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Free Sky: People

This is a part of "Free Sky".

Series contents:

The most important design principle that Free Sky must fulfill comes from the inestimable Chris Crawford:

People, not things.

Most games are about things. Swords, guns, monsters, and loot. Doors to open. Space ships to shoot at. Points to earn. Games about things are easy to design, because things are simple to represent, simple to understand, simple to manipulate.

People are not things. They are difficult to represent, difficult to understand, and difficult to manipulate. Especially for the stereotypical programmer, who lives in a dark cave in front of a glowing thing.

I’m not here to condemn programmers, but to challenge them. Actually, I’m here to challenge myself. If I aim to become an interactive storyteller, then I must come to grips with the simple fact that the best stories are about people.

Crawford has gone overboard here, I’m afraid. His Storytron system appears to emphasize people to the near exclusion of things, be they props or stages. I imagine a modern theater production, with an abstract stage painted in matte black and a very few props, perhaps a chair and a coat rack. This sort of production focuses on the actors. If the actors are highly skilled, this formula will succeed. If the actors are mediocre, then it will fail.

Now, imagine a summer blockbuster film. If the story contains compelling relationships, an intriguing plot, and a few explosions, we can forgive occasionally wooden acting. I hope the same will be true of interactive storytelling.

Like I said, representing people is difficult. People are complicated. Even Keanu Reeves. If the focus of the story rests entirely on the characters, then the implementation of those characters, their relationships, and their actions must be truly excellent in order to suspend the player’s disbelief.

I don’t know if this is possible, so I’d like to throw in some gee-whiz and some hand-waving to take the pressure off of my poor, overworked (and not-yet-implemented) NPCs. This is why, unlike Crawford, I am not writing a general-purpose interactive storytelling framework that focuses completely on character actions and interactions.

Instead, I’m writing a very specific game, with a concrete setting and material goals. The engine that drives the story will be two-fold: material scarcity and characters at cross-purposes. The first part is easy. The second part is hard, but perhaps at least possible. If I can get the conflict to at least three-quarters, and throw in some explosions, it might just carry the day. :)

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