IDtension: a narrative engine for Interactive Drama

choosing the more convenient theories for their application. Furthermore, most theories of narrative are not justification. There are plenty of different theories of narrative, and researchers in digital story telling are in fact computer model, in order to justify specific algorithmic choices. However, this would be an illusion of It is tempting in our current description to start from the theories, and show how these theories are used in the These theories can yield a computer model of narrative. Any attempt to build a system for interactive story telling is guided by a set of theories about what a narrative is. Finally, some experimental results of highly interactive drama are provided. theoretical and computer models are described, in relation with existing narrative theories. In the following, we will first expose the methodology and the approach that guide this research. Then, the author [17], [18]. narrative skill from the author to the user. Note that in other systems for Interactive Drama, the user is a co-act and dialog. So, in the system we are designing, interactive narrative is not about transferring artistic or It is important to note as explained in [16] that this action does not require any artistic skill: any user is able to narrative, through the choice of some actions of characters. where the dialogical nature of the narrative takes a concrete form: the audience can indeed dialog with the someone to help him working " (our translation) [15]. Interactive narrative is an extension of the linear narrative, constructs an " ideal reader " , with whom he imagines the interaction. As stated by Umberto Eco, " a text needs A linear narrative, although unidirectional, is a kind of dialog [14]. The author, in his writing process, position on this debate, which will be developed in an upcoming publication. debate on this topic. Although this is not the focus of this paper, we shall give here a quick overview of our Other claims are conceptual: Interactive narrative would be fundamentally impossible. There is an open computer system, called IDtension, that demonstrates the possibility of combining narrativity and interactivity. Among the " claims of impossibility " , some are at a technical level. The goal of this paper is to exhibit a Our work is situated within the latter attitude. − Claims that interactive narrative or drama is impossible [4], [5] These failures have led to two attitudes: between …