Central Issues in Interactive Narrative Part 4 – A discussion with Chris Crawford

In part 4 of the discussion, Chris talks about his latests project Siboot and identifies “five killer tasks in IDN,” while I bring up the question how the audience understands IDN.

Part 1 part 2 part 3

Chris writes:

You’re right that the Holy Grail is beyond our reach; I have tacitly admitted as much with my Siboot project, which is half-game, half-storyworld. The interactive storytelling in Siboot uses only about three-quarters of the technology in SWAT; I have ripped out a lot of the more complex components. I dumped the ability to travel to stages; that’s all handled directly by the Engine. I limited Actor attributes to just three; I replaced the Tinkertoy Text system with an iconic system that is computationally simpler. Only two actors are allowed on a stage at once; no three-party interactions are allowed. There’s no hiding, no spying, and no automatic lie detection. I can’t recall some of the other simplifications I have made.

Continue reading