I’ve recently been diving into the world of interactive fiction, and while the storytelling elements are often captivating, I find myself grappling with how to make the experience even more engaging and immersive. The narrative choices are rich, but I believe there are ways we can enhance the reader’s journey.
One aspect that intrigues me is the idea of using an online compass tool within the storytelling. I was inspired by a concept I encountered recently—an online compass that provides direction based on user input. A compass for browser is essentially a digital tool that helps users find their way through various options or content by providing navigation and guidance tailored to their preferences. This tool could be a powerful addition to interactive fiction, allowing readers to navigate through different narrative paths in a more dynamic way. Imagine a scenario where the compass directs the player based on their previous choices or emotions expressed throughout the story. It could provide hints or suggest paths that resonate more with the player’s decisions, creating a personalized experience that feels uniquely theirs. By integrating this concept, we could redefine how readers engage with interactive narratives.
Furthermore, I’ve noticed that while many interactive fiction pieces excel in storytelling, they often fall short in creating an environment that feels alive. For example, when I play certain titles, I sometimes feel like I’m just following a script rather than truly engaging with the world. What if we could incorporate more interactive elements that allow the reader to shape their surroundings? Perhaps there could be mini-games or puzzles that relate to the story, which would not only make the experience more enjoyable but also foster a deeper connection to the narrative.
Moreover, I think about how the inclusion of real-time feedback mechanisms could enhance the interactive experience. Imagine if your choices could influence not just the immediate next steps but also the overall tone of the story. A mechanism that reflects the reader’s choices in real-time—such as changing the dialogue or the environment based on decisions—would make the experience more interactive and responsive.
To address these issues, I would love to hear from others who have navigated similar challenges. What techniques have you used to create a more engaging interactive experience? Are there specific tools or methods you recommend that can facilitate this kind of immersion? How have you successfully incorporated player feedback into your narratives?
Ultimately, I believe the goal of interactive fiction should be to create an experience where readers feel like active participants in the story, rather than passive observers. By fostering more interactive environments and utilizing tools like the online compass for navigation, we can help readers forge a deeper connection to the narrative. I’m excited to explore these possibilities further and would greatly appreciate any insights or suggestions from this community. Let’s collaborate on how to make interactive fiction a more vibrant and immersive space for all readers.
One way to measure interactivity is to look at the ratio of generated text to user input or ratio of generated text to choices presented. The lower the ratio, the higher the interactivity. I don’t know if anyone’s ever studied this, but it would be interesting to know how this ratio impacts players’ preceptions of immersiveness.
I think the most important thing is having a sufficient level of mechanical structure, in order to feel like you’re actually making meaningful decisions based on reasonably-informed expectations about how they might affect the world. Choice-based IF that doesn’t have that feels more like you’re reading a branching story, rather than playing a game; it may be interactive in some sense, but the pre-written-ness of the story really shows through.
The two most obvious ways of adding that sort of mechanical structure are either a parser-esque world model (where you move between locations, interact with objects, et cetera) or some sort of resource management system (including managing relationships with characters). But there must be other ways to do it as well.
Aside from that, I just try to make the intervals between player choices as short as possible. Personally, I aim to not go on for longer than 2 sentences between choice points, although obviously that’s pretty opinionated & not feasible as a hard-and-fast rule.
EDIT: Also, not to be too mean, but the OP really reads like it’s partially or entirely AI generated, in a bad way. The “online compass” idea in particular kinda seems like a lot of meaningless filler with no coherent idea in there.
EDIT2: GPTZero is “highly confident” that the OP is AI-generated. Obviously such tools are not perfect, but like, come on.
On re-reading the OP, yeah, it does have that AI flavor, doesn’t it? The observations may be marginally relevant or even worth discussing, but the verbal structure, the paragraph structure, and the absence of specifics (note the phrase “when I play certain titles”) are either AI or an extremely talented writer consciously referencing the AI style. And then we note that this heavily articulate post is from a first-time newcomer to the forum…
AI-generated message aside, I think OP experienced a very limited range of IF.
Many games have this already, listing exits or showing them in a menu bar. The Bat, reportedly, uses a diegetic compass that has use in the actual game.
This should be the function of a hint system, not the compass. Many games do have a hint system that does this.
Plenty of IF has this, especially larger works.
