Select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?
It is not very challenging to make up an interesting story and grab people’s attention. The completely new level of difficulty starts when you are supposed to write an interactive story. How many storylines can be developed from the same beginning and remain thrilling? It depends on skills of a storyteller and the form as it can be a book as well as movie or game.
One of the most interesting examples of interactive narrative stories is „Life is Strange” directed by Raoul Barvet and Michel Koch. Main character has to make series of difficult decisions and then face the consequences of them. She has a special ability to rewind the time but usually attempt to change the past makes things even worse. If you try to go back in time to hide car keys and save someone from car accident it is possible that in the future other people using that car won’t be alive.
Life is Strange
Life is Strange as the most of interactive narrative games is very emotional. It is up to the player to save someone’s life or lose one of good friends. You should investigate other character’s life to make sure that your choices are right. Due to the interactivity players feel very responsible for their choices and feel connection with game characters.
Life is Strange
The ending of interactive narrative stories is obviously never defined. Players can earn satisfying ending by playing carefully and reasonably. On the other hand it is much more fun to introduce some chaos into the world of game and see what happens.
does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today?
In the past people’s understanding of games was completely different. It was not always connected to visual aspects as it is nowadays. Instead of this people made up various games based on their imagination. That is how interactive narrative genre began and presumably it will never end.
Even though player’s preferences changed, echoes of interactive narrative stories are still hearable in few types of games. It is easy to notice that modern RPG games become even more interactive than ever before. Obviously it has always been a part of games such as The Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age to create and develop your very own specific character, explore whichever part of the map you want and resolve the quests in the way you like. The thing that became expanded in terms of interactive narrative is dynamic of player’s choices. For example in the Witcher III the most significant dialogues have limited time to answer. The main idea of the modern narrative video games is to design them as impulsive as the real life is.
Witcher III Wild Hunt
Playing the next type of games I want to mention is similar to watching movies. Telltale Games studio made a great job translating such titles as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones into games. This way of narrative opens the story of well-known characters to completely new levels because the only thing that player is supposed to do is making key choices. This type of games is most likely going to be developed in the next few decades. Every year Square Enix, Quantic Dream and some other studios working on interactive narrative video games releases even more thrilling and fascinating scenarios.
In general, interactive narrative has still significant role to play in video games and is being expanded every year but it is mainly related to games based on adventures, open world or advanced scenario.
references:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnvironmentalNarrativeGame
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/191861/Should_games_have_stories.php
http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/