作者：Greg Johnson

互动故事游戏是否还存在着？

如今已是2016年了。是的，我们曾经猜想在2016年里我们将能看到悬浮汽车，机器人管家，事件发射器以及“全像摄影互动电影”的诞生。也许你并不是像我出生于20世纪60年代，所以这些并不是你们想象中的未来。而互动电影的未来在那里呢？现在我们的至少还拥有它们不是吗？

现在让我们谈谈电子游戏。如果你是一名游戏玩家，你可能知道有一种游戏类型叫做“互动故事游戏”，并在游戏媒体中的很多人已经讨论了好莱坞与电子游戏的集合很多年了。而如果你并非游戏玩家，现在的你可能会开始犯困了，或许你可以考虑看看其它内容。

所以到底什么是互动故事游戏？这种组合到底意味着什么？这听起来应该很有趣吧。这似乎在暗示你你可以直接进入电影中并“生活”在故事里。就像在《星际迷航》中的“Holodeck”上。当然了，这里的重点在于你拥有绝对的自由可以在游戏世界中随时做任何想做的事，并且最终都会出现一些有趣的结果。即最后将会诞生一个针对于你的体验且让你感到满足的故事。

StarTrek(from sogou)

接下来请跟紧我，因为这些内容可能会有点微妙，甚至会有点疯狂。关于“Holodeck”描述我们指的便是“互动故事游戏”。它们其实并未真正存在，或者说今天存在的互动故事只是基于最简单的形式。现在我们所拥有的是“互动式故事游戏”。因为游戏的本性便具有互动性，并且许多游戏都带有故事，所以我们拥有的便是互动式故事游戏。而这也是我们需要解决的一个大问题！什么？你认为这是一个愚蠢的问题？好吧，那然后呢？

到目前为止游戏产业已经花费了数十亿美元并投入了无数时间去创造游戏。我可以证明人们已经在创造互动故事这条道路上努力了至少30年了。所以结果呢？

尽管现在市场上已经有许许多多的游戏，并且许多游戏都是非常优秀且让人印象深刻的作品，但我们还是不能否认互动故事的创造还处于初始阶段。现在的我们仍处于试验阶段。不幸的是，这种R&D般的互动方法从本质看来是不可预测的，它将为互动故事项目添加更多风险，并因此需要你投入更多时间与金钱。这也许便是我们未看到更多人尝试着去推倒互动故事障碍的主要原因吧。我们所看到的尝试经常是一些低预算独立项目，即无需投入太多资金。这些项目总是能够提供给我们一些有趣的观点和值得学习的经验教训，但是它们所涉及的范围却太小，所以只能提供一些可能性暗示。

我应该关心的，因为……

在我们深入分析互动故事之前，让我们着眼于一个始终存在的问题，“我们是否关心？”毕竟这是一个世界性的游戏类型。就拿我来说吧，我便沉浸于一些与互动故事毫不相关的出色游戏中。这是否是值得我们关注的问题？对于某些人来说可能不是如此，但这却是一个大胆的声明。因为互动故事是作为人类的我们总是在追随的内容。

从生理方面来看，当你发现人类是为故事而生时，你肯定会非常惊讶的。大脑研究者发现，我们的大脑中有很大一部分的构造都是为了“创造可替换的现实模型”。从进化的角度来看，我们在脑子里构想未来并运行假设模拟的能力拥有巨大的存活值。这种能力让我们能够通过在自己安全且隐秘的思想里测试我们的行动而预测到它们的结果，这同时也能让我无需真正面对危险情况而从别人的经历中获得学习。这种“现实建模”便是人类智能进化中最伟大的里程碑。基于此我们便可以构建“复杂的因果关系链”，也就是我们所谓的“故事”。

关于故事对于我们的“真实性”，其它有趣的大脑研究还表明，当我们在读书，看电影或听故事时沉浸于故事中，我们的大脑便会像我们在现实世界中经历某些事件那样发生化学或电力上的反应。我们的惊讶，害怕，喜悦，刺激，生气和背上等情感反应以及我们的学习和记忆中枢，甚至我们大脑中的视觉皮层和感官或运动区域都会像真正的经历那样受到刺激。这并不是说我们不能判断真实与虚假，这只是在传达故事对于人类体验的基本影响的线索。换句话说，我们总是会禁不住对故事做出反应。而我们本身就是故事制造机。在过去几年里，神经学家在识别人类大脑特定区域的功能方面取得了突飞猛进的发展。他们发现我们的大脑皮层中的一个区域，即背外侧前额叶皮层是主控制中心，即将命令并划分我们的各种不同想法和冲动；它将排列，组织并构建因果联系，或者换句话来说，它将创造故事。而眼窝前额皮层将扮演核查员的角色去确保我们的内部故事是否“合理”以及是否与我们其它的心理模式相一致。并且正是这一大脑领域决定着我们对于真实与虚假的判断。

