Announcing the Big Thing: for narrative designers, game writers, and interactive story authors
Also: my first Pride ever!
This weekend I went to my first Pride ever, that also turned out to be the largest in Belgrade’s history (thanks to Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian immigrants). I was with my almost 6yo kid, and she enjoyed it as much as I did: a feeling similar to running events when you’re in a big cheerful crowd moving towards the same goal. Back in Russia, even mentioning queer culture or wearing a rainbow pin can be considered “gay propaganda” and land you a fine, or worse. Here in Belgrade there were some attacks from conservatives at the last year’s Pride, but this one was completely safe, with the police blocking the streets and Orthodox priests desperately waving their incense burners at us.
Here are the photos, in 3 parts: one, two, three.
I’m writing my second book!
Well, technically, I’m doing it together with my writing partner, Anton Outkine, and it’s going to be V2 of or fits book, but the changes are MAJOR.
The working title is “Narrative design and interactive storytelling in games, film, VR, and immersive theatre”. The first edition came out in Russian: grab an ebook here. It didn’t include games, since it was a very large topic we weren’t ready to approach yet. Look how beautiful (and useful) it is!
V2 will be in English. Like V1, it will be a practical textbook combining theory and real cases. We share our own experience and interview industry leaders such as Baobab Studios, Niantic, Rimini Protokoll, and Ontroerend Goed. If you’re a narrative designer, game writer, or a producer who wants to dig deeper into interactive storytelling, this is going to be for you: with this book, you’ll be able to develop your own project or get new tools and approaches for the ones you’re currently developing.
I’m going to share my notes and updates on “Unevenly" and would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Whom should we interview (apart from Hideo Kojima who’s on top of our list)? Which cases should we include? Maybe you’ve worked on an AAA game and would like to share your insights? Or you’re a book publisher? Hit that “reply” button and let’s chat.
Let’s start with what we mean by “interactive storytelling”:
A meaningful (in a given context) interaction that combines the player/viewer’s agency and choice with empathy, driving the story forward.
You may feel that the “hero’s journey” is tired, but it remains as relevant as ever. When I refer to storytelling, I'm talking about the narrative structure rooted in the social adaptation phases that have been valid since the humanity inhabited the caves.
Those phases have become known as the hero’s journey; my preferred one is Dan Harmon’s, but you can pick any other flavour.
Introducing interactivity means that the player's agency and choices guide the hero/player character along this cyclical journey. The dichotomy between agency and empathy creates a spectrum:
At the right end you’re watching a film, where you have no agency over the story at all and can only receive empathically what the author is trying to convey to you. At the left end you’re playing a video game. Various media and formats can fit in the spectrum between total agency and pure empathy — not necessarily narrative-driven.
We believe that interactive storytelling helps engaging the audience by adding the sense of control to more "empathic" forms of media (e.g., film), while also adding empathy to high-agency media (e.g., games). This, in turn, encourages players/viewers to return to the experience repeatedly, creating a connection between them and the narrative. How exactly that works and why is explored and explained in the book.
Cheers,
Nata