[HN Gopher] Games That Emphasize Emergent Narrative ___________________________________________________________________ Games That Emphasize Emergent Narrative Author : amichail Score : 57 points Date : 2021-09-19 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.emergentmage.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.emergentmage.com) | pmichaud wrote: | Missing one of my absolute favorites: Kenshi. | bulletsvshumans wrote: | Tried hard to get into it, but the whole thing just kept | feeling like it was put together with bubble gum and string, | even as I got deeper in. Any tips on how best to approach it? | Apocryphon wrote: | Do immersive sims count? | | https://rawg.io/collections/extended-list-of-all-immersive-s... | simion314 wrote: | The list of games you linked is very different IMO. For example | the Gothic Games , you have a major choice to chose a faction | but except that everything is always the same(same quests, same | dialog, same NPCs). | | The games listed in this article have a lot of randomness , | random maps, random characters, random events, usually you can | change the world and have your action be reflected, each play | will be very different then the others. I like watching on | YouTube talented people play this kind of games, I am not so | creative/inspired to play them. | | Probably The Sims series could fit the article criteria. | stefs wrote: | urban dead, a humans vs. zombies mmo browser game has not a | single of the stated features and was one of the most emergent | story generation games i've ever seen, pushed by the players in | external wikis. i think it's almost 15 years since in played it, | so no idea what became of it. | | https://www.urbandead.com/ | xaedes wrote: | This here is also a great game with emergent narrative: "One Hour | One Life". Each time you only have one hour of lifetime and act | in a evolving multiplayer world. | | Just copy pasting the first comment on steam to show what kind of | stories unfold: | | I was born mere seconds before my twin sister in a once | prosperous town. Through the years and hardships, the townsfolk | seemed to be dwindling in numbers and there were not many left. | My mother, Honey Nova was the leader of our people and a strong | and kind woman. She took very good care of my sister and I. She | named me Yun and my twin sister Yan. Life was easy as a child, I | enjoyed playing outside with my twin in the berry fields and | following my mother as she worked as a gravekeeper. She was a | hard working woman and was very close with her two brothers. When | it came time for her to pass on, she begged to be buried next to | them. | | My sister and I gathered around her as she stood on her gravesite | (she always put her work first, a dedicated grave keeper). We | cried as we said our last goodbyes - her dying words were "I'm | proud of you daughters". We took off our hats in respect and | steeled our resolve to become the village's next gravekeepers. | Our first order of action was to bury our mother and uncles and | then to find them gravestones. | | Our work was busy and fast-paced. We scoured the wilderness for | headstones, built paths and plots, and even found a few wayward | relatives in the wilderness that could finally be put to rest. A | few years after my mother died I had my very first son. | Stillborn. Too young for a grave, too old for the pain it left in | my heart. I never even gave him a name. I was eventually able to | conceive another son, I named him Yama. He was a quiet child, | never speaking much - but seemed to intrinsically understand the | world. He immediately set out and fed himself and started | working. I was so proud! He was a role model for his (many) | cousins. My sister was a fertile woman. | | Then along came my second son... I gave him the name Yurem. | | Yurem was a little more, spirited. Around the age of four is when | I noticed he wasn't quite right. I retired from my job to stay | home with him and hopefully instill some of my mother's values - | love, respect, strength. Around the age of 14 he started acting | out in the kitchen and I grew increasingly concerned. He would | throw off his clothes and hide in the corner mumbling things | about God and witches. I pleaded with him to put his pants back | on, nothing seemed to get through to him and nothing could | prepare me for the horrors about to unfold. | | In the following year, Yurem snapped. He had found the body of my | first born son and approached me. He screamed at me, veins | popping from his neck and forehead. He said I was a witch, that I | had an abortion and that I needed to be cleansed. My oldest son | Yama overheard and came to my defense. It was then that we saw | the knife behind Yurem's back. Yama dove in front of me, telling | his brother that I wasn't a bad person. That stillborn children | happen all the time. We don't have hospitals. But there was no | talking Yurem down, he had finally jumped head first into the | deep end. As Yurem lunged for me, Yama grabbed him and wrested | him to the ground. After a long tense struggle, he finally | managed to wrench the knife from Yurem's hands, but suffered | several wounds in the process. Struggling for his breath, he | raised the bloody knife back towards Yurem and said he will die | for his actions. Yurem slunk to the ground and began sobbing | hysterically. | | About this time, other members of the village were alerted to the | unfolding scene and rushed to the room. When they entered, all | they saw was Yurem crying in a heap on the floor and Yama with a | bloodied knife. I tried to explain the situation, but things | started happening so fast. The leader called for the exile of | Yama and all of the villagers immediately followed suit. They | cursed him! The poor child that only ever tried to protect his | mother. The one that held so much promise. His body turned to | bones almost in an instant, unable to carry the weight of all the | curses. I stared, unable to speak, at the skull of my child. All | I could pictures was his bright brown eyes as he looked up at me | when he was a boy. | | The villagers slowly filtered out of the room one by one. It was | when the last one left that I heard it, a slow, menacing chuckle. | Yurem was staring at me from across the room. I screamed for help | and ran out of the room. I told everyone who would listen the | story of what actually happened, but nobody would listen. Yurem | disappeared at some point, maybe into the wilderness, maybe into | the delivery truck that frequented our village. I lived the rest | of my life in fear, hoping he would never return. The only | respite was the love of my gentle sister and my many nieces. As | our lives neared their end, my twin sister and I made our way to | our graves. Her children came one by one to tell her they loved | her. I stood alone, with only one random villager running by that | said RIP to me. My sister died shortly before me and I could feel | death's fingers enclosing. My last words were: Curse Yurem Nova. | amelius wrote: | Reads like something that could have been generated by GPT-3. | jefc1111 wrote: | Fun read, but for me misses a pretty crucial 'feature to look | for': Having multiple human players. Surely that is a great route | to emergent gameplay? Reading the title of this post I just | assumed DayZ and Arma 3 would be in there somewhere. Cool list | anyway :) | puzzlingcaptcha wrote: | One that is definitely missing from the list is The Long Dark. | It's a perfect example of a game which has just enough systems | for stories to write themselves. I've been playing on and off for | a few years and the survival mode has consistently delivered. | Rd6n6 wrote: | Personally, as a writer and game designer, I find most emergent | narrative is actually simulation, and the ones that work depend | on the players imagination injecting meaning into the game | events. Another version is basically just social media, with game | rules and a sandbox aspect. That's cool, and it can pay off | massively, but narrative just feels like a strange word for it. | World of natural consequences without imposed meaning seems a | better fit, although it's a mouth full. In tabletop games, we | just call them sandboxes | | People wish sometimes that video game ai could keep up with a | good game master - but then again, you would lose the fun of | hanging out with friends in person ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-19 23:00 UTC)