February 28, 2005
Telmahre: Thoughts on the Interaction
Currently, I'm thinking that the interactivity of Telmahre will be something akin to a 1st Person Adventure Game with the following important distinctions:
1) No loss of player control. The player (or ractor) will always be able to walk away from another character and even interrupt them if they start monologuing. The only exception is when such a loss of control naturally flows from the story (i.e. being held by guards, etc), but these instances will be limited.
2) Branching narrative on the macro-level; Emergence on the micro-level. I'll probably stick with the traditional binary (or maybe trinary) branching structure for major events, however unlike Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, the choices will not be explicit, but rather will emerge from the interaction system governing the scene. I think each primary character will have their own agenda (including the player/ractor-controlled protagonist), as well as several means by which to accomplish this agenda. The winning agenda will decide the path of the story.
February 25, 2005
Tantallon Now Supports Video! (or "How I Spent My Friday Night")
What you're looking at is a Quicktime video that has been mapped to an OpenGL polygon, running in my own home-brewed Tantallon Engine. I've wanted to get this done for over a year now, but you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to open and play a video in C++.
As much as I hate to admit it, Apple saved the day by making the Quicktime library much easier to use than anything Microsoft put out. What's more, it runs in Windows! How often does Microsoft write code libraries that are Mac-friendly?!
February 23, 2005
Chris Crawford: You Should Learn to Program!
I was browsing Chris Crawford's website (he's a former game designer & founder of the Game Developer's Conference), and came across a writing of his entitled "You Should Learn to Program." I found it interesting because it echoes some thoughts I've had that programming should be taught to more people. Some excerpts:
One of the oddities of the ongoing personal computer revolution has been its failure to dispel the myth of the programmer as genius. Most people regard programming to be some black magic accessible only to the high practitioners, the "real" programmers.
But programmers do not belong in the same category with neurosurgeons, nuclear physicists, and astronauts, even though they go to great lengths to give that impression.
Another aspect of this culture is its exaggerated sense of taste and discernment. Tell a programmer that you prefer BASIC; it's like telling a Jehovah's Witness that you worship Satan. Prepare yourself for a true fire-and-brimstone sermon on the evils of BASIC.
Wrong! Programming is not like neurosurgery, nuclear physics, or astronautics. Programming is like writing, woodworking, or photography. Anybody can do it. Doing it well, doing it like an expert – that takes a lot of work, a lot of experience, and a lot of talent. But anybody who can write a comprehensible paragraph can write a workable program. All it takes is a computer and some time.
Read the full article on Chris Crawford's site.
NOTE: The article was written in 1985, so keep that in mind if you start reading a lot of it...
February 16, 2005
Thesis Prep: Preparing to Answer the Question of Scope
Title: Telmahre
Brief Description: An Interactive Narrative
Topic: Immortality & the illusion of control
The Experience: The ractor arrives at the ruins of Castle Telmahre, modern-day Scotland, and soon encounters a poor mad beggar named Toby. The ractor soon finds himself/herself whisked to different time periods, interacting with a version of Toby/Tobias in each. These interactions have a profound effect on the story.
Significance/Contribution to the Field: Character-driven games & interactive narrative are rare. I hope to explore a solution to this problem by employing a modified version of David Howard’s (of the CNTV Writing Division) sequence method for structuring narrative. Through the character of Tobias, a man imprisoned by his own desperate desire for control, I will explore the topic themes above.
February 11, 2005
Telmahre: Green Screen Tests
This past Wednesday, several of us from the IMD, as well as a few friends from elsewhere filmed some test scenes on the Kurosawa Sound Stage.
It was a great experience! I learned a lot about what goes into such a shoot, what worked and what didn't, and I got to work with some great people:
The footage we took in this shoot will be used in a prototype for an interactive scene entitled, "A Dinner with Tobias". I'll post more info on that as it progresses!
Special thanks to the following people who helped make this shoot possible:
Dan Burch
Sebastian Davis
Ken Leung
Jess Rosenblatt
Alan Starbuck
Jen Stein
Anita Stokes
Shelby Wong