There's no predictable plot here, because the Protag can succeed or fail in a myriad of ways. The Story = What happens as the Protag struggles to overcome the Antag. With procedural generation, the game is reacting to what the player does, not what the character is expected to do. This isn't Joel and Ellie building a relationship only to have the hostile world threaten to tear it apart. This isn't Booker DeWitt coming to terms with his past. Suddenly, the player isn't just going along for the ride on a nice, smooth character arc. Why? Because it's impossible to rely on tried and true structures like "3 Acts" and "The Hero's Journey" when anything could happen in the game at any time. To be honest, it freaks the shit out of many a narrative designer. I personally think that procedural generation is a wonderful breath of fresh air, blowing away a lot of stale thinking and stale storytelling in the games industry. In the meantime, let's focus in on Procedural Narrative and the potential future it has in video game storytelling. Maybe I'll explain the differences in a follow-up article. Ok, first up.sorry, Bryan, I'm not going to even attempt to tackle the 'emergent narrative' side of the question because I think that procedural narrative and emergent narrative are two very different things. Indie Game Dev, Bryan Cohen, recently asked me this rather ballsy question about narrative design.īryan: "Given the recent trend of procedural generation in games that often have very shallow storytelling, what role do you see procedural and emergent narrative taking in the future, and what sort of challenges and problems need to be solved before we (as developers) can deliver a compelling experience going this route?" Procedural Narrative: The Future of Video Games
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