzzles are still a part of both.

Good Puzzles:
Ten principles of puzzle design that can be used in any game genre:
1.Make the goal easily understood
2.Make it easy to get started
3.Give a sense of progression
4.Give a sense of solvability
5.Increase difficulty gradually
6.Parallelism lets the player rest (making the player stop and think, best way to avoid anger and leaving the game is give multiple puzzles at once so that if one appears to challenging they can move on to another and still achieve and get a sense of achievement) "A change is as good as a rest"
7.Pyramid structure extends interest (series of small puzzles which contribute to the completion of a larger puzzle)
8.hints extend interest
9.Give the answer (the aha factor of figuring out what the answer is and getting to that state)
10. Perceptual shifts are a double edged sword (like riddles you either get them or you don't, should be used sparingly in video games)

-Dan

Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry - Julie Prescott and Jan Bogg

Women Working in the Computer Games Industry

Introduction:

"Using data extracted from a large study of female game workers, this study adds to the scarcity of research into the area of women working in the computer games industry. It would appear that occupational segregation still persists in this relatively new, male dominated industry. Findings suggest gender role identity and attitudes are important issues when looking at segregation within the industry. Implications for future research on the games industry are discussed"

"According to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), occupational

segregation remains one of the strongest influences on young people's choice of

career (Miller et. al., 2004)"

"Occupations are social categories; people within an occupation share things such as preferences and experiences (Weeden and Grusky, 2005). Therefore, occupational categories are an important part of a person’s sense of self (Taylor, 2010)"

Background - Occupational Segregation:

"In a recent study, Mumford and Smith (2007) found the earnings gap between men and women in Britain is due to a combination of things such as: the different personal characteristics or traits between men and

women, workplace segregation and occupational segregation. When women are segregated into certain jobs, those jobs usually pay less, have fewer opportunities for progression, less job autonomy, and less authority within the organisation."

"Women in male dominated occupations have been found to receive less support than men

but more support in mixed gender occupations; whereas, men receive high levels of support in female-dominated occupations. Therefore, being in the minority is an advantage for men, but a disadvantage for women"

Segregation in SET and ICT Industries:

"With regards to promotion, the WWW-ICT report suggests that ICT organisations

have a flat structure with little hierarchy. Flat organisations lead to an informal

working environment, but career ladders can be short or nonexistent. A lack of

formal structures and progression processes can make it particularly difficult for

women to gain advancement."

"According to James and Cardador (2007), women’s cognitions and beliefs about technology and science are more negative than men’s, resulting in a disinterest in the employment sector. One reason for a disinterest in computer games as an occupation is the long hours that have become standard within the industry  Fullerton et. al., 2008). Another reason relates to the identity of women within the industry. For instance, Wajcman (2007) argues that women are asked to exchange aspects of their gender identity for a masculine version and forsakeInternational Journal of Gender, their femininity without this de-gendering process occurring for men. It has also been suggested that in order to cope with the challenges to their own gender identity and those of the men with whom they work, women in ICT and SET industries must develop strategies (Newell, 2002). One such strategy is for women to make their gender identity invisible (Griffiths et.al, 2007) or become more masculine (Wajcman, 2007)."

‘Technologies have a masculine image, not only because they are dominated by men but because they incorporate symbols, metaphors and values that have masculine connotations’ (Wajcman, 2007, p.289)

Segregation in the Games Industry:

"The games industry is made up of a number of specialities including development, production, design, level design, audio design, art and testing (Green et.al.,2007). Recent figures contained in the 2008 Oxford Economics report suggest that the UK games industry has over 9000 employees. A report by the online games magazine, MCV (2008) suggests that the percentage of women within the games industry in core creation or developmental roles is around just 6.9%. More recent figures produced by Skillset (2009) found that women represent 4% of the game industry’s workforce, a decrease from 12% in 2006 (Skillset, 2006"

"The creative media industries workforce as a whole has declined within the three years between the two censuses. It would therefore appear that the industry is losing its battle to increase its appeal to a more diverse workforce"

"According to Krotoski (2004) only 0.4% of female employees in the UK games industry are in lead, director or management positions, whilst 1.2% of male employees hold these jobs. Research by Haines (2004) found that nearly a quarter (23%) of senior positions within the twenty UK games companies in her

study were filled by women. However, Haines study revealed that senior women were more often found in managerial and senior roles in the less technical areas of games development or in areas more associated with traditional female roles, such as marketing, rather than direct games development"

Discussion:

"The findings highlight the different attitudes of women working in the games industry. This paper has shown differences between women in different professions and grades in terms gender role identity at work and their attitudes towards the career barriers to women’s career progression and to a lesser extent their attitudes towards their own career progression. Like the wider ICT and SET industries, women need more representation in all areas and roles within the industry. With regards to vertical segregation however,women in the current study tended to be in more senior grades in contrast to the findings of women in ICT and SET. It would therefore appear that occupational segregation still persists in this new, male dominated industry"

"With regards to professional identity, the finding that executives having a significantly higher masculine gender role identity compared to artists/animators is interesting since it could suggest that women in a powerful executive positionInternational Journal of Gender, either adopt or naturally have more masculine characteristics than those in other areas of the games industry, especially those in the more creative, artistic roles in game development."

I thought to be quite a sexist remark considering the nature of this reading - "Feminine traits include warmth, kindness, selflessness and sympathy(Schein, 1973). Masculine traits include aggression, forcefulness, rationality, competitiveness, decisiveness, strength, self-confidence and independence (Schein, 1973)."

At this moment in the article i am finding the reading of it quite difficult and to be honest quite a sexist and repetitive piece as it seems the same thing is being said then repeated with fancier words in it and the fact that this article is written by women, no offence, suggests quite a negative and one sided view of the industry and broadcasts factual evidence influenced by their own personal beliefs, opinions and experiences and shows the facts to promote their views. Also it appears that the questions were not asked to both male and female workers which would also give a more swayed opinion which i believe has been given the fascade of a fact.

"The games industry may be relatively new, but it is a large industry with a significant influence over today’s media landscape. In 2009, computer games outsold films; including DVD’s and cinema tickets sold (Wallop,  2009), highlighting the importance of women’s participation in such an influential industry."