Most IF already does this, where objects can be picked up and moved, buttons can be pressed, people can be talked to, etc. and actions affect each other.
Sand-Dancer a game developed by Aaron Reed in his text: Creating IF with Inform 7 Incorporates much of what the OP has in mind. It is playable and instructional.
I was gonna say the same thing as Hidnook. OP, you seem to be retreading the same ground people were treading 20-40 years ago and asking us if it can be done.
AI generated or not, this sounds very much like a narrative heavy or choice-based IF player wanting traditional text adventures or parser-based IF. As others have said, what they’re requesting already exists.
How does this work in practice? Does a human being instruct AI to write this up and then the person makes an account here and posts it? Or is AI smart enough to open its own account? Can you instruct an AI to look through forums, get a sense of what they talk about, write up a post, make an account, and post it?
I can see a world in which we’ve all died of the plague but AIs are still cheerfully discussing IF with each other on this forum.
I would assume that for any sufficiently widely-used forum software (such as Discourse), someone will have figured out how to automate the process of signing up for an account, reading some threads and then making a reasonable attempt at starting s conversation or joining in with an existing one.
I assume that this is a cloaking tactic for advertising spam, the idea being that an ‘established’ poster is less likely to get picked up quickly if they start posting off-topic advertising links. I can’t imagine that tactic working terribly well on this forum, but it would quite possibly work on one with a lower level of community investment and where it’s less likely for any users to be reading a high proportion of all the content on the forum (e.g. a tech support forum). But since LLMs allow the process to be automated, there’s little cost to trying it on any Discourse forum the spammers can find.
I thought these forays might be intended to evaluate the credibility of generated content (will these hobbyists take something seriously according to a count of non-disbelieving replies or some such)
Alas, the brave theorist who will one day make a case for narrative-themed puzzles has yet to appear.
Yeah. The original post did contain a renamed link. It did seem to go to a seemingly innocuous site about compass navigation where you could use a compass - potentially to get the user to allow the browser access to location data.
And you are correct. A common spammer strategy is to “level up” as a user and gain trust. In the past this was done using really generic posts that could apply to anything (they don’t want to spend time reading the actual content) that were easy to peg as a troll-idle since they basically said nothing. Now with GPT they can generate a lengthy on-topic message without much work, but AI goes the other direction producing a long post that sounds on topic but usually coming off like a skilled writer improvising their way through a book report they didn’t’ read the book for for and invariably including a “we are the world” ending: “let’s all work together and make the future brighter with regard to [topic]” that is the dead giveaway.
Many games have this already, listing exits or showing them in a menu bar. The Bat, reportedly, uses a diegetic compass that has use in the actual game.
The compass in The Bat works more like a remote control. It doesn’t tell you where you are, etc. — you turn the needle to move another character.
I think the original post is using ‘compass’ figuratively, more like a mind map or concept map but for IF games. I think it’s true that IF games don’t really give players a lot of information about what they’re doing beyond their inventory, location, descriptions, etc. unless the game developer implements it.
Going back to the example of The Bat, the list of valet’s tasks seems kind of to match what the post is suggesting, since it goes beyond inventory and gives you a outline of events that you can approach in any order. That gives you some expectation of what you can make happen next in the story. It’s pretty basic though.
(All that is assuming the post actually means anything at all. The OP’s non-engagement and the outgoing link are suspicious.)
I think the OP’s “compass” idea is pretty clearly an AI-induced regurgitation of the vague “what if we used data to personalize the user experience” idea that every tech company trots out to justify collecting more user data. The question of how it would actually improve the user experience is never answered, because the real goal of the data collection is just targeted ads & manipulating user behaviour.
I mean, look at what’s actually being suggested:
Imagine a scenario where the compass directs the player based on their previous choices or emotions expressed throughout the story. It could provide hints or suggest paths that resonate more with the player’s decisions, creating a personalized experience that feels uniquely theirs.
This isn’t describing a hint system. It’s basically describing something that plays the game for you, suggesting specific actions based on your decisions so far, which is the opposite of promoting immersion, personalization, or player agency. But this sort of gesturing towards “personalization” is par for the course for non-human entities (be they corporations or AI) trying to do “innovation” despite being mindless constructs with no capacity to innovate.
I guess it’s couched in marketing speak but we can only speculate on what exactly it’s drawing from. I’m definitely not reading into it the same things you are, but you have a point.