An experimentation in narrative gameplay

[Llyranor]

Design food for thought. Relatively long read ahead. Bear in mind that my primary drive for modding is that I really enjoy writing, particularly in the context of interactive storytelling (eg. I don

[Tale]

So... adventure games?

[SteveThaiBinh]

So... adventure games?

Sounds like it, and it would appeal enormously to me as a lover of adventure games. Quite a number of the most successful NWN mods are heavy on story, dialogue and thieves skills, light on combat, so I'd imagine that you'd find an audience. Making the combat work through dialogue would be a serious endeavour, because you'd have to make each battle unique, otherwise it could begin to look like the Oblivion persuasion mini-game. Where you say, for example, that combat would be based on choices made by the player, how does the player get the information he needs to make those choices? Is it by watching the actions of the opponent, possibly in real time or real time with pause, or is it by reading text that describes his actions?

 

All in all, I think it's a really good concept. Do you think there's an existing game engine that can support it?

 

No, Deekin must live! And sing! Deekin must sing!

[Llyranor]

The thing is that everything is text-based. I'm not going to bother scripting some sort of real-time system to accommodate this. And again, the point is that everything is unique and individually-crafted, since there is no 'system', only the designer writing stuff for every situation that comes up. The narrative drives everything.

 

I also like how adventure games' gameplay are suddenly not completely linear and not based on awkward puzzle-solving or button-pressing minigames. But yes, that's exactly what I'm doing.