- Select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?
I chose ‘The Stanley Parable’ as an example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre.
The definition of interactive narrative in video games is that the storyline is not predetermined, this means what player does will largely influence the story in the game which gives player more experience throughout the game (Interactive storytelling from Wikipedia).
‘The Stanley Parable’ is a good example to represent interactive narrative because the story of this game totally depends on players’ decisions:
Story: In this game player is a person called Stanley who works in an office building. The story is completely liberal, and because of this, there are multiple endings and stories for players to explore which increases players’ experience (Story, Stanley Parable Wikipedia).
Interactive narrative: During the game players will hear a narrator speak, and they are the key to understand how the story goes because the narrator will give players instructions of what they are going to do next, but because of the liberal of the game, players can choose not to follow their instruction which might cause an interesting ending.(Gameplay, Stanley Parable Wikipedia)
However, the game is not only about exploring different endings and stories. The key concept of this game is experimenting players on how they see this game and interact with it, for example through the gameplay, players will find out lots of unexpected cases which let them think a lot about the game itself. (The Stanley Parable, and How to Understand its Meanings by GotYourGoat)
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtX0S2J32Y
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_storytelling
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221910/discussions/0/792923684001914023/?l=hungarian
http://thestanleyparable.wikia.com/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable
Does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today? Give exemplary examples?
The answer to this question is: yes it does.
To support the definition, I’ll choose an example which can be used to describe what interactive narrative video games are like. It is one of the video game series called ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt(2015)’.
The concept of this game is about a Witcher called Geralt fight with his enemy Wild hunt. During the game, the player will be given multiple options to choose through different conversations, and each decision the player makes, might affect the storyline (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Wikipedia), here is the example in one of the main quests:
Geralt is helping Bloody Baron to find his daughter, and all clews led him to a monster. After a short conversation, the player has to decide whether kill the monster or let it go. If the player decides to kill the monster, the outcome of this decision is the death of innocent children; If the player decides to let the monster go, the villages around it will be destroyed and takes Bloody Baron’s own life.
This example explains how decisions made by players affect the storyline and player experience because if Bloody Baron is still alive, he could bring out an expended quest or just a normal NPC that player can chat with (Bloody Baron (quest) from Witcher Wiki).
Interactive narrative is still an important role to play in video games today because nowadays players are more interested in what they can do in the game instead of a predetermined system.
reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_storytelling
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Bloody_Baron
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%AB%E5%B8%883%EF%BC%9A%E7%8B%82%E7%8C%8E