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Interactive digital narrative (IDN)—a complexity

case

Frank Nack

To cite this article: Frank Nack (2022) Interactive digital narrative (IDN)—a
complexity case, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 28:3-4, 69-75, DOI:
10.1080/13614568.2023.2173385

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NEW REVIEW OF HYPERMEDIA AND MULTIMEDIA
2022, VOL. 28, NOS. 3–4, 69–75
https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2023.2173385

INTRODUCTION

Interactive digital narrative (IDN)—a complexity case

Frank Nack
INDElab, Informatics Institute, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam (UvA), Amsterdam,
The Netherlands

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article introduces the NRHM special issue on Interactive Interactive digital narrative;
Digital Narrative (IDN) and Complexity. It first shortly IDN; complexity; narrative
describes the field of IDN and why developments with perception; IDN use cases;
respect to content, content and interaction focus on sound-based IDN; virtual
reality; augmented reality
complexity issues. It finishes with a short outline of the
five papers that form the body of the special issue.

A digital interactive narrative is a form of interactive media,1 where the actual

narrative is not the final product or service. IDNs lean towards the idea of a nar-
rative environment in the form of a cybernetic system2 (Wiener, 1950), that
establishes a circular causality, where the observed outcomes of actions are
taken as inputs for further action in ways that support or disrupt a condition.
Condition in the context of a narrative should be understood as the develop-
ment of narrative states over time.
Janet Murray established three key concepts that an IDN, which she under-
stands as a participatory medium, has to support, namely immersion, agency
and transformation (Murray, 1997, pp. 97–182). Immersion represents the
experience of the sensation of being enclosed in a completely other reality
that takes over all the attention by occupying the whole perceptual apparatus.
For that it is necessary to not only be willing to suspend disbelief but also to
actively create belief. Where immersion focuses on the environment, agency
provides the means to take meaningful action and see the feedback in form
of effects or consequences resulting from the choices made. Murray merges
here two properties of an IDN—the procedural and the participatory.

CONTACT Frank Nack nack@uva.nl

1
In this context “new media” should also be mentioned, which covers media that are computational and rely on
computers and the Internet for redistribution, such as games, websites, virtual worlds, or human-computer
interfaces (Manovich, 2001; Manovich, 2003, pp. 13–25; 82).
2
This also includes the extended view of second-order cybernetics (Foerster, 1979; Foerster, 2003) and radical
constructivism (Glasersfeld, 1984, pp. 17–40), which both look at information and knowledge from the point
of view of observing systems (second order) rather than observed systems. The link between second-order
cybernetics and radical constructivism is established though the view of knowledge as “situated knowledge”
as a correspondence between a knower’s understanding of their experience and the world beyond that
experience.
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc-
tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
70 F. NACK

Agency covers the engagement of the participant to a world that responds to

this engagement in an expressive and coherent way (Murray, 2004). Transform-
ation focusses on the shape-shifting abilities of computational environments.
Transformation here reflects the fragmentation powers of the machine,
which facilitate the multidimensional presentation, rearrangement, spatial
and temporal organisation of media mosaics, that finally support the power
of juxtaposition for reflection.3 A second way for her to look at transformation
is the ability of some technology, in particular virtual reality (VR), to enact or
construct owned stories of a set of formulaic elements (such as Propp’s abstract
narrative structures and archetypes). Here transformation relates to the impact
of enactment within an immersive environment in form of a cyberdrama,
which can establish a catharsis effect, useful in entertainment as well as in psy-
chotherapy. In the context of cyberdrama, she also discusses the issues of open-
ended narratives (refused closure [Murray, 1997, pp. 173–175]), which works
against traditional narrative expectations and can also result in moments of
fear (disturbing content or break of imersiveness by returning into reality).
In this context of never-ending, ever-morphing narrative spaces she also specu-
lates on the role of tragedy.
The most current IDN definition is provided by Koenitz (2023, p. 16):
Interactive digital narrative is a narrative expression in various forms, implemented as
a multimodal computational system with optional analog elements and experienced
through a participatory process in which interactors have a non-trivial influence on
progress, perspective, content, and/or outcome.

