Narrative Space . .

1

• Narrative Space
  .
  
  .
• ______
• Maha Al-Saati
• IAT 811 Computational Poetics
• 9 March 2007

2

• I. Classifications of Narrative Spaces
• I. 1. Jenkins Classification of Narrative Spaces
• Jenkins argues that most games focus more on the
  world creating, mapping rather the character
  psychology or plot development
• This follows the 18th century American novel
  tradition of exploring worlds rather than
  characters psychology
• Characters are vehicles for players to navigate
  through those worlds
• Plot structured causal events presented in the
  narrative
• Story the viewer's mental construction of the
  events (Jenkins, pp.121-122)
• Types of Narrative spaces
• Evocative
• Enactive
• Embedded
• Emergent (Jenkins, p.123)

http//www.unabridgedbooks.com/product_info.php/pr
oducts_id/137?osCsidbf62be0a4a40638403a16786b66d3
424
http//www.activewin.com/reviews/software/games/l/
the_longest_journey.shtml
3

• Evocative narrative spaces
• Evoke pre-existing narrative associations
• Enhance immersion by building upon familiar
  stories already well-known to visitors (Jenkins,
  p.123)
• communicate a fresh perspective on that story
  through the altering of established details
  (Jenkins, p. 129)

http//www.legendra.com/art/wallpapers/fiche.php?r
pg257
http//www.avikatz.net/sf/meimad/meim10.htm
http//www.avikatz.net/sf/meimad/meim10.htm
4

• B. Enacted Narrative Spaces
• Enact narrative events to provide staging ground
• privilege spatial exploration over plot
  development
• story plot is structured around the character's
  actions/movement through space, to push plot
  forward
• environment may retard or accelerate that plot
  Episodes/sequence of actions/events are loose and
  allow player to choose (Jenkins, pp.124-126, 129)

http//www.gamers-globe.com/screenshot/lara-croft-
tomb-raider-legend-multi-005,2.html
http//www.lara-forever.de/images/gallery/Gal_TR2/
gallery_19.htm
5

• C. Embedded narrative Spaces
• pre-authored narrative that offers coherence in
  plot development
• game space becomes a memory palace
• Space and its artifacts embed pre-structured
  narrative information
• lead the player to decipher and come with
  conclusions about a previous event or to suggest
  a potential danger just ahead
• Player constructs mental maps of the narrative
  space and acts accordingly (Jenkins, pp.126-127,
  129)

Screen shot from The longest Journey
6

• D. Emergent Narrative Spaces
• authoring environment
• players can define their own goals and write
  their own stories
• players become active agents in constructing
  stories
• Decisions/choices have consequences
• Stories are shaped during game-play
• game designers are narrative architects rather
  than storytellers (Jenkins, p. 129)
• Example The Sims
• My comment the narrative emerges from the
  characters not the space
• characters have a will of their own, desires,
  urges, and needs, conflict with each other,
  respond emotionally to events in their
  environment
• Characters do not always submit easily to the
  player's control (Jenkins)

http//thesims.uk.ea.com/index.php?class4i143
http//sims.silvertuesday.com/?p47page1
7

• E. Combinational narrative spaces (my
  interpretation according to Jenkins's
  classifications)
• Example Neil Youngs Majestic
• Embedded narrative
• Information is embedded in web, faxes, e-mails,
  and phone calls
• Enacted narrative
• relatively unstructured
• flexible interactivity
• The player's flexibly interacts by retrieving
  information
• The story structure
• scrambled plots of linear story
• Motivates players to reconstruct the plot through
  actions/ exploration
• provide a rationale for our efforts to
  reconstruct the narrative of past events (Jenkins)

http//www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/majestic/scre
enindex.html?om_actconvertom_clkgsimage
8

• Jenkins suggests making use of Kevin Lynchs
  Image of the city
• manipulation of the world as means for sensuous
  end
• each space must have
• poetic and symbolic" potential
• narrative potentials
• enhances activity
• encourages the deposit of a memory trace
• This relates to how he viewed embedded space
  earlier as a memory place
• (Jenkins, p. 129)
• (my comment) He doesnt clearly say how to use
  Lynchs theories

9

• I. 2. Nitsches Classification of Narrative
  Spaces
• Four main approaches for creating space in games
  
