Last Updated: March 15, 2010
Final Exam: 8 AM to 10 AM, Wednesday 17th March
Slides from Week 8 updated
Homework #6 submission requirements updated (in HW
section) Final Exam Sample with
Answer Key
Final Projects due on Monday, March 15th at 5 PM
WideRuled homework due Friday 12th March at 5 PM
Instructor
Arnav Jhala
Jack Baskin School of Engineering, Room 269
email: [mylastname] @ cs [dot] ucsc [dot] edu
Phone: (831) 459-2502
Office Hours: Monday 3:30 to 5:00 E2 269
Virtual Reality, Art and
Entertainment. Joe Bates. In Presence: The Journal of
Telepoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(1):133-138, MIT Press,
Winter 1992.
Lord Burleigh's Kiss.
Hamlet
on
the
Holodeck.
Janet
Murray.
Chapter
1,
pp.
13-26.
Narrative Schema.
Narrative Comprehension and Film. Edward Branigan. Chapter 1, pp. 1-17.
The Structure Spectrum.
Story:
Substance,
Structure,
Style,
and
The
Principles
of
Screenwriting.
James
McKee.
Part
of
Chapter
1,
pp.
31-47.
Introduction.
Narrative Fiction-Contemporary Poetics. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Chapters
1 and 2, pp. 1-28.
The Substance of Story.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of
Screenwriting. James McKee. Chapter 7, pp. 135-180.
A Critical View of
Interactive Drama Systems. Maria Arinbjarnar, Heather Barber and
Daniel Kudenko. April 2009. In Proceedings of the AISB'09
Symposium: AI & Games, Edinburgh,Scotland.
Planning,
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Stuart Russel and Peter
Norvig, Chapter 11
[Discourse: Camera] A Lightweight Intelligent Virtual
Cinematography System for Machinima Production. David K. Elson and Mark
O. Riedl. Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Artificial
Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Palo Alto,
California, 2007.
[Interaction] Interactivity.[missing pages]
Chris
Crawford
on
Game
Design.
Chris
Crawford.
Chapter
6,
pp. 71-92.
[Ludology v/s Narratology] Genre
Trouble. Espen Aarseth. In
First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game. Edited by Pat
Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Read the responses as well.
[Ludology v/s Narratology] Towards
Computer
Game
Studies.
Markku Eskelinen. In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and
Game. Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Read the responses
as well.
[Ludology v/s Narratology] Game
Design
as
Narrative
Architecture. Henry Jenkins. In First Person: New Media as Story,
Performance and Game. Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
Read the responses as well.
[Systems: Tale Spin] Tale
Spin. James Meehan. Chapter 9 of
Inside Computer Understanding: Five Programs Plus Miniatures. R.C.
Shank and C.K. Riesbeck (Eds.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1981.
[Systems: Improv] Narrative Development in
Improvisational Theatre, Eric Baumer and Brian Magerko, In the
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interactive Digital
Storytelling, Guimarães, Portugal, pp. 140-151.
[Systems: Facade] A Behavior Language:
Joint Action and
Behavioral Idioms. Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern. In Life-like
Characters: Tools, Affective Functions and Applications. H. Prendinger
and M Ishizuka (Eds.). 2004.
Assignment 4 Due Assignment 5 Cancelled Mid-Project Review for
248 students
Week 9
Author Modeling: Storycanvas tool
Mar 2
StoryCanvas
[download]
[tutorials]
Assignment
5
Due
WideRuled 2 Link
Guest Speaker: James Skorupski Assignment 6 Handed out
Mar 4
Week 10
Interactive Drama
Assignment 6 Due
Final Projects Due for 248 Inform Project Due
Homeworks and Projects
Homework 1:
Pick one of the games on course reserve (BioShock, Fable: The Lost
Chapters, Final Fantasy XII, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half Life,
Kingdom Hearts, Orange Box (Portal), Planescape Torment, Star Wars:
Knights of the Old Republic, The Sims 2, Prince of Persia: Sands of
Time, Grim Fandango, Indigo Prophecy - if you want to play a different
game, consult with me first) and play it for at least 8 hours. Games
are available on course reserve in the science and engineering library.
Answer the questions on this homework sheet: [RTF][HTML] Submission: Email your
responses to the TA Ben Samuel as a single attachment by midnight on
the submission deadline OR hand it in during class on the day of the
deadline.
Homework 2:
Play 3 IF works (Zork I, Photopia, Galatea) and write a 3 page short
paper comparing the works with each other and with the game you played
for assignment 1. Use the concepts and terminology from the readings
(all the narrative, interaction and ludology/narratology readings). For
Zork I, play for two hours (it's a big game - you probably won't finish
in two hours). Photopia and Galatea are short - both should playable to
(an) ending. For all the games you can find walkthroughs and hint
guides online. Each of these IF pieces is an example of a different
approach to IF (and, more generally, interactive narrative design).
Playing a bit of Zork I provides a baseline for what early IF was like.
If you are new to playing IF, this guide might
be useful.
Downloads for IF Download Zork.
1. The Win95 and Mac versions are stand-alone versions
of Zork. The ZIP version is a Z-machine file that is interpreted by a
Z-Machine interpreter. Zork 1
clues Z-machine
Interpreters. A Z-machine is a virtual machine (analogous to
the Java VM) that Infocom developed for their interactive fiction
products. Much of contemporary IF runs on the Z-machine (written using
languages such as Inform that target the Z-machine) - all of the pieces
we're looking at run on the Z-machine. On the PC, WinFrotz is a popular
choice. On the Mac, Zip Infinity is a popular choice. Photopia Galatea
Homework 3:
Write a short design document for your IF project. The purpose of the
design doc is to help you to think about all the design decisions you
will need to make in the game. Use this design document form to
structure your design document: [DOC]
Homework 4: Pick a genre serial story of your choice (e.g. H.P.
Lovecraft horror
stories, King of the Hill, Battlestar Galactica) and develop a
paper-and-pencil grammar (morphemes plus rules) that generates new
stories in the genre. Demonstrate your grammar by presenting three
different stories generated by the grammar.
Homework
5: Given the game you
played for assignment 1, answer these questions,
related to the ludology/narratology debate, on the homework sheet:
[PDF] [DOC][TXT] Grade for HW5 folded into Inform
Project (50%) and Final Exam (50%)
Homework 6:
Use the Universe-based story authoring tool to create a story-plan
representation of the same serial story you picked for your story
grammar analysis.
Submission requirements
. YourName.wr2 file emailed to Ben
. Requirements
. Must run (must generate text story)
. Must use each of these features at least once:
. Characters - traits and relationships
. Environments - traits and relationships
. Plot Points - traits
. Author goal - parameters
. Plot fragments
. Preconditions
. Character precondition, environment
prec, plot point prec.
. Save a trait to a variable
. Use variable within precondition
. Actions
. Print text (with inserted
variables)
. subgoal
. calculate value
. edit character
. edit environment
. create plot point
. edit plot point
. delete plot point
. Interactive Actions
Zip file with entire source (including source for any
external libraries)
Readme with instructions for compiling and running your
project (including keyboard/mouse commands and cheat codes, if any)
One sample walkthrough (screenshots okay)
1-2 page essay on a) what you learned from the project b)
things that you originally set out to do that you couldn't accomplish
c) how your project relates to any of the concepts you came across
during this course
