On Grand Text Auto, Andrew Stern writes a good post about the distinction between character-driven games and purely linear narrative (which makes for a poor gaming experience).No one can disagree that games should be “player-driven”, another way of s…

I usually feel they’re too crippling for me to spend my time with. I’m an impatient guy, what can I say. I can take a “glass half-full” viewpoint, but why? I loved games when I was younger, and still enjoy good gameplay, but at the end of the day, until these crippling limitations are overcome, other than sampling games to keep up with what’s out there, I’d rather spend my limited free time with the best novels, movies and TV shows, immersing myself in excellent literature, drama and comedy. (It might be different if I were more of an action or SF fan.)

And of course, spend work time developing approaches to overcome those crippling limitations.

Or are both of them non-interactive stories and we’re only talking about systems that try to let you really influence the shape of the story?

Games like PoP:SoT are minimally interactive stories, with mostly local agency, and little or no global agency. I love good gameplay, and many games have good gameplay, including PoP:SoT. And I can enjoy certain hypertext fictions, adjusting my expectations for what the form allows.

But to date I’ve yet to find any digital fiction, game or otherwise, that succeeds, or satisfies me, as an authentic interactive story. Façade included, of course.

I totally agree with that David Radosh NYTimes op-ed from a few weeks ago. Radosh was intrigued to learn about Façade, btw.

Admittedly, some games are making good progress towards interactive action stories, but the themes and content of the action genre is still too limited for me.

Obviously, I think there’s a lot of unexplored potential in making the story itself playable. But I’m pretty surprised to hear that “there is not yet an interactive story that [you] truly enjoy.”

Or is it that you don’t count things like PoP:SoT as interactive stories? If so, what threshold do things have to fall below to get out of the category? Are hypertext fictions, in which the audience has no influence on the structure of the story, but can explore a network of language portraying it, counted as non-successful interactive stories while games are counted as a successful non-interactive stories? Or are both of them non-interactive stories and we’re only talking about systems that try to let you really influence the shape of the story?

If we’re only talking about systems that try to let you have a significant influence on the outcome of the story, I’m not surprised you haven’t played one you really like — almost none have been made, right?