• Designer-created
• Random
• player-created
• Procedural space generation

http//300bucks.ca/news/Jun-29-2005-11.html

• A. Designer-created Spaces
• game content (AI, sounds, game world/spaces,
  objects, scripted dialogue, pre-modeled objects,
  predefined character behaviors) is pre-fabricated
  rather than generated during runtime
• Drawbacks
• Fixed/passive game environments
• Optimized for a certain game experience
• Once mastered and fully explored, offers little
  or no opportunity for change/repay
• Example multi-player-session of Half-Life
• interesting only because of the players spatial
  behavior /social interaction
• performance has little/no affect on the world
  itself (Nitsche)

10

• B. Random Level Generators
• Space/new levels are built by combining level
  elements such as space sections, objects, and
  entities
• creates endless levels
• raises replay value and the dynamics of the game
• Drawbacks
• player cannot predict or shape the space
  generation
• Limited variety
• players agency remains unconnected to the space
  generation
• Examples Diablo or Rogue
• (Nitsche)

www.game-revolution.com/download/pc/rpg/diablo.htm
http//gr.bolt.com/download/mac/action/rainbow6_ro
gue.htm
11

• C. Player-created Spaces (by using developers
  tools/ editor programs
• create own game worlds or modify existing ones
• Drawbacks
• Influenced by tool developers/designers
• Play and space generation remain separated
  (generate space world in external editor,
  recompile it, then play it)
• Example Second Life
• hybrid approach
• players shape their own space world
• space creation and the exploration is combined
• Drawbacks
• interaction lacks many features of a game
• focused on the creation and maintenance of a
  social space (Nitsche)

Screen shot from Half life
Screen shot from Second life
12

• D. Procedural Spaces
• players create their own game universe
• players agency affects the procedural world
  generation
• worlds are not fixed, but flexibly created during
  runtime
• change experience where the world generation
  would merge with the play
• Goal of procedural space creation
• Creating space/worlds is not the end goal
• shaping the experiences of users in that space is
  the goal
• Example
• MojoWorld - fractal-based world generator
• creates visually detailed worlds
• Low interactivity worlds lack active inhabitants
  or objects to interact with
• Architecture
• virtual cityscapes generated by algorithms
• abstract liquid architecture
• illustrative structures with little or no
  interactive ingredients

Screen shot from Mojo World
Screen shot from Mojo World
http//www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/timeline/Novak.html
13

• Rescue on Fractalus
• generates 3D fractal-based mountains and valleys
  in real-time
• world inhabited by enemy forces, pilots to be
  rescued
• clear interactive and goal-driven game settings
• But simplistic in its presentation form due to
  the original platform
• Vib-Ribbon
• uses sound to create vector-graphic game levels
  that consist of long strings of obstacles
• player can provide the music to generate the
  world
• lack any direct control over the outcome (Nitsche)

http//www.gm-master.com/vb/printthread.php?t2114
8
http//cyan.askee.net/vib20ribbon/pics/pages/vib
20ribbon20background203.htm
14

• The Charbitat project
• Background story
• Main character is in a coma/dreamlike state
• Must overcome the obstacles, master ones own
  world, balance the elements once again, and
  finally leave this borderless dreamscape
• Goal
• combine procedural space generation and play
  experience
• players create the world as they play through it
• no points to win or records to break
• goal-driven exploration and generation of space
• strategy of level generation
• Player creates space by their in-game actions
• It has random elements shaping the terrain and
  the positioning of entities and objects
• it uses pre-fabricated local objects and some
  pre-modeled set pieces
• all of these elements are combined in the
  procedural space generation
• (Nitsche)

Charbitat screenshot, http//egl.gatech.edu/charbi
tat/media.html
Charbitat screenshot, http//egl.gatech.edu/charbi
tat/media.html
15

• Two questions for procedural space creation
• Context
• designer-created worlds provide control over
• possible story developments
• tightly structures player experience
• generating space does not mean that this space
  makes sense or has any meaning or value to the
  player
• How can we fill these endless virtual procedural
  playgrounds with significance and context?
• Possible solutions
• Add structure, motivation, and direction to the
  players actions
• Example key-lock puzzle generator
• introduces procedurally generated basic quest
  elements that can be spawned in the generated
  worlds
• encounter basic keylock tasks that send them on
  the search for a key (a solution) to overcome a
  designated lock (a threshold)
• (Nitsche)

