Trigger Happy
argued optimistically, is the entertainment medium of the future.
Well, the proselytizers are right in at least one weak sense, because it’s certainly not the entertainment medium of the present. Not only has no convincing example of this new creature called “interactive storytelling” yet been spotted in the wild, no one is even sure what it might look like. Like Albrecht DÜrer and his confident rhinoceros, perhaps they’ve stuck the horn in the wrong place. Still, “interactive storytelling” sounds like a fascinating idea. That disyllable “active,” in particular, makes us feel very modern. Intrapassive storylistening doesn’t sound like half so much fun.
So how do videogames use stories? What kind of stories are they? And most importantly, is interactive storytelling the glorious future of videogames, or is it an imaginatively seductive entry in some fabulous illustrated bestiary?
Back to the future
The word “story” itself covers a multitude of sins. Think of the cinema concept of the “back story.” A back story happened in the “past,” and it determines the conditions and sets up the concerns of the present
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