Through building P2, I enjoyed learning about the interplay of ludology and narratology, evocative spatial storytelling, and emergent narratives. The process of building this game reflects my learning process.
During my process of ideation, testing, and iteration, my game (“AI Judgment Day”) evolved from a highly structured and constrained narrative into a more open-ended structure, where the player is placed in medias res and then has to grapple with the world I have created. The player is given the premise of the plot, and then roleplays a character (with the AI appropriately responding) to build their story and background. It was exciting to see emergent narratives form, where people would gush in detail about the kids they cherish or their job which they loved, which hearkens back to the takeaway of the Narrative Architecture reading that agency creates emergent narratives.
I also actively explored the spectrum of ludology vs narratology through designing this game. Initially I felt that I had to go with one or the other (a long constrained IF, or a quick text-based game). However, I realized that careful worldbuilding (even brief) could evoke just a clear a narrative picture, while prompting the player to engage in even more reflection / learning after they complete the game. I think this reflects the possible synergy of narrative and gameplay described by the reading.
Watching others play the game was a somewhat surreal experience. First, since I built the game from scratch (not using a parser fiction game engine or other tool), there were many long-tail bugs I did not consider — for instance, if a player clicks in the exact incorrect spot, or presses ‘Return’ instead of the submit button … if I were to make the game again, I would certainly try to find an npm package which supports parser fiction / gpt-style chat interfaces instead of starting from scratch. Second, it was exciting to see the different directions folks would take the gameplay. All players would be surprised by the dystopian aspect of the premise (AI takeover). Then some would try to gaslight the AI, others would tell their sincere stories, and yet others would try to engage in philosophical debates with the AI about the ethics of culling a large portion of humanity. A surprisingly common reaction after playing the game was “Wow, have I really done anything worthy with my life?” and “wow, is this really what the AI takeover is going to look like?” I felt satisfied when people would make those comments because those were the learning goals / objectives of my game, to prompt thinking in that direction.
Overall, the development of this game, combined with the relevant readings, made for an excellent learning experience applying concepts of narratology and gameplay to make a game which promotes emergent narratives. I really enjoyed utilizing a new tool (GPT-4) to make a new type of game, and I’m grateful for the creative license that was offered through this class to explore a new medium. Thank you so much!
