Narrative Interactivity

Last week I introduced the concept of narrative interactivity and discussed its different categories using Marie-Laure Ryan's article, Beyond Myth and Metaphor: The Case of Narrative in Digital Media. This week I'll explain the different narrative structures those categories create.

External/exploratory interactivity:
This is when the user is not a member of the created universe, and his actions have no effect on the world/storyline itself. This form of interactivity is a dying breed, as it makes for uninteresting storytelling. It is typically seen in old "play novel" type games, which where bascially visual books. It could be argued that certain old RTS (Real Time Strategy) games used this model as well.

Internal-exploratory interactivity:
This is when the user has a character that is part of the created universe, but his actions still have no effect on the world/storyline itself. The player is basically like a detective: he is there only to discover and reveal, but not to alter or create. Graphic adventure games dominate this model. Games like Myst and Sam and Max where the player is unraveling a huge preset mystery are good examples.

The player chooses from preset dialog in the game Sam and Max.

External-ontological interactivity:
In this model the user is outside of the universe, yet his actions control the narrative and/or affect the world. This mainly includes simulation games like SimCity and SimLife. In these games the player is omnipotent and abstract; he is the faceless creator of the world. He has no 'character' and no weight to him beyond the creation and manipulation of the world. This could also include games like Lemmings or 'choose your own adventure' games like Night Trap (as long as the player wasn't assigned an actual character).

The player maintains his city in SimCity 4.

Internal-ontological interactivity:
This is the big one. This model includes games where the user has a character inside the created universe, and his actions affect the world/storyline. Most of today's games fall into this category; specifically action-adventure games. These games aren't as pre-planned as 'choose your own adventure' games but the players options are usually limited to an extent so his overall fate doesn't differ too much from the master design of the plot (even if its as simple as implementing the possibility of death/failure). The alterations to the world and storyline usually come from the player's gameplay (did the character kill 5 or 12 monsters in the castle?), although recent games like Mass Effect 2 allow the actual script to be altered on the fly through player choice.

The 'dialog wheel' from Mass Effect 2. Choices made have actual consequences in the storyline.

That's it for now. Next week we will use these models and try to categorize some recent games.


References:

Ryan, M. (2001). Beyond myth and metaphor: The case of narrative in digital media.
Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research, 1 (Issue 1).
Retrieved from http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/ryan/