A publication dedicated to exploring interactive storytelling.

Danny Bilson - Executive Vice President of THQ Core Games

Today’s creator is none other than the transmedia mover and shaker Danny Bilson. As Executive Vice President (EVP) of THQ Core Games he has helped refocus the juggernaut that is THQ to create “a rich offering of content distributed across digital platforms based both on all of [THQ's] major core brands as well as new intellectual properties.” Danny joins us to talk about his work and thoughts on the burgeoning craft of interactive narrative design for transmedia experiences.

Entertainment is on the verge of something new; no not 3D, but a new generation of transmedia story experiences. Story worlds that, in a calculated fashion, cross from media to media providing players with new ways to experience, and immerse themselves in, an authored interactive world. In the past this was done solely for purposes of merchandising and franchise expansion, but in the present it’s being used to create fantastic story experiences. This NDE series, Creators of Transmedia™, sets out to explore what visionaries in the field are now creating, and what they believe tomorrow will bring.

Stephen E. Dinehart: As EVP Core Games at THQ what does you role entail?

Danny Bilson: I run the Core games business unit at THQ. Both marketing and product development are under my supervision.

That’s compelling. Marketing tends to be a different beast from development. Earlier in this series Jordan Wesiman spoke of his trials wrestling with the marketing department on “The Beast”. As transmedia product development reaches into what was once marketings’ sole domain, it seems even the big boys have to fight for creative control. Is having both marketing and product development under your supervision part of THQ’s restructuring and transmedia strategy, or is it unique to your SVP position?

DB: Partnering marketing and product development as we have done is essential in delivering a transmedia program. At our shop, content leads the way. All things flow from the ideas and the people to make them and sell them sit together. It is unique these days, I think. (more…)

What is the future of video games? This is a large, if not insurmountable question, especially when considering the increasing diversification of styles within the medium. ‘Indie’, ‘casual’, ‘core’, ‘mature’; the labels continue to proliferate, identifying specialized niches of styles, however real or unreal, within the larger ‘video game’. Forming at present is a new niche, one that threatens to pull away from the classic play centric design paradigm. It’s forming in the cubicles over at Visceral, down at the newly acquired Bioware, up at Ubisoft and out east at Studio 38.

Figure 1: Interactive Narrative Design

Many are aiming with different titles and terms, but the goal is the same – to transplant the player into the video game by all means of his visual and aural faculties; into a believable drama where he is actor, this is dramatic play; Interactive Drama that utilizes interaction rather than description to tell a story. Aristotle began the movement about 2300 years ago with his Poetics, dissecting plays into clear part and functions [Aristotle 330 BCE]. Some 2000+ years later, Richard Wagner saw a dissolving of the fourth-wall of theater, bringing the audience into the play as actors so that the stage art may breathe like life, and seemed to them to be as expansive as the real world [Wagner 1859].

Through the next 130 years various studies and pioneers would set out on a pursuit to hit that mark, Happenings, Video Installations, Virtual Reality, just to name a few. The target seemingly was never reached, and the pursuit itself fell into the land of the obscure. The public experienced little effect on how they experienced stories from these early pioneers despite their efforts. With the dawn of popular video game culture, the pursuit has again come into focus. (more…)

Chris Crawford - Author, Teacher, and Interactive Narrative Designer

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Masters of Narrative Design™. While ‘narrative design’ is not a term in common usage, the design of story experiences is nothing new.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful interactive narrative experiences, looking at the lessons learned by these masters becomes increasingly valuable. Today’s master is the Moses of game design himself, Chris Crawford. Chris began the renaissance we all now exist in with the likes of Alan Kay. He taught himself how to program and brought the legend of Atari to life. Chris famously exited the videogame industry in his 1992 GDC talk “The Dragon Speech” to pursue the elusive beast of interactive story. His most recent venture Storytron has been a fanatic voyage into the possibilities of tomorrows interactive storyworlds.  I’m hoping to see what we can learn from his wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and sheer audacity.

Stephen E. Dinehart: First of all thank you. It’s because of brave artists like yourself that I am able to exist, that my field is able to exist, we still fight, but your successes have been our stepping stone and for that we are forever grateful.

Chris Crawford: I tend to think of myself more as the soldier who falls on the barbed wire so the others can climb over his body.

We’ll get more into your selfless nobility later, you are currently Owner of Storytron can you explain what you do there?

CC: We have built an entire development environment for interactive storytelling. It consists of an engine for running storyworlds, a set of editors for the words used in the storyworlds, a scripting system, and a number of analytical tools to make life easier for the author. It’s a large and complicated system, but it does a great deal of computing for the author. (more…)

Rhianna Prachet - Writer, Narrative Designer, and more.

Welcome to the “Narrator Dialogs”; here we seek to put a face on those who are making interactive narrative design a force to be reckoned with. Today’s dialog is with NDN member, Rhianna Prachett – Game Writer and Narrative Designer. Rhianna work has included heavy weight titles like Heavenly Sword, Overlord and Overlord: Raising Hell,  and EA’s ever famous Mirror’s Edge. Rhianna recently won the WGGB award for Best Videogame Script for her work on Overlord. She is currently “wrestling the wild beasts of narrative” on forthcoming titles. Today she has come to share her perspective on interactive narrative design with the Narrative Designer’s Network.

Stephen E. Dinehart: Can you tell me a little about yourself and your interest in game narrative?

Rhianna Pratchett: I’ve been an avid gamer since I was about 6 years old and working in the games industry for nearly 12 years. Part of that was as a games journalist, working for UK publications like PC Zone magazine, along with The Guardian and Sunday Times newspapers. For the last 8 years I’ve moved over to working in the games writing field – right there on the other side of the fence. I initially started as a story editor, then moved into level dialogue and finally into full script writing, narrative design and audio directing.

Can you describe your current role(s)?

RP: Unfortunately all the projects I’m working on at the moment are top secret, so I can’t say much about them. However, the spread includes working as a writer, lead writer, narrative designer and creative director, so it’s a fairly wide remit. I hope more will be revealed about them in 2010. (more…)

Armando Troisi - Bioware Lead Cinematic Designer

As part of the Narrative Designer’s Network and it’s mission to explore share and grow our craft, I am creating a series of interviews for our publication “Narrator” probing the depths of our ranks to find what it means to truly be a narrative designer. Today’s narrative designer is Lead Cinematic Designer Armando Troisi of EA’s Bioware and member of the Narrative Designer’s Network. He sits on the bleeding edge of interactive machinima, creating solutions for complex creative conundrums. He is here to share his thoughts on on our burgeoning craft, both philosophically and as an analysis of interactive narrative implementation in a world-class studio environment.

Stephen E. Dinehart: Can you tell me a little about yourself and your interest in interactive narrative?

Armando Troisi: I’ve always wanted to tell stories, but found the process frustrating in my early career. I bounced around radio, television and film for quite a while but none of these gave me enough control to tell the stories I wanted to tell.

When I was hired onto the Mass Effect 1 cinematic design team I knew I’d found my sweet spot. BioWare’s games were among my all-time favorites and getting an opportunity to be part of a company that’s so committed to the ‘art’ of games was a dream job.

When I joined the department, it was little more than a group of technical designers who needed to solve narrative issues the writers had never anticipated. This was done with cheap, in-engine cutscenes and later grew into making interactive conversations more engaging. I was hired as part of the design department’s effort to augment this capability with professional filmmakers.

Since then I’ve worked on a number of projects here at BioWare, helping the department recruit and train the best and brightest machinima minds in the world to work on our games. Building this team and developing the unique discipline of cinematic design has been an amazing opportunity and continues to be my focus here at BioWare. (more…)