WEBVTT - Let's Tell a Story 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:16.000 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.239 podcast that looks the future and says, here's a little 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.360 story I got to tell about three bad podcasters. You 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.400 know so well. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm La, and I'm 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:25.960 Joe McCormick. Yep, And today we wanted to talk a 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.680 little bit about interactive storytelling. Interactive storytelling, you know what 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.320 pops into my mind when you say that, what's that? Joe? 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.320 My favorite kind of book, Choose your own adventure book? 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.960 The best books ever written? And I don't I don't 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.200 think so I would argue you pick that you picked 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.519 the wrong choice obviously, Lauren. Are you the one who 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.239 always go through you know, the safe door and immediately 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.360 get eaten by a wolf? And then you'd have to 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.440 go backtrack to where you last left off and then 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.880 take the other choice. I usually have like seven fingers 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:00.920 in the book when ever i'm reading it, so that 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.040 I can flip between different options. I was going to 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.920 say that I knew you were a placeholder. All right, Well, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.319 let's let's actually explain. Want to choose your own Adventure 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.160 book is for those few people out there who may 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.200 not have experienced the true joy of literature. They're they're 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.520 a little older, some younger people might not actually Ryan 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.760 North just published to be or not to Be. That 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.399 is the adventure, which is a take on Hamlet. That 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:23.360 is a choose your own adventure story. So you can 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.759 play as Ophelia or Polonius. If you're playing as you're 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.120 playing as Hamlet, I guess you would just have, you know, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.680 lots of choices, but you never bother to choose anything. 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.440 One thing that's funny we should take note of. We're 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.480 already using the word play when we're talking about reading 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.320 a book, and that will figure in. That's true. That's true. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:42.480 So choose your own adventure? What is it? Choose your 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.120 own adventure book? Choose your own adventure book is a 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.720 book where you open up to the first page and 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.120 it says something like, you know, you get out of bed, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.400 your uncle Ronnie comes in and says we're going out 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.000 whale hunting, and you go out on a and then 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.800 it offers you choices like do you want to go 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.360 out on the rickety boat with the whales that want 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:03.760 to kill you? Or do you want to stay in 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.240 your bed, and if you choose stay in your bed, 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.280 like a whale jumps out of your closet and bites 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.359 your arms off, right, or you get dysentery or something. Yeah, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.280 the idea being that that you actually turned to whichever 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.200 page correlate choice. It's for rickety boat to turn to 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.600 page seventy for stay in your bed, turn to page 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.240 I didn't actually explain the mechanics yet, that's how it works, 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.760 and so you keep turning to the page. It tells 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.280 you to make your choice until you die in one 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:36.480 way or another, or you think that was possible. I 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.040 think basically these were books just designed to teach children 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.200 that no matter what, they're going to die, which is 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.959 my hamlet is such a terrific adaptation for that is 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.400 a great example of fatalist literature. I was no, no, no, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.080 there are. There were plenty of choose your own adventures 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.040 that had a positive outcome for you, but they were 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.600 challenging to to arrive at, and often in my case, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.960 I would end up working backward by finding the positive 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.560 ending and then just finding out what series of choices 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.079 would have led you to that, Because, as you point out, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.079 Joe normally there's like, you know, chance that you are 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.600 going to die depending upon your choices. Okay, so if 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:21.520 I'm an indexer, then then you're the you're the system analyst. Joe, 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.440 what was your form of gameplay with with Choose your 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.359 Own Adventure books? I would I played by the rules. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.919 I don't know what's wrong with y'all. I survived, Joe. 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.480 You're the one who believes that every choice leads to death. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.400 So I have to admit most of them. Do I 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.280 encompassed all the choices? I I contain multitudes? Right, You're 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.000 you're the multiverse approach. Yes, so you have the parallel 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.559 universe thing going on. Okay, so this is interactive storytelling 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.720 and its most basic form. Right, so you've got you've 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.720 got a limited number of choices. It's not like you 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.720 can introduce new elements that are completely alien to the book. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:02.640 Obviously you are. You are restricted to whatever has been written. Right. