What is an interactive narrative?
Interactive
storytelling is a form of entertainment in which the user themselves can
influence the narrative and its evolution. Interactive narratives combine elements of narratology and game design to form interactive entertainment development metholodigies.
Marie–Laure
Ryan says that "The combination of
narrativeity and interactivity oscillates between two forms: The narrative
game, in which narrative meaning is subordinated to the player's actions,
and the playerable story, in which the player's actions are subordinated
to narrative meaning" (Ryan, 2009: p45).
Interactive narratives often do not "do not aim at a specific goal,
and they do not lead to winning or losing". (Ryan, 2009: p46). They focus
on transporting the player through mild play using their visual and auditory
senses.
References
- Dinehart, Stephen. (2015). Transmedial Play: cognitive and cross-platform narrative | The Narrative Design Explorer™. [online] Available at: http://narrativedesign.org/2008/05/transmedial-play-cognitive-and-cross-platform-narrative/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2015].
- Marie-Laure Ryan, (2009). From Narrative Games to Playable Stories: Toward a Poetics of Interactive Narrative. StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1(1), pp.43-59.