让我们想想每天的生活是如何被故事所包围着。我们会通过故事与朋友和家人分享我们的每日经历，我们总是会在脑子里构思各种场景和对话，我们会列举相关故事去教授别人，我们会通过幻想的故事去猜测未来，我们会逃离到虚构的世界中放松自己，我们还会在游戏环境中扮演其他人。我们甚至会在梦中构思故事，即使是半理智型故事。

你心里可能会说：“你只在前面3个段落提及故事对于人类的重要性。但是还有很多优秀的游戏能够让你有身处于游戏故事的感受。它们可能不会让你做任何事，它们也许也不会让你改变太多故事内容，但是它们仍会很有趣，并且有时候也会传递一些不错的故事体验。那为什么我们需要理解更多有关互动故事的内容呢？”

如果我们能让创新变得不那么有风险，我们便能够更多地进行尝试。这不仅适用于一步步地创造更出色的现有故事游戏，同时也适用于一些更大步且更有野心的飞跃，即我们真正尝试着去推动艺术的发展。一款优秀游戏的目标是让玩家在选择与行动中感受到满满的动力。游戏是关于行动。而故事则是关于终止怀疑。一个优秀故事的目标是将你带进故事世界中并让你能够“身处体验”里。而互动故事便是在努力将这三者结合在一起。挑战当然是来自故事内在的线性序列。即每次当你将玩家选择引进故事中时，你便会打乱这种线性。

这便是创造一种真正的互动故事体验的巨大挑战。任何尝试过处理这一问题的人总是会告诉你最艰难的部分便是明确如何提供给玩家足够的选择和自由去影响故事中所发生的事。或者从理论上来说也就是如何在故事中为玩家提供“代理”。从本质上来看，游戏就像是一些重复行动和结果的紧密循环。你需要不断闪避与射击，然后再次闪避与射击。或者你需要一直驾驶着汽车，玩音乐，或在地下城中移动等等。这些循环让玩家能够基于某些技巧创造某种专业技能，并让设计师能够延伸难度并挑战任何核心活动的参数。与我们的讨论更有关系的是，这些循环将提供他们所需要资产的效能。即它们将让游戏创造性能够基于有限且不断重复使用的内容而创造出持久的游戏体验。有些游戏可能会提供像环境，敌人，车辆，关卡设计等各种内容，但只要这些内容变得不可操控，设计师便会停止添加内容。一旦核心循环能够运行，游戏便是可游戏的。与此相反的是，让玩家能够通过行动从根本上改变故事的游戏则会遭遇“内容爆炸”问题。如此每个玩家行动都将引出一个全新的NPC行为和世界状态，而基于一个预先创造好的资产去创造一款游戏便变得不可能了。

互动故事所具有的关键问题在于这里并不存在所谓的“什么是故事？”的问题。在某种程度上这并没有多重要，并且不应该成为设计的关注点。当然了我们总是想要看到最棒的故事，但是我们需要回答的真正困难且有趣的问题是：如何以一种可行的方式让玩家能够以某种意义且具有戏剧性地影响故事？

我们可以选择两条基本的路线：真正的路线或者虚幻的路线。真正的；路线是指现实世界，即带有其当前的限制。不管好坏这便是我们现在所选择的路线，也许不是我们自己的选择，但这却是现实。在这条路线上我们会使用各种技巧去呈现给玩家自己能够影响故事或者真正“身处”故事的感觉。而这里的每种技巧都存在局限性，成本和利益。这些技巧都不是专属的，你也可以将其与其它技巧相结合进行使用。

而虚幻的路线则是我们所假设的未来的Holodeck。这是一条高级仿真路线，这里有真正的“自然发生的故事”（游戏邦注：即不是预先设定好的故事，而是源自仿真体验中）。奇怪的是我们可以从虚幻路线中学到许多东西，所以我们将会选择从这里开始然后再回头着眼于互动故事当前的发展状态。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Designing Interactive Story (PART ONE)

by Greg Johnson

DO INTERACTIVE STORY GAMES EXIST YET?

