Unlike video games, interactive storytelling emphasizes human interaction, rather that mechanical conflict. By letting game players act out the role of the protagonist, interactive storytelling creates a more complex, more engaging experience, and it already shows signs of becoming the next major trend in entertainment software.

Chris Crawford, a pioneer in computer games, here offers his wisdom to developers entering this field of game design. Starting with the fundamental principles of interactivity and storytelling, he illuminates the technologies being developed. Dispensing with vague wishlists of features and pretentious gobbledygook, Crawford provides workable solutions, telling you in plain English what works and what doesn't.

Some of the key concepts explained include:

• Thinking in verbs: the core concept of interactive storytelling
• How to assemble verbs into events
• How to build useful personality models
• Gossip and the flow of information in drama
• Anticipation: how characters modulate their behavior toward others
• Inclination formulae: how characters make choices
• Sequencing character behavior in dramatically reasonable ways
• Development environments for interactive storytelling

As a game designer or new media storyteller, you know that the story is everything. However, figuring out how to tell it interactively-and in a way that keeps your audience coming back for more-can be challenging. Here to help you out (and to open your mind to ever more creative ways of producing those stories) is the man who created the cult publication The Art of Computer Game Design and who has devoted much of his career to that very topic: Chris Crawford. To highlight the path for future gains in the quest for a truly interactive story, Chris provides a solid sampling of what doesn't work, contrasting unsuccessful methodologies with those that hold promise for the future. Throughout you'll find examples of contemporary games that rely on different technologies-and learn the storytelling lessons to be garnered from each of the past methodologies. Within the context of interactive storytelling, Chris explores ways of providing conflict and challenge, the difference between low- and high-interactivity designs, the necessity to move beyond purely visual thinking (so that the player is engaged on multiple levels), and more.

A game design luminary shows game designers, developers, and new media professionals how to tell a story interactively. Opinionated and thought-provoking, this volume opens users' minds to new methods of storytelling for today's interactive computer games and media.