Aram Zucker-Scharff

Is just one choice all it takes to turn a novel into a video game? Before you say yes, consider when a game is created out of many choices and when we are left with none.

Richard Eisenbeis looks at Katawa Shoujo in an April 24 Kotaku article. Eisenbeis holds up the dating sim/visual novel as proof that one choice is all it takes to turn a novel into a game. It is a shallow analysis and the implication that one can stick a choice in a novel and have a game is just false.

If we step away from the screen with only Eisenbeis’s assertion, we lose out on understanding what developers have to do to take a story and turn it interactive.

Creating a good game means understanding the times when a million choices create an interactive work and the instances where no choices are required.

I’ve been using the two terms ‘Story’ and ‘Narrative’ very frequently on this blog. As I look back, I realize that I may not have done a very good job defining them, or more importantly, the difference between the two.

Related posts:

1. Branching narrative schema and similar narrative structures
2. Building structures inside of your story [Narrative Artifacts: 2 of 4]
3. Story arcs beyond TV [Thinking]

Many mediums have a standard narrative structure, for journalism that structure is the inverted pyramid. The three act structure could almost be considered a meta-structure, as it is used in concert with other formats. However, TV tends to use a certain flavor of the 3 act structure. What structures are common in branching and interactive narratives? The […]

Related posts:

1. Building structures inside of your story [Narrative Artifacts: 2 of 4]
2. Expanding your narrative with parallels [Narrative Artifacts: 3 of 4]
3. Notes from Warren Spector’s "Next-Gen Storytelling"