[HN Gopher] Games That Emphasize Emergent Narrative
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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
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(page generated 2021-09-19 23:00 UTC)