A) Select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?

The genre of Interactive narratives attempt to allow players or users to immerse themselves within a story and influence decisions made, as well as the overall ending of said storyline. Interactive narratives are not solely present within the gaming industry, but rather originally appeared within literature.  An interactive narrative requires a “coherent narrative…in which all events build off prior events until a conclusion is reached” (Mark O. Riedl and Vadim Bulitko, 2013)

As (Flanagan and Arble, 1998) stated, “The computer is having a profound effect on our tales, helping us to create morphing, sprawling stories with infinite possibilities”. Both authors believed that with the rise of technology could come improvements with interactive narratives. This can be witnessed in modern gaming, games with compelling interactive narratives hold within them gripping and vast storylines dependent on players actions. The Walking dead for instance attempts to immerse players into the game series by placing them into “dramatic, and emotional, scenarios” (Lee, 2014) where the decisions of the player have a permanent affect on the whole story. For instance deciding if a person should live or die. These components of immersion and great storyline are key concepts of the interactive narrative genre.

On the other hand it can be argued that “Interaction and narration are key concepts in interactive narrative design”,(Glyean ,1995), a view shared by Mikael B. Skov (2002), who argued that designers need to address what type of narrative should be presented, and how such a narrative should be interacted with.

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(source:   http://mac.appstorm.net/general/the-walking-dead-400-days-back-from-the-dead/)

B) Does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today? Give exemplary examples.

Interactive narratives gaming have been available to users as early as the 1970’s, such as in Dungeons and Dragons, and through text based adventure games and literature. In my opinion, the genre still stands to play a role in the video game industry today. Interactive narratives have developed from video games such as “colossal cave adventure”, and have improved and become modernised to remain relevant in the gaming community.

Many games today involve some degree of decision making which effect the overall storyline to games. The company Bethesda for instance allows players to chose between dialogue options and actions which overall effect the storyline which is presented to them. Fallout New Vegas for instance (one of my favourite games) allows the protagonist to chose between large factions to fight for dominance over the Mojave Wasteland. The post apocalyptic setting is riddled with numerous storylines and directions for the player to go. Characters can be spared or permanently killed off, and certain quests only become available depended on the decisions of the player previously. This creates a degree of replay ability for gamers as they can replay the story from another perspective (to some extent of course as the start is almost always the same for certain titles of Bethesdas’ games),

(source:  http://store.steampowered.com/sub/13435/)

These interesting and vast storylines and narratives are obviously successful nowadays, as interactive narratives are featured in triple A rated games, which usually sell numerous copies. The example of fallout New Vegas for instance, sold over 2 million copies in 10 weeks.(Anon, 2017).

Clearly Interactive Narratives are here to stay.

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Reference List:

Mark O. Riedl and Vadim Bulitko, (2013). Interactive Narrative: An Intelligent Systems Approach. Ai Magazine. [Online] Available from: https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~riedl/pubs/aimag.pdf [Accessed 24 October]

Mary Flanagan and Francine Arble, (1998). Interactive Narrative: Stepping Into Our Own Stories. Human factors in computer systems, pg 88- 89. [Online] Available from: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/290000/286543/p88-clanton.pdf?ip=152.78.186.214&id=286543&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=BF07A2EE685417C5%2EA13CBF7F1C3C7DF4%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&CFID=835542564&CFTOKEN=51036087&__acm__=1512052671_a7bad4017b8172a9aa44540e5077ed88 [Accessed 24 October]

Lee, (2014) The Walking Dead Season 3 Announced. [Online] Available from: http://www.wtfgamersonly.com/the-walking-dead-season-3-announced/ .[Accessed 24 October]

Gaylean, T. A, (1995). Narrative Guidance of Interactivity. PhD Thesis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mikael B. Skov, (2002).  Design of Interactive Narratives: Concepts, Methods, and Architectures. Allaborh University. [Online] Available from: http://people.cs.aau.dk/~dubois/papers/Skov-Thesis.pdf [Accessed 24 October]

Anon, (2017). Fallout: New Vegas. [Online] Available from: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/33663/fallout-new-vegas/Global/ [Accessed 24 October]