In this definition, a systemic view on IDN is provided, in which Koenitz already

outlined in his SPP model (System, Process, Product) (Koenitz, 2015; Roth
et al., 2018), the currently best model to capture the fragmented, distributed
and interactive nature of an IDN. SPP is informed by cybernetics and cyber-
netic art theory. In this model, a “story”—as understood by literary theory—
is not manifested in the digital work, the system, which contains the protostory,
a term describing all the potential narratives. Those can be instantiated by an
interactor through an interactive process, which leads to a realised, reordered
product (the actual story). Koenitz, following cognitive narratolog, understands
a narrative as a mental frame which can be evoked by many different manifes-
tations and discourse strategies. For the interactors, the process is a double her-
meneutic circle in which they reflect both the instantiated narrative path and
the possibilities for future interaction (Roth et al., 2018).
The outlined concepts can be found in various incarnations of IDNs.4 An
intuitive and mono-media approach towards interactive narrative is ergodic

3
She names this kaleidoscopic narrative, adapting McLuhan’s observation, that communication media are mosaic
rather than linear in structure (Murray, 1997, pp. 155–162].
4
In this context also see the ICIDS conference proceeding (https://ardin.online/conferences/icids-interactive-
storytelling/) and the resources offered by ARDIN (Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives)
– https://ardin.online/.
 NEW REVIEW OF HYPERMEDIA AND MULTIMEDIA 71

literature (Aarseth, 1997), a linear text and a machine capable of producing

several manifestations of this text. This type of interactive narratives is
heavily influenced by a traditional view on fiction in a written form. The sim-
plest form of this type of narrative is hypertext,5 which represents networked
nodes and depending on the choices the reader makes, the story evolves. Hyper-
text, though interactive, does not leave space for expectations and experiences
on an individual perception level as the explorative space is designed by the
author. Cybertext can be considered as an extended form of hypertext as it
tried to leave the author provided narrative structure of hypertexts in favour
of the provision of software code to control the reception process without redu-
cing interactivity (Ryan et al., 2014)
There is a rich collection of complex media narratives6 already starting in the
early 1990,7 which cover different types of narrative genres, techniques, styles,
modes and presentation types to facilitate the exploration of complex problem
spaces (for more detail see in particular the article by Perkins and Taventer in
this special issue).
More complicated have been the developments in the direction of the
cyberdrama. The essential theoretical work for this direction has been the
book “Computers as Theatre” by Brenda Laurel (Laurel, 1991), in which
she formulated an aesthetic, dramaturgic take on interface design by
arguing that dramatic theory (Aristotle) is well suited, as it provides a
mimetic approach to enable the process of enactment in the form of action
rather than description. Around this time, research had been performed on
necessary technical infrastructure (Bates, 1992; Hayes-Roth, 1995; Perlin &
Goldberg, 1996). Further graphically advanced examples that also addressed
more narrative dramatic structures (Peinado et al., 2008) or serious problems
in the context of role-play, such as harassment (Aylett et al., 2011), have been
presented later. A different approach is offered by the Façade project (Mateas
& Stern, 2005), which uses natural language processing and other artificial
intelligence routines to direct the action and interaction between the charac-
ters and the player. The overall architecture of such systems has three parts: a
drama manager, an agent model, and a user model. The drama manager
supervises the narrative flow by searching and executing story “beats” in a
coherent sequence and refines story events by providing new information

5
Example hypertexts are: Michael Joyce (1990) afternoon, a story, Stuart Moulthorp’s Victory Garden (1992), Douglas
Cooper’s Delirium (1994), Shelly Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995), Adrienne Eisen’s Six Sex Scenes (1995), Stuart
Moulthrop’s Hegirascope (1997), Caitlin Fisher’s These Waves of Girls (2001), or Stephen Marche’s “Lucy
Hardin’s Missing Period” (2010). See also The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) that facilitates the
writing, publishing, and reading of electronic literature (https://eliterature.org/). Myst (1993), a graphic adventure
puzzle video game, could also be considered a hypermedia product, as it was built with the Hypercard software.
6
The debate surrounding narratology and ludology will not be discussed here (see [Aarseth, 2001; Juul, 2001]).
The view shared in the texts of this special issue is that games should be looked at for their stories and also be
considered as interactive narratives (some at least) because they are participatory. See for example (Wardrip-
Fruin & Harrigan, 2004; Harrigan & Wardrip-Fruin, 2007, 2009).
7
See for example the works created at the Interactive Cinema group at the MIT Media Lab https://ic.media.mit.
edu/
72 F. NACK