So…. The year is 2016. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this supposed to be “the future”? Heck, 2016! That’s when we’re supposed to have hover cars, robotic assistants, matter transmitters, and full-on ‘Holographic Interactive Movies”. OK, so perhaps you’re not a child of the 1960s like me, in which case, maybe this isn’t quite so much “the future” for you, but still… where are the Interactive movies? We should at least have those by now, right?

Let’s talk about video games. Raise your hand if you like this topic. (Really, go ahead, who will know?). (….OK, fine. Don’t raise it then.) If you’re a gamer you’re probably aware that there is a genre of games called “Interactive Story Games”, and also that people in the gaming press have been talking about Hollywood and Video Games converging for many years now. If you’re not a video gamer you’re probably already starting to get sleepy, and this might be a good time to think about reading something else.

So what are Interactive Story Games? And what does this convergence mean? It sounds exciting doesn’t it? It sort of suggests that you can somehow step into a movie and “live” the story. Just like in the “Holodeck” on StarTrek (Raise your hand if you know what that is……. oh, come on.) The idea here is, of course, that you have total freedom to do anything you want in the game-world, at any time, and interesting things will happen as a consequence. In the end, a really satisfying story, unique to your experience will result.

So back to our first question…What are Interactive Story Games? As we said already, this is commonly referred to as a genre of existing games. On the other hand, the interactive story that we just described where you can “live the movie”, clearly doesn’t exist yet, so what’s up with that? What is this existing genre of which we speak?

Well, try to stay with me here, because this is going to get a little subtle, and perhaps just a little inane…. what we were talking about with our Holodeck-type description are: “Interactive-Story games”. Those don’t really exist yet, or perhaps it’s fairer to say that Interactive-Story exists today only in its simplest form. What we currently have are “Interactive Story-Games”. (hopefully you’re not reading this out-loud to someone, because that won’t have made any sense to them at all.) If you think about it, games are by their nature, interactive, and there are plenty of games with stories, so we DO have Interactive Story-Games. Voila, that is one major problem shot down! High Five! ….what? That’s a stupid problem to solve you say? OK, well how about this then?

The game industry has spent billions of dollars, and probably hundreds of millions of people-hours producing games so far. There are a lot of really smart people making games. (some of them even talk to me now and then, when they’re not ignoring me) I can attest to the fact people have been trying to make truly interactive-story for at least 3 decades now. So… er… cough cough…. Where is it?

In spite of the fact that there are tons and tons of games out there, many of them truly impressive and masterful works, it’s still tough to deny that the art of building Interactive Story is in its infancy. We’re still mainly in a world of trial and error. Unfortunately, this R&D-like, iterative approach is inherently unpredictable, and it adds tremendous risk to Interactive-Story projects, which translates into time and cost. This is probably the main reason why we don’t see more attempts to break the Interactive-Story barrier. The attempts we do see are most often in the realm of low-budget indie projects where the money at risk is minimal. These projects often offer interesting insights, and wonderful learning examples, but they are so limited in scope that they only hint at exciting possibilities.

AND I SHOULD CARE BECAUSE…..

Before we dive into a deep scientific analysis of Interactive Story (which will be very scientific – did I say that already?) Let’s take a look at the ever-present question of “do we care?” After all, there is a whole wide world of game genres out there. I, for one, have been addicted to many awesome games that have nothing to do with Interactive-Story. Is this even worth the trouble to pursue? For some, clearly not, but here’s a bold statement for you…. Interactive Story is something we human beings almost have to pursue. (by the way, if you’re reading this, and you’re NOT a human being, please email me. I REALLY want to talk to you!)

How surprised would you be to learn that human beings are literally built for story… physiologically speaking. Brain researchers have been finding that a significant portion of our brains are structured specifically for ‘modeling alternate realities’. From an evolutionary perspective, our ability to imagine possible futures, and run hypothetical simulations in our minds has had tremendous survival value. This singular ability has allowed us to predict the consequences of our actions by first testing them out in the safety and privacy of our minds, and it’s what’s allowed us to learn from the experience of others without needing to face dangerous situations. This ‘reality modeling’ is possibly the most significant milestone in the evolution of human intelligence. With it, we construct ‘complex chains of causality’, also known as “stories”.[1]