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:04.640 You can think about the plot of the book sort 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.480 of is a branching tree where you started a trunk 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.080 where you know you have one branching decision and that 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.440 forks into two, and each of those decisions gives you 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.960 new options, and it keeps branching out until there are 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.440 many possible endings, right, and occasionally those branches will reform 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:24.560 into you know, you might be able to choose one 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.160 thing in one part of the book or another thing 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:27.599 in another part of the book, and end up on 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.160 the same page. Either way, Some of those, not all 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.800 of those branches, end up being their own distinct pathways. 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.279 In other words, sometimes they converge into a pathway again. 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.560 And this is an interesting way to think about storytelling 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.520 because most of the time we talk about storytelling, we're 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:46.479 talking about a a single linear narrative that's controlled from 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.640 the top down and told in one way, right, And 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.440 and a good story is really really captivating, right. I mean, 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.799 this is a way that we communicate not just entertaining ideas, 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.279 but also philosophies. Sometimes times it's how we tell history. 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.000 You look at oral history, those are all told in 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.880 the form of stories. And it's interesting also, I think 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:08.960 that storytelling is one of those things that we use 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.479 to try and create meaning in the experiences that we 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.760 accumulate over time. Now, in real life, we don't necessarily 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.479 have actual beginning, middle, and end to any you know, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.200 series of experiences. They tend to bleed over it gets 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.200 really messy. But we like our stories to have a 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.280 much more contained kind of approach generally speaking, I mean 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:35.799 they are and in yeah, yeah, I'm mostly uh talking 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.760 about my own experience. Obviously, I don't have a lot 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.320 of experience with Eastern culture stories, which can be much 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.840 more abstract that you guys, have ever watched a lot 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:46.919 of Japanese film, then you will know that they do 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.760 not necessarily feel a need to stick to that react structure, 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.240 but it can be a little bit of of a 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.560 culture shock anyway. So at any rate, when you're talking 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:58.040 about interactive storytelling, now we're getting into this idea of 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.040 the person who is being told the stories truly impacting 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.720 the story in some way. No, we're not just passively 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:09.479 receiving it, right, You're creating input determines what you get subsequently. Right. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.559 So with the case of the choose your own Adventure book, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.400 that's quite limited obviously, but it means that you do 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.480 get a slightly different tale depending upon the choices you make. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.520 But there are other examples of interactive storytelling that we 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.440 have right now, right, Yeah, we don't even have to 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.839 look too far into the future. How about video games? 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.800 How about them. I love them. Those those are kind 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.359 of big. Yeah, that's the thing. I love the interactive 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.880 story about the disembodied yellow head that eats magic pills 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.920 and then goes after ghosts. I thinks Thompson wrote it. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.839 It haid that joke in the video. The thing um 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.560 about video games and interactive storytelling. Nobody would question the 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:52.200 interactive part. They're obviously interactive. Some people might question storytelling, 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.359 which is ridiculous. Well, well, some some video games have 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.120 more of a story than others. Sure, some some video 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.599 games are like Tetras, And while I have a rich 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:07.240 fan fiction database of Tetris related information, I understand most 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.280 people just see that as a puzzle game. But there 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.840 are other games that have It's that L shaped block, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:18.440 isn't it? But which one? He has a twin clockwise 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.640 L shape with the counterclockwise L. SHO. You have to 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.440 read to find out, Joe. I'm not going to spoil 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.320 it for you. But anyway, there are other video games 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.680 that actually do have a narrative involved from the beginning 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.080 all the way through to the end. Uh. Now, you 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:34.760 could argue that video games can be as restricted as 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.360 a choose your own adventure book. For in some cases, 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.440 and in some cases it may be more so. Right, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.520 there may be only one story you get from beginning 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.760 to end, and as you play the game, you unlock 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.880 the next element of that story, so, uh, you know, 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.880 you might continue through a game. I think The Last 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.080 of Us is a good example of this. The Last 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.720 of Us. We're not gonna spoil anything, but The Last 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.560 of Us is a a survival horror game and it's 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.200 ex dreamely well written. I would say the characters are 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.880 very well realized. There's a huge emotional impact, but you 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.200 don't actually affect the story that much depending upon your choices. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.680 You do have some choice in the game, but it 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.960 doesn't I think, change how the ending is going to 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.440 play out. Wherever. There are other games where, depending upon 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.760 your choices, you'll get one of a series of endings 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.040 like a Silent Hill, to which I don't think either 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.160 of you guys have played, But but but but again, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.240 a horror survival video game in which there there's a 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.160 bad ending and then a really bad ending, and then 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.679 a kind of thing and and so but but but 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.800 but Which one of those you get? It depends upon 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.520 a lot of kind of non traditional video game elements. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.160 Of of what you as a character, we're thinking about 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.199 by by looking at during the game, like what you 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:55.640 paid attention to ends up becoming the result of the storyline. 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.560 That's interesting, which which is one of the reasons why 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:00.959 that's kind of called out as like, hey, that was 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.080 a good one. Yeah. Yeah, there are most of the 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.319 video games I'm familiar with, it's far more overt. It's 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.440 one of those things where a character says, do we 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.440 do A or do we do B? And at that 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.240 point you're thinking, this is going to affect everything from 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.520 this point forward. I better save first. I'm going on 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.280 a wiki to see what Okay, I'm I'm totally the 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.960 spoiler guy. I'll be like, okay, I gotta find out 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.240 if I if I choose to let this person die, 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.959 is that really going to haunt me later? I'm that guy. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.920 I'm that guy. I wish I weren't that guy. Now again, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.559 I just I just saved my game. I I'm just realizing. No, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.360 this is why I have ninety eight game saves, or 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.200 as many as possible. I'm still doing. Yeah, you're doing 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:47.840 your choose your own advantage y o A your y 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:53.040 o A strategy on the video games whereas I can't 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.280 do that with my strategy for doing it exactly. You're 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.840 looking working backward right, but I'm looking at the next step. 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:03.680 I don't look at the very end of the game. 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.280 And well, I play by the rules and I just 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.800 make my decision and see what happens. See, that's the thing. 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.720 Obviously we all know what would happen if we all 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.040 had time travel devices at this point. Joe wouldn't use his. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.839 I would constantly be going ahead thinking no, don't want 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:21.600 to make that choice, go back and try another one. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.520 And Lauren would just be doing the multiverse approach. I would. 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.040 I would have a terrific library if everything that could 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:32.040 possibly happen, that's horrifying. It's really interesting, though, because we're 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.560 actually seeing more about our psyches here, We're learning about 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.760 each other, which is the terrific thing about storytelling. This, this, folks, 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:39.960 is why, in a minor tangent that I'm not sure 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.680 how it's going to connect to our next point, is 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.320 I think that the heart of storytelling, This is why 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.080 finding stuff out about ourselves and how you know, the 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.559 way that we consume stories clearly has a lot to 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.760 do with who we are and and and the creation 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.000 of stories is the same thing. It's all about the 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.840 human experience. Sure. Sure, And so you know, Joe, you 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:02.800 have a point here in our outline that we're looking at. 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.160 I mean you you brought up the point about video games, 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.240 while they are becoming a very powerful storytelling medium, they're 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.800 not necessarily viewed that way by the larger public. Yeah. Well, 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.320 and there might be good reasons for that. Sure, I 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.240 want to float a few ideas in that. I agree 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.280 with you that I played The Last of Us and 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.800 I thought that was just a beautiful game, and it 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.920 had really good writing, good dialogue, strong characters, emotional depth. 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.839 I felt things about what was happening. Um. And so 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.880 that's real. I mean, I can totally acknowledge that. But 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.240 at the same time, there is something I think kind 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.800 of inherently different between the way we play most games, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.000 even those games that do have strong storytelling, and the 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.960 way we experience a novel or a movie, where a 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.199 novel or a movie has a plot that executes and 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.839 you're you're following it and you're thinking about it, um, 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:58.680 and you're engaging with it in that way. But games 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.600 typically have a different kind of mechanic, like as you 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.880 progress through the story of a game. Even like the 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.559 Last of Us one with good writing, you're still there 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:14.000 are these mechanics. There's there's competitive action, there's repetitive action. 