and resolving contradictory plot lines. The agent model collects information
about the story world and characters and generates possible actions in
response for each non-player character in the story. The user model keeps
track of player choices and inputs, so that the drama manager and agent
model can cooperate with the way the audience attempts to interact. The
most popular incarnations of those type of story environments are massively
multiplayer online games (MMOG or MMO) or the massively multiplayer
online role-playing games (MMORPG).8 Current new developments on
hard- and software supposed to lead to the Metaverse,9 which, due to its
focus on social connection and interaction, might point to new forms of
digital interactive narratives.
Thus, the field has already gone a substantial way. However, new narrative
problems arrive to changing expectations of audiences. Narrations suppose to
be personalised in a way so that the perceiver is facilitated to better understand
the complex intertwined processes that shape each life through environmental,
social, economic, political and ethical influences and hence accelerate learning
and improving the personal, group, social or human situation. The particular
hermeneutic possibilities of IDNs, resulting from their ability to facilitate
action, reaction, and retelling, allow the different type of perception change
that is needed for gaining a better grasp on the complex environments
humans encounter. The EU-funded COST network INDCOR (Interactive Nar-
rative Design for COmplexity Representations)10 tries to address the mentioned
aims, with the goal to change IDNs current status from “singular achievement”
of a small group of initiated practitioners to “general practice” of many media
companies. The different working groups of this action work on issues, such as
the development of shared concepts and vocabulary (Koenitz, Palosaari-
Elhadari, Louchart, & Nack, 2020), design conventions, evaluation methods
and a better understanding of the societal effects IDNs can cause.
This special issue presents a number papers collected from the performed
work in this network. The emphasis of the first two papers is to show why
complexity is an interdisciplinary issue and how the collection of available
IDNs can support this content and presentation diversity. The remaining

8
Examples are: Castle Infinity (1996), EverQuest (1999), The Martrix Online (2005), the most successful and best-
know World of Warcraft with its eight expansion packs (2004), or Fortnite (2017). In this context, one could also
consider sandbox games such as Minecraft (2011) or more feasible the Sims (2000), a life simulation sandbox
game that features open-ended simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons.
9
The term “metaverse” originated in Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash (1992) and covers the Internet as a single,
universal immersive virtual world (including multisensory extended reality, and simulated reality) that can be
accessed through the use of computers, smartphones, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), virtual reality
(VR). (ntin, 2020). Existing applications that can lead to this vision of avatar driven socialising or be considered
part of the metaverse examples are: Second Life (https://secondlife.com/), work spaces such as Gather Town
(https://www.gather.town/), or popular games including Habbo Hotel (https://www.habbo.com/), World of
Warcraft, Fortnite (for those development engines such Roblox (https://corp.roblox.com/), Unity (https://
unity.com/), Blender (https://upbge.org/#/) or Unreal (https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US) need to be con-
sidered). A view on the metaverse beyond VR is provided by Antin (2020).
10
https://indcor.eu/
 NEW REVIEW OF HYPERMEDIA AND MULTIMEDIA 73

three papers address successful or design critical examples of IDNs in

presentation forms that already play or will play an important role in
social communication, namely audio, augmented reality (AR) and virtual
reality (VR). The selected papers and the order of their presentation
should allow the readers to get a better inside in the findings of the
INDCOR action but also invite and encourage them to participate in
the INDCOR endeavour.
The overview paper “Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) – New Ways to
Represent Complexity and Facilitate Digitally Empowered Citizens“ by
Hartmut Koenitz, Jonathan Barbara and , Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari discusses
IDN as a means to represent and enable the understanding of complex topics
both at the conceptual level (e.g. global warming, the COVID-19 pandemic,
migration, or e-mobility) and personal level (