Story and simulations for serious games

Front cover

Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tales from the Trenches

Copyright page

Acknowledgments

Table of contents

Introduction: The Road to StoryDrive

PART ONE: CASE STUDIES

PART TWO: STORIES AND STORY DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 5: A Good Story (The Simple Answer)
- COMEDY, DRAMA, AND PEDAGOGY
- SUMMARY
Chapter 6: Other Perspectives on Story
- THE HOLLYWOOD STORY
- SUMMARY
Chapter 7: War Stories and Parables
- STORIES AS MEMORY AIDS
- STORIES THAT SERVE AS EXAMPLES OF COMPLEX BEHAVIORS
- STORIES THAT PORTRAY OTHER CULTURES AND BUILD CULTURAL AWARENESS
- STORIES FOR STRESS-EXPOSURE TRAINING
- STORIES TO IDENTIFY CORRECT PERFORMANCE THROUGH TACIT KNOWLEDGE
- SUMMARY
Chapter 8: Designing Simulation Stories from Tacit Knowledge
- STORYDRIVE SIMULATIONS
- SUMMARY
Chapter 9: Simulation Stories and Free Play
- SIMULATED CONVERSATIONS
- INTELLIGENT TUTORING
- SPIDER WEBS
- SUMMARY
Chapter 10: Experience Management
- EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
- SUMMARY
Chapter 11: Story Representation in Experience Management
- ELEMENTS OF THE ENCODED SCRIPT
- SUMMARY

PART THREE: CHARACTERS

Chapter 12: Creating Multidimensional Characters
- NONPLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs)
- CHARACTER BIBLES
- CREATING CHARACTERS TO SERVE THE LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- CHARACTERS REPRESENTING OPPOSITE POINTS OF VIEW
- ARGUMENTATIVE CHARACTERS
- CHARACTERS WHO PORTRAY CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
- SUMMARY
Chapter 13: A Really Good Villain
- BUILDING FLAWS INTO THE HERO
- BUILDING THE ULTIMATE VILLAIN
- A VILLAIN’S INTERNAL CONFLICT
- SUMMARY
Chapter 14: Synthetic Characters
- LIVE ACTOR PARTICIPATION
- TEXT-TO-SPEECH AND SYNTHETIC AUDIO
- A CREATIVE SOLUTION FOR LOW PRODUCTION VALUE TEXT-TO-SPEECH
- SUMMARY

PART FOUR: MAN IN THE LOOP vs. THE AUTOMATED GAME MANAGER

PART FIVE: COMPLETING THE PYRAMID

PART SIX: BUILDING THE IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT

Chapter 19: Content Scripting Tools
- OUTLINING THE PROJECT
- OTHER TOOLS FOR OUTLINING
- CONCEPT DOCUMENTS AND DESIGN DOCUMENTS
- AUTHORING THE SCRIPT
- SUMMARY
Chapter 20: Selecting Media and Platform: An Overview
- SELECTING YOUR MEDIA
- SUMMARY
Chapter 21: Immersive Desktop Experiences
- SQUEEZING THE ENVIRONMENT INTO THE COMPUTER
- SUMMARY
Chapter 22: The Internet
- DIAL-UP
- BEYOND DIAL-UP, BUT NOT QUITE DSL
- DSL AND CABLE
- T1/T3
- INTERNET2
- SECURITY ON THE INTERNET
- AUTHORING FOR THE WEB: SYSTEM DIFFERENCES AND SCALABILITY
- WEB ANALYTICS (BACK-END DATA COLLECTING)
- MAINTENANCE
- A BRIEF CASE STUDY—LEADERS
- SUMMARY
Chapter 23: Interactive Video and Interactive Television
- INTERACTIVE VIDEO
- INTERACTIVE TELEVISION
- VIDEO PRODUCTION
- SUMMARY
Chapter 24: Real-Time 3D Virtual Worlds
- WHICH PLATFORM: PERSONAL COMPUTER OR GAME CONSOLE?
- VISUAL ASSET CREATION
- AUDIO ASSET CREATION
- THE GAME ENGINE
- SCRIPTING THE GAME LEVELS
- DIRECTING THE RT3D SIMULATION
- PROOF OF CONCEPT
- BETA TESTING
- AMORTIZING COST
- VEHICULAR 3D SPACE
- NON PHOTO-REALISTIC 3D
- SINGLE-PLAYER AND MULTIPLAYER ENVIRONMENTS
- SUMMARY
Chapter 25: Audio
- ONSCREEN NPC DIALOGUE
- PRERECORDED VS. REAL-TIME SYNTHETIC NPC DIALOGUE
- USES OF ONSCREEN NPC DIALOGUE
- ONSCREEN USER DIALOGUE
- OFFSCREEN NPC AND USER DIALOGUE
- VOICED NARRATION
- SOUND EFFECTS
- MUSIC
- SUMMARY
Chapter 26: Simulation Integration
- SUMMARY

PART SEVEN: STORY STRUCTURES FOR COMMERCIAL GAMES

Chapter 27: Back Story and Free Play
- SAN ANDREAS: BACKSTORY, MAIN STORY, AND FREE PLAY
- VICE CITY: BACKSTORY, MAIN STORY, AND FREE PLAY
- THE SIMS: NOTHING BUT SANDBOX
- SUMMARY
Chapter 28: Stories in State-of-the-Art Serious Games
- SUMMARY
Chapter 29: Stories in State-of-the-Art Commercial Games
- HALO
- HALF-LIFE
- MEDAL OF HONOR
- METAL GEAR SOLID
- SPLINTER CELL
- GUITAR HERO
- STORY AND GAME COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER
- MULTIPLAYER GAMES
- ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES
- SUMMARY

PART EIGHT: THE FUTURE OF STORY-DRIVEN GAMES

Bibliography

Subject Index