Re: Film Noir Simulation

[Kenneth Lu <kenlu@MIT.EDU>]

At 14:53 -0500 2/6/01, WFreitag@aol.com wrote:
>but include in that world a detective non-player
>character who follows the player's career. By uncovering, that is, retelling,
>the player's story a few moves behind, the detective character would perhaps
>give the player a better sense of his evolving history as a story. (The
>detective, of course, could also be a useful game mechanism, presenting the
>danger of "getting too close" and ending the player's career.) Also the
>developer could experiment with the process of how the detective's story is
>generated, perhaps learning how to make the detective's story "a better
>story" in its own right.

Hm.. that actually wasn't what I had in mind.. I had in mind a 
situation where the player IS the detective.. But your idea is really 
fascinating!  You're basically thinking of a situation where the 
computer is telling tall tales for you about your life, hyping up 
your adventures... That's pretty cool! :)  Hm. I somehow feel that 
that's a totally different idea, though.. one where the key is more 
in how to tell a good story based on true events than in generating 
interesting events in the first place..


At 14:53 -0500 2/6/01, WFreitag@aol.com wrote:
>Your variation, if I understand it right, would be to let the player play in
>a simulated world in typical fashion (with the usual get-to-be-top-dog
>objectives and game play)

Actually, one aspect I'm wondering about is whether I can avoid the 
"high score" style of objective, and make uncovering the connections 
its own reward.  That is, I'm trying to imagine a game where there 
isn't necessarily a score at all.. but that there is enough variation 
in gameplay and the dynamically/interactively generated storylines, 
that the gameplay itself IS the objective..

Of course, I wouldn't mind compromising if that's over-ambitious, and 
work in external motivations as well. :)

-ToastyKen

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| Kenneth Lu - kenlu@mit.edu - http://www.mit.edu/~kenlu/ |
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| "Life is far too important to be taken seriously."      |
|                                                         |
|                                          -- Oscar Wilde |
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