For Group B, you don't want them to be bored before they start striking matches. The reason is that when that happens, they are not emotionally attached to LMG. In the story, LMG lighted the match not because she was bored, but that she was cold.

The following is not exactly the story of LMG, but it is a situation that makes sense. I intent to disect it to identify the concept, so that it can be applied to the actual story of LMG, or any other story.


It would make sense if LMG is selling fireworks while the world around her was all depressed. She runs around cold and hungry in the plaza, trying to sell her fireworks but no one would buy them.

At this point it is necessary to state the choices of actions available to the player:

o The player could talk to strangers. The player cannot directly affect the content of the conversation, but from the content, the player knows that LMG is trying to sell the fireworks, and that the people are all depressed and are caught up worrying about other things.

o The LMG initially only holds the basket of fireworks. When she starts selling, she automatically takes out a rocket. After a conversation, she may put it back. This is used to signal the player that the rockets could be taken out from the basket.

o Alternatively, when the LMG slips and falls, some rockets might fall out. The player could learn this way that the rockets are actual items inside the basket, that could be picked up and put into the basket. If the player has not been talking to anyone, the player would now notice that LMG is carrying a basket full of rockets (and other fireworks).

o When the player do look into the inventory, the player would notice matches.

o Through the player's conversation, the player may conclude that no one would be interested in buying the fireworks. The LMG is cold and hungry, and there is no food anywhere and nowhere to go. The only option left, that had yet to be tried, was to light the fireworks with the matches.

o Note that from the perspective of the player, the player initially imagined that he is suppose to sell the fireworks, not to open them and use them. However, through interaction the player learns that that goal is impossible to achieve. Here, the player is driven to the same interactive situation as the prescribed LMG, which is the moment of realization of hopelessness, with no option left other than lighting up the sky.

o The player would manually light up the first few fireworks. He player would notice, that, since no one was left at the plaza, no one was in the vincinity to see the fireworks. As the LMG shoots the rocket to the sky and watches the firely flakes, the player wonders whether it would attract a crowd, or perhaps attract a buyer from the crowd to save her day.

o However, after lighting a few, the player would see that no one is coming. On the fifth rocket, the ending takes over, where the LMG continues to light all the rockets and just enjoys the firework with her personal happy memories interlacing. The player would hear her monologue as she sees grandma comes to see the fireworks with her. As the same time, the player can see that the LMG is at her limit, because the surrounding started to feel surreal, and the fireworks were being launched as if they were launching themselves. The fact that LMG was dying was also obvious from her dialogue, where she mentioned seeing shooting stars means someone is dying, and that she is leaving with grandma toward the sky.

o The last rocket bursted in the sky. The camera was fixed at the firework. There was no more dialogue. The LMG is not talking anymore. The sparkling flakes are disappearing in the night sky in silence.

o Then the camera zooms out and shows that the depressing couple that LMG talked to, were watching the firework, from a place that LMG could not see. The camera shows their stunned expression. Perhaps because of the random glamour that had lighted to heavy sky; or the resemblance of long forgotted happy moments in the sight of the fiery sparks.

o Also watching was the boy would stole her shoes;

o The bakery owner that chased her away;

o And the landlord and carriage driver who splashed icy water to LMG and made her fall when they were riding across the plaza.

o The camera is back to the plaza sky, where the heavy clouds began to snow, ever so quietly onto the city. The ending music begins and the game scenes are replayed as a summary of events while LMG was at the plaza, with the last scenes showing an altered future for the other characters in a time they have regained happiness in a plaza well-lit by the sunshine of spring.


~ fin ~


Moral:

Everytime someone gets depressed, a Little Match Girl dies lighting up the sky.

I wasn't thinking about the theme. I think you are correct. I would say it this way, "If you think that something is good, you should do it even if you will not be rewarded."

In the case of the LMG with Rockets, she was probably thinking that the rockets are meant to be launched, and it would be a waste. Although no one was watching, at least the fireworks did not get wasted in the snow. She wasn't primarily hoping that someone would see it and feel happy, although the structure allows this to be the case and that it could be the overall meaning of the story eventhough LMG did not realize this meaning in the story.



Little Match Girl's Memorable Night of ...:







I was looking at the pictures and I want to highlight one thing about the meaning of story-telling through interaction. In the sequence above, you see a situation where the Little Match Girl simply slipped and missed a chance. The player is controlling the Little Match Girl, and slipping is random. Therefore, this mechanics is letting the player experience "Misfortune" through interaction. Not tell. Not show. Experience.

Now imagine that as the Little Match Girl approach the couple, the couple in fact speeds up to avoid her. Then the interaction is enabling the experience of "Prejudice".