16

• Orientation
• Navigating in a potentially endless space is a
  challenging task
• arrange entities within each individual tile of
  the game world, but also provides for larger,
  overarching structures that span over multiple
  sections
• Rivers, cliffs, walls, and roads are elements
  that continue seamlessly from one tile to another
  and can form obstacles and landmark features.
• Possible solutions
• Kevin Lynchs The image of the city
• combination of local elements and larger entities
  (paths, edges, districts, nodes, landmarks)
• landmark are significant and work as thresholds
  in the quest
• Rivers, for example, remain thresholds or
  obstacles until the player finds the swim key
• It is such a combination of generated space and
  inherent meaning for action that provides a wide
  spectrum for more work
• (Nitsche)

17

• I. 3 Scharfe/ Ryans Possible worlds Narratology
• The exists a number of possible, but not actual,
  worlds
• Authentic
• Pretended
• F-worlds
• Narrative space
• is the metaphor for mental operations regarding
  reading
• contains several narrative worlds/ possibilities
• Four authentic worlds according to the mental
  capacities of the character
• Knowledge World (K-World)
• Obligation World (O-World)
• Wish World (W-World)
• Intend World (I-World )
• (Schärfe)

Screen shot from Dreamfall
www.macworld.com/news/2004/09/30/myst4/index.php
18

• Four authentic worlds according to the mental
  capacities of the character
• Knowledge World (K-World) Epistemic system
• describes characters knowledge of their world
• Operators knowledge, ignorance, and belief
• Obligation World (O-World)Deontic system
• accounts for commitments and prohibitions
  resulting from cultural rules and moral
  principles
• Operators permission, prohibition, and
  obligation
• Wish World (W-World)axiological system
• individual assigns the predicates good, bad and
  neutral to propositions based on personal desires
• Operators concepts of goodness, badness, and
  indifference
• Intend World (I-World )
• describes plans and goals
• Ryans modal structure in the narratology
  context
• Distinction between the characters knowledge,
  obligations, wishes and intentions
• Analyze plot structure of narrative (Schärfe)

19

• II. Suggestions for interactivity in Narrative
  spaces
• interactivity must influence the experience of
  narrative?
• Interactivity actions must be meaningful with
  consequences to the users actions
• II.1 Narrative Guidance The River Analogy
• Navigation paths should flow like a river so as
  not to disrupt immersion
• The user is a boat through this river pushed and
  pulled by pre-determined water currents
• This constraints the users movement through the
  space to interesting paths
• Separating levels of representation
• ensure smooth interaction and flow
• Ensures the story is told (Galyean)

http//www.cs.ubc.ca/bsd/photos/imgs/Canada/Rocki
es/Tree--Yoho_River.html
20

• Levels of representation
• 1. Plot level
• space is structured to guide interaction
• Manipulate presentation /story world differently
  to tell the story/accomplish goals no matter how
  the user interacts
• 2. Presentation level
• User interacts with this level
• Allows freedom for user actions to vary the
  experience
• Plot adjusts presentation to ensure plot its
  points are made
• Example
• in a story, getting the character in a car is
  essential, no matter how he interacts.
• He could either hitchhike
• Get hits, loses consciences and put in the car
• Threatened to get in the car
• In the end he will end up in the car (Galyean)

http//gallery.hd.org/_c/travel/_more2005/_more03/
road-trip-South-Africa-Eastern-Cape-Port-Alfred-to
-Kenton-on-Sea-to-Addo-by-car-13-DHD.jpg.html
21

• Qualities of narrative guidance
• Temporal continuity structure
• Story controls/manipulates time and space in
  relation to plot and presentation
• Events have structured relation to each other
• maintains sense of flow
• Continuous interaction
• The narrative presentation should not stop and
  wait for users interaction
• The interaction should be smooth/continuous input
  that influences the story world (Galyean)

22

• II.2 Expanding the Narrative Space through
  exploratory creativity
• Generally, author specifies
• Initial state of story world
• Outcome
• the universe of discourse any world as
  potentially infinite
• the closed world assumption (CWA) every fact
  about the world that is not declared true is, by
  default, not true
• Bodens taxonomy of creative system distinguishes
  between
• Exploratory creativity process of searching an
  area of conceptual space governed by certain
  rules
• Transformational creativity process of
  transforming the rules and identifying a new
  sub-space
• extensions to story planning that enable a user
  to generate creative stories
• story planner can assume creative control over
  the description of the story world in which story
  is told
• story planner can relax the constraints imposed
  on it by the authors given model of the story
  world (Riedl)

