1st Edition

Procedural Storytelling in Game Design

Edited By Tanya X. Short, Tarn Adams Copyright 2019
408 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by A K Peters/CRC Press

404 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by A K Peters/CRC Press

408 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by A K Peters/CRC Press

This edited collection of chapters concerns the evolving discipline of procedural storytelling in video games. Games are an interactive medium, and this interplay between author, player and machine provides new and exciting ways to create and tell stories. In each essay, practitioners of this artform demonstrate how traditional storytelling tools such as characterization, world-building, theme,... Read more

FOREWORD: CHRIS AVELLONE

SECTION 1 Introduction

CHAPTER 1 ■ Getting Started with Generators

DR. KATE COMPTON

CHAPTER 2 ■ Keeping Procedural Generation Simple

DARIUS KAZEMI

CHAPTER 3 ■ Generated Right in the Feels

JILL MURRAY

CHAPTER 4 ■ Adapting Content to Player Choices

JURIE HORNEMAN

CHAPTER 5 ■ Ethical Procedural Generation

DR. MICHAEL COOK

SECTION 2 Structure and Systems

CHAPTER 6 ■ Retrospective: Murder on the Zinderneuf

(1983)

JIMMY MAHER

CHAPTER 7 ■ Designing for Narrative Momentum

JON INGOLD

CHAPTER 8 ■ Curated Narrative in Duskers

TIM KEENAN AND BENJAMIN HILL

CHAPTER 9 ■ Uncanny Text: Blending Static and

Procedural Fiction

KEVIN SNOW

CHAPTER 10 ■ Dramatic Play in The Sims

DANIEL KLINE

CHAPTER 11 ■ Memorable Stories from Simple Rules in

Curious Expedition

RIAD DJEMILI

CHAPTER 12 ■ Amplifying Themes and Emotions

in Systems

DANIEL COOK

CHAPTER 13 ■ Emergent Narrative in Dwarf Fortress

TARN ADAMS

CHAPTER 14 ■ Heavily Authored Dynamic Storytelling

in Church in the Darkness

RICHARD ROUSE III

SECTION 3 Worlds and Context

CHAPTER 15 ■ Generating Histories

JASON GRINBLAT

CHAPTER 16 ■ Procedural Descriptions in Voyageur

BRUNO DIAS

CHAPTER 17 ■ Generating in the Real World

MX. LAZER-WALKER

CHAPTER 18 ■ Dirty Procedural Narrative in We

Happy Few

ALEX EPSTEIN

CHAPTER 19 ■ Beyond Fun in Frostpunk

MARTA FIJAK AND JAKUB STOKALSKI

CHAPTER 20 ■ Procedural Storytelling in Dungeons

& Dragons

STEVEN LUMPKIN

SECTION 4 Characters

CHAPTER 21 ■ Maximizing the Impact of Generated

Personalities

TANYA X. SHORT

CHAPTER 22 ■ Procedural Characters in State of

Decay 2

GEOFFREY CARD, JØRGEN TJERNØ, AND MATTHEW BOZARTH

CHAPTER 23 ■ Plot Generators

ADAM SALTSMAN

CHAPTER 24 ■ Generating Personalities in The

Shrouded Isle

JONGWOO KIM

CHAPTER 25 ■ Dialog

ELAN RUSKIN

SECTION 5 Resources

CHAPTER 26 ■ Tarot as Procedural Storytelling

CAT MANNING

CHAPTER 27 ■ Things You Can Do with Twitterbots

GEORGE BUCKENHAM

CHAPTER 28 ■ Creating Tools for Procedural Storytelling

EMILY SHORT

Biography

Tanya X. Short is the director of Kitfox Games, the 4-person studio behind Moon Hunters and Shattered Planet. Previously, she worked as a designer at Funcom Games on The Secret World and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. In her spare time, she acts as the co-director of Pixelles, a non-profit helping more women make games.

 Tarn Adams is best known as the developer of Dwarf Fortress since 2002 with his older brother Zach. He learned programming in his childhood, and has been designing computer games as a hobby. He quit his first year of a mathematics post doctorate at Texas A&M to focus on game development in 2006.