Suppose you started the design with a theme. For each theme, there exists a list of interactions that are required to define the theme. The objective of narration through gameplay, is to enable the player's experience to every part of that definition. The minimal set of dynamics that implements the definition is the minimal, but complete interactive narration of the theme.

I believe that there is a direct translation between the themes and their minimal dynamics, and I think that this list is actually rather small. Therefore it is possible to have a dictionary that lists all minimal sets. For instance, the word "Misfortune" might have this entry in the narrative dynamics directionary:

Misfortune
Requires random events that hinders the progress of an agent.

My hunch is that there is no other way to implement "misfortune" through gameplay. This is the only way, and it can be derived directly from the definition of the word with understanding of gaming relation between the player and the game. For the word "Prejudice":

Prejudice
Requires non-player agents exert hindering forces based on an assumption on the role of the player agent.

This dictionary turns narrative design systematic. "Systematic" as in a situation where a computer program could look up all required dynamics of a given theme, and define the agents and forces for the place holders of the definition. Note that once all the place holder are filled, the list of dynamics represents a complete game. This synthesis process if highly out-of-the-box in that the computer program does not need to select agents that would make sense in daily life. It could select a watermelon with the force to breathe fire. It makes no difference whatsoever to the core meaning of the game. The appearance of the game could complete absurd, but once the player start playing the game, the coherence toward the theme would stand out, because that is the only remaining meaning of the game, and this meaning, what you called the theme, exists by the construction method. The player will experience it through gameplay.


Once this translation task becomes fluent, one can see that interaction is a legitimate origin of narratives, not merely a medium or method to implement a narrative that originated from other media.

It would be as wrong to assume that people who compose an empathetical melody must first draft a literary verse and translate it into music.


From a dissection of theme,
to a dictionary or dynamics,
to an automated creation of interactive narratives.

Quote:Original post by DASHAZAM
The only problem is that the player doesn't shake his hand at the sky and say "curse the interfering hands of fate! Do even the gods want Little Match Girl to die?". They throw the controller down and say "This game is stupid."

I can satisfactorily cry tears of discontent at the RNG if a mob drops badly. "What a waste! Why me? Curse you, foul neutrino demons!" and so forth. But only if I have a clear sense of what normal, good, and bad are, and can accurately judge what a bad random drop is (-2Z for you math wizards).

But I don't feel that way about installed events. If my side-kick/love-interest/rescue chopper gets killed in a cut scene, I feel mostly impatience. Like "That could have been a cool way for me to fail -- too bad it wasn't."

In Fallout-3, it is possible to lose your sidekick though your own failures. Heavy battle's over, wiping the sweat from my brow, turn around, and she's tits up. Damn. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I knew I shoulda had her wait around the corner. Just got in too much of a hurry. Have to do that next time. This is the scenario where I go to blame the AI instead of myself -- and really, I want the AI to be competent enough so that I am making an excuse.

[Edited by - AngleWyrm on January 30, 2009 3:24:07 PM]

In the scope of what I posted, I was no where near suggesting "a machine that is programmed to simulate human ideas". The automation has no natural language processing, there is no knowledge of culture, history, architecture, whatsoever. The system did not choose the theme, nor did it have any idea of the concept of an audience. It was no where near simulating human ideas.

On the other hand I am not against letting computers do all those. You know you understand it when you can make a rock do it for you. I was just trying to see whether I could make a rock do it.


The Little Match Girl trips only when walk across the center after the first hour. It is not completely out of the blue kind of trip. The center ground turned into ice. So there is a visual clue.

The purpose of the visual clue is not to "hide" the randomness, but to show the player that it is random whenever LMG walks on ice. Otherwise the player might mistaken that something was wrong with himself.


I agree that in your sense that gameplay itself could convey meaning, philosophy, and the like.


Little Match Girl Game Music:

Late afternoon to nightfall (Musette)
[01] - Normal Mode - This is the music the game begins with.
[02] - Adrenaline Mode - This is played when Little Match Girl runs to a pedestrian. If the pedestrian buys matches, this music is allowed to finish, otherwise the music is truncated. When this music stops, the normal mode score is repeated.

Evening (Violin)
[03] - Normal Mode - Slower and lower energy. The Little Match Girl, could now see the others gathering in their warm homes, while she is still out on the street. She is cold, hungry, and tired. She had no place to stay for the night if she did not make enough money.
[04] - Adrenaline Mode - Running across the plaza while dodging some late carriages.

Final Moment (Choir)
[05] - Snowfall and a tiny light from the match,
the Little Match Girl attempts to reach one last pedestrian.