A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games

Highlights

Introduction

  • The game industry has been producing plot-based interactive experiences (adventure games) since the beginning of the industry, but only a few of them (such as The Last Express) begin to approach the status of interactive drama.
  • Part of the difficulty in achieving interactive drama is due to the lack of a theoretical framework guiding the exploration of the technological and design issues surrounding it.
  • This paper proposes a theory of interactive drama based on Aristotle’s dramatic theory but modified to address the interactivity added by player agency.
  • In addition to clarifying notions of interactive drama, the model developed in this paper also provides a general framework for analysing player agency in any interactive experience (e.g. interactive games).
  • This neo-Aristotelian theory integrates Murray’s (1998) proposed aesthetic categories for interactive stories and Aristotle’s structural categories for drama (Aristotle 330 BC).

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