Alan Taylor wrote:
>What about a different sort of Interactive Fiction. The simultaneous
thread-set,
>or skein of storylines. No branching or decision points, each thread is
>distinct, and exists from beginning to end, and interrelates with every other
>thread. "Titanic" might be an interesting exercise - a spatially limited
set of
>characters interacting and pointed toward a very specific and emotional
>denouement (where's that "denouement button"?). The viewer (watcher, reader,
>whatever) could experience the tragedy from any one of a thousand
viewpoints -
>3rd party, first person, etc. But they'd choose at first, or be randomly
>assigned as a passenger, and would follow from beginning to end.
This seems to me to be an especially likely approach to succeed, provided
the weaving together of the story threads is done with the same care as the
weaving together of sets and costumes and music in high quality production
such as titannic. Characters have to intersect in ways that advance the
story. There should be no "empty" intersections. This means that not all
characters should necessarily intersect.
For navigation, how about Len's supermarket aisle approach? You can switch
from character to character, but only when your character is actually
intersecting with another character (what constitutes intersection I'll
leave to others to discuss :)
Michael