23

• A. Escaping the constraints of the initial world
  description
• Indeterminate/ open world planning
• initial states and facts in story
• A part is determined that is necessary for the
  story outcome
• A part is left undecided states by the author
• planner has authority to determine the
  truth/false of these facts
• user defines the initial world state as (a) known
  true, (b) known false, and (c) undetermined
• Set of possible worlds
• each world in the set differing on their truth
  assignments to the undetermined sentences
  describing the initial state of the world
• the set of possible worlds is reduced every time
  a variable is determined (Riedl)

http//forums.guildofgreeters.com/index.php?showto
pic3439
24

• Initial state revision (ISR) planning
• ISR checks states to facilitate the story
  planning process
• causal links/relationship between actions
• each action is satisfied by a causal link that
  has consequences
• In case of inconsistencies
• planner backtracks and considers a different
  alternative way of resolving the flaw
• Each action has preconditions that must be known
  (true or false) in order to make this action
  proceed (Riedl)

Source Story Planning as Exploratory Creativity
Techniques for Expanding the Narrative by Mark O.
RIEDL and R. Michael YOUNG, page. 14

25

• Example of ISR Planning algorithm
• World initial states
• secret agent
• starts at the headquarters
• prohibited from traversing from the courtyard to
  the lobby while holding a weapon
• Mastermind
• starts at the office
• secret agent is weapon, gun1
• exist
• location is undetermined
• outcome world state
• mastermind is not alive
• trace of a single path through the plan search
  space.
• satisfies the goal condition by having the secret
  agent shoot the mastermind with gun1
• In order to shoot the gun, the secret agent must
  have the gun
• considers all the places the secret agent could
  pick up the gun
• secret agent pick up gun at location3
• the location of the gun is undetermined

26

• Mutual exclusiveness
• Introduces the potential of logical and semantic
  inconsistency to the world description
• Sentences in the initial world state are mutually
  exclusive, meaning that if one is true than the
  other cannot be true
• Example
• an object cannot be in more than one place at a
  time
• so when gun at (location 1) is made true, all
  other sentences regarding its location elsewhere
  are made false to ensure that the gun cannot be
  in more than one place at a time (Riedl)

27

• B. Relaxing the Constraints of the Story World
• library of operations that story world characters
  can perform
• constrains the way in which the story world can
  be transformed from one state to another through
  actions of the characters
• Story variables are bound to characters actions
  attributes
• Conceptually there are two types of
  preconditions
• Preconditions that constrain the non-changing
  attributes of the world
• Example
• precondition (violent ?attacker) constrains the
  world such that only characters that have the
  violent attribute associated with them can
  perform the Shoot action
• preconditions that constrain the dynamic state of
  the world
• models the physics of the world and should be
  expected to correspond with the audiences
  understanding
• Example
• (?attacker ?place) and (at ?victim?place) specify
  that the attacker and victim must in the same
  location at time of attack action (Riedl)

28

• IV. Emotional involvement with space
• Narratives include micro narratives such as
• cut scenes
• Actions/events involve characters during play
• Series of micro-narratives shape emotional
  experience and build up to the grand narrative
  (Jenkins, pp.124-126, 129)
• Melodrama
• external projection of internal states
• through costume design, art direction, or
  lighting choices
• space has been transformed by narrative events
  can have powerful feelings of loss or nostalgia
  (Jenkins)

Screenshot from Toonstruck, http//www.gametective
.de/screenshots/details/8679.html
Screenshot from Toonstruck, http//www.maniac.de/o
ldhome/reviews/pc/sz/toon/toon.html

• Players can return to a familiar space later in
  the game and discover it has been transformed by
  subsequent (off-screen) events

29

• Sources
• Game Design as Narrative Architecture - by Henry
  Jenkins snarrative.html
• Narrative Guidance - by Tinsley A. Galyean
  nce.pdf
• Designing Procedural Game Spaces A Case Study by
  Michael Nitsche, Robert Fitzpatrick, Calvin
  Ashmore, John Kelly, Will Hankinson, Kurt
  Margenau oad/Nitsche_DesigningProcedural_06.pdf
• Possible Worlds in Narrative Space by Henrik
  Schärfe (Just skim through pages.1-5)
  
• Story Planning as Exploratory Creativity
  Techniques for Expanding the Narrative by Mark O.
  RIEDL and R. Michael YOUNG (pages. 1-3
  'introduction', pages 11-18 'sections 4-5')