In regards to how ‘real’ stories are for us, other interesting brain research has shown that when we’re immersed in a story, via a book, movie, or story teller, our brains trigger chemically and electrically in exactly the same ways as when we experience events directly in the real world. Our emotional responses of surprise, fear, joy, arousal, anger, and sadness, our learning and memory centers, even our visual cortex and sensory or motor areas of the brain get stimulated as if the experience were real. This isn’t to say that we can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, but it is a clue as to how fundamental stories are to human experience. In other words, we can’t help but respond to stories. We’re story machines. Within the last several years, neurologists have made great strides in identifying the functions of specific areas of the human brain. One area of our cortex, the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, is found to be the master control center that essentially orders and sorts our various disparate thoughts and impulses; it prioritizes, organizes and builds causal links, or in other words, it creates stories. The Orbitofrontal Cortex acts like a fact-checker to make sure our internal stories “make sense” and are consistent with the rest of our mental model. This part of our brain decides what’s “real” and what’s not.[2]

Think about how our daily lives are filled with stories. We share our life events with friends and family via stories, we run scenarios and conversations in our heads constantly, we teach each other by relating stories, speculate on the future with imagined stories, escape into fictional worlds to relax, or role play-stories with each in acting or gaming contexts. We even dream in stories, albeit semi-rational ones.

“OK, OK!” You say in my mind. “You made your point about stories being important to human beings 3 paragraphs ago! But there are a ton of great games out there that give you the feeling of being in a story. They may not let you do whatever you want, and they may not really let you change the story much, but still, they can be lots of fun, and sometimes deliver a pretty good story experience. Why do we need to understand more about Interactive Story?”

If we make innovation less risky we’ll be able to do more of it. This is true both for the small incremental steps of making existing story-games better, and for bigger, more ambitious leaps, where we really try to advance the art. The goal of a great game is to let players feel empowered through choice and through action. Games are all about doing. Stories, on the other hand are about suspension of disbelief. The goal of a great story is to transport you into the world of the story and allow you to “live the experience”. Interactive Story strives to blend both of these things together. The challenge of course comes from the fact that stories are, by their nature linear sequences. Every time you introduce player choice into a story, you mess with that linearity.

This is the key challenge with creating a truly Interactive Story experience. Anyone who has tried to tackle this problem can tell you immediately that the tough part is figuring out how to give players lots of choice and freedom to affect what happens in the story. Or put in a more academic way, how to give players “agency” in the story. Games, by their nature, tend to be tight loops of repeated actions and repeated outcomes. You dodge and you shoot, then you dodge and shoot again. Or perhaps it’s driving, or playing music, or moving through a dungeon or whatever the actionable-loop of your particular game is. These loops allow players to develop an expertise in some skills, and they allow designers to ramp difficulty and adjust parameters of whatever the core activity is. More relevant to this discussion is the fact that these loops offer efficiency in terms of the assets that are needed. They allow game builders to create sustainable play experiences with limited, repeatedly used content. Some games may offer lots of content in regards to environments, enemies, vehicles, level designs, etc… but as soon as this becomes unmanageable designers simply stop adding content. As long as the core action loops work the game is playable. In contrast to this, games that allow players to fundamentally change the story via their actions very quickly run into an ‘exploding content’ problem. With every player action potentially causing a whole new set of possible NPC behaviors and world states, building a game from a fixed set of pre-made assets becomes extremely problematic.

The key problem with Interactive Story is never “what’s the story?” In a way this is of little importance, and shouldn’t be the focus of a design. Of course we ultimately want great stories, but the real difficult and interesting question to answer is: How does one allow the player to meaningfully and dramatically affect the story, in a way that is viable?

There are two basic roads we can take: The Real Road, or The Imaginary Road. The Real Road is the road of the real world, with all its current limitations. For better or for worse it’s the road we’re on, maybe not by choice, but hey that’s reality. On this road we use a wide variety of tricks and techniques to try and give players the sense of affecting and being “in” the story. For every technique there are limitations, costs and benefits. These techniques are not exclusive but can be used in combination with each other. We’re going to go over all of these shortly and talk about when they are useful and what trade-offs they offer.

The Imaginary Road is the road of our hypothetical Holodeck in the future. This is the road of advanced simulation, and true “emergent story” (i.e., story that isn’t pre-planned, but instead simply emerges from the simulation experience as a fascinating byproduct). Oddly enough there is a lot to learn from thinking about this Imaginary Road, so we’re going to start here and then circle back to look at the current State of the Art in Interactive Story Trickery.（source：Gamasutra）