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.319 It's very task oriented. You know, you have a goal 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.960 you're trying to achieve. Usually they're trying to create a 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.160 sense of flow by having you do these actions over 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.199 and over. And that kind of thing doesn't really, as 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.600 far as I can tell, have a role in traditional storytelling, 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.000 right unless you're watching something like Parts of the Caribbean 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.319 where they go to the same set pieces eighteen times 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:38.080 in a row because they hadn't finished righting the script 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:39.960 before they started shooting the movie. But that's a rant 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.280 for another time. Um. Well not not all video games 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:48.920 necessarily have that puzzle or repetitive task play element to them, 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.440 And usually those are the ones that gamers wind up 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.280 not being too fond of it. They come in with 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:59.240 bad reviews. Um. They for example, the entire Final Fantasy 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.880 series after say ten, Um, depending on who you talk to, 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.679 someone's going to say like that was just an interactive 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.160 movie that was completely crap. I have heard this term 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:15.280 interactive movie. Um, how is this different than just say, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.440 like a game with good graphics. Well okay, so so 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.720 back when, back when laser discs. If we can come 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.000 back to laser discs. I don't personally have much experience 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.400 with with with those, but let's go ahead, go ahead. 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.480 I'll chime in if I need to. I once watched 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:40.240 a laser disc of Congo. Oh my goodness, um shun um. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.680 When people started finding out or when the technology kind 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:50.079 of kind of allowed people to create chapter stories within 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:55.280 a visual digital medium, um, that's when some storytellers started 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.400 thinking like, hey, this is cool. I can create a 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.360 sort of choose your own adventure within this digital medium 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.640 and that's terrific um and and it got I mean, 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.239 there were a few games that I think people considered 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:13.080 good ones that had um a interactive element combined with 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.240 full motion video that people didn't hate. That's yeah, They're 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.800 very few in between. I think full motion video. The 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.840 problem with full motion video was that once we learned 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.880 how we could do it in a in a storage 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.560 medium that wasn't going to take up a car's worth 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.040 of space, everyone put it into everything. There was a 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.640 short and the reason why I was short was so awful. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.480 There was a short era in video games, computer games, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.920 and then in the early nineties, yeah, where full motion 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.720 video was in everything from Missed to Zork to know, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.000 all sorts of games that never needed it before. And 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.160 then in many cases it was used purely as a 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.240 gimmick because they had the ability to do this, and 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.400 it was not executed in a way that that benefited 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:02.400 the game that was anything that a player would really welcome. 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.040 It was mostly seen as a distraction and sometimes just 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.200 as really embarrassing. So it was not that it was 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.280 a bad tool. I just think it was poorly applied 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.200 in those early days and that kind of ended up 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.040 making a um well, it kind of made it, you know, 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.200 a dark mark against that style of video games from 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.720 when when I said full motion video just then Jonathan 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.920 developed the sudden eye twitch. That was pretty okay. Let 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.800 me tell you sometime about the Tim Curry game where 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.000 you play as Frankenstein's Monster and Tim Curry is Frankenstein. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.200 At one point he refers to your face looking like 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.840 and I quote pork butt, not Frankenfurter, just to be clear. 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.440 But it has Tim Curry in it, so that sounds beautiful. 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.680 You know what else, hast video what? Okay, I'm gold 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.480 a full circle, getting back to the interactive movies thing 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:56.840 what you mentioned with laser disc. The first thing that 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.080 pops into my mind is one of the earliest laser 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.080 disc based arcade games, which was Dragon's Layer, Right, Yeah, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.400 and I think that that is basically the only thing 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.560 that critics and gamers agree was not awful. The car 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.200 the animation was was nice. The story was very basic, 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:17.240 and some would argue heavily misogynist, but it was the 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.120 story of you know, you're playing the character of the 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.160 heroic knight who's trying to rescue the damsel in distress 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.080 who has been captured by a dragon. But really that 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.040 gameplay was very limited. Essentially, it meant that when the 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.240 screen flashed, you were supposed to either move the joystick 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.840 in one of four directions or you pressed the sword button, 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.840 and you had to learn the sequence by just playing 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.040 it over and over and over again to learn which 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.840 way you were supposed to do this. I mean, depending 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:46.440 upon which version of the game you played and sum 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.680 it would flash in a way that would indicate what 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.880 you were supposed to do. But more often than not, 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.120 the version as I saw, was just screen with flash. 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.200 You had to figure it out and it was trial 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.440 and error, so it wasn't the most satisfying of game elements. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.400 So you were saying, p liked this. I thought people 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.960 did not like this game people enjoyed. Well. I remember 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.040 when the Okay I was alive, when this game was 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.879 in arcades, all right, So I remember going to arcades 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.280 and seeing a huge line or a group around. In fact, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.760 that this was an arcade game that was so popular 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.800 that many cabinets had two screens. They had a screen 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.200 mounted on top of the first screen, so you could 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:23.200 stand further back and see what was going on by 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.639 looking at the top screen because everyone was crowded around 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.879 the bottom one. So it was popular because the animation 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.959 style was so fluid and different from everything else we 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.439 were used to in arcades. However, when it came to 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.760 the gameplay elements, people were not necessarily so enthralled, but 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.120 they did want to see how the story ends. Okay. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.400 But so that brings me back to the question, Sure, 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.840 it's interactive, but is it really storytelling or is it 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.800 I mean, beyond the most basic sense, is it good storytelling? 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.159 But I think it was such a gimmick that, you know, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.639 people were so excited about the technology that they were like, 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.160 let's use this technology and not let's use this technology 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.119 to create yate a story that makes sense or to 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.920 incorporate game play that's not frustrating or you know that's 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.000 for example, I was a huge crazy X Files fan 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.439 was when I was in middle school or high school 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.240 around the same time that this was going on. Sorry, Jonathan, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.600 and um and so and so. I owned the like 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.360 eight disc X Files video game that came out at 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.960 some point that incorporated full motion video and UM and 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.840 was basically so terrible, Like the the gameplay itself was 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.800 so terrible that I stopped because I couldn't like, it 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.119 was so glitchy that I just could not physically do 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.359 what the game wanted me to do. And right, So, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.440 I mean, the the challenges of creating a truly compelling 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.919 interactive storytelling experience if you're going to gamify it is 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.040 that you have to create a game that works, and 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.800 you have to create a compelling story. It's it's two 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.800 big challenges. So you could go the last of us route, 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.320 where you have a very compelling story with with good gameplay, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.600 but it also is you know, when you look at it, 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.360 when you look at yeah, and the player has very 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.359 little impact on how that story actually plays out, assuming 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.560 that you are successful in what you do, right, I mean, 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:08.880 you sure you get to see every time you die, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:10.560 you get to see a different way that you died, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:16.440 But for for successfully completing the game, you get one outcome. Uh. 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.600 Then there are other games, of course that depending upon 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.080 what you do, you will get different outcomes. Like the 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.440 Fallout series, you get very different outcomes depending upon the 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.000 choices you make in the course of the game. So 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.000 that that gives the player a sense that the player 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.919 is actually contributing to the story, not just consuming the story. 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.639 So when we're really talking about interactive storytelling in the 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.040 future of it, we're talking about maybe some sort of 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:42.800 not necessarily a video game, but that's the one of 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.639 the easiest formats we can talk about, but some form 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.920 of entertainment where the person who is consuming it is 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.800 also contributing to it in a meaningful way. Right. Basically, 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.480 we want to look at the term and think that 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.840 it's really robust in both of the these words. It's 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.479 really interactive in a strong way, and it's really good storytelling, right, 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.200 And we really haven't, in my view, come across something 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.760 yet that's really strongly both at the same time. UM 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.000 I would say that some some LARPers, some live action 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.800 role players would argue with that, um and and say that, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.040 you know, I'm not saying this is a personal I 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.440 but um but but I know many people who would 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.760 argue that that they have played live action role playing 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:31.399 games in which their characters have been able to help 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:36.040 create the storyline and and change the storyline actually developed right. 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:39.200 Role playing games in general, live action role playing games 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.560 in particular. These are These are forms of entertainment where, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.720 depending upon who is running the game, you may be 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.800 able to impact the actual story in a really meaningful way. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.399 As in let's say a character a player a player 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.679 has is playing a character, and that character makes a 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.720 choice that is completely within the realms of that game. 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.480 It makes sense for the character, it makes sense within 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.040 the context of the rules, etcetera. And the game master 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.320 or masters, the people who are running the game, had 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.920 no way of predictions that this was. They didn't think 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.280 about it, but it makes perfect sense. They if they're 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.800 good and they're flexible, they can incorporate that and even 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.840 make that into something that builds onto future games where 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.640 the things that you know they might even scrap plans 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.840 that they had for the next three or four sessions, saying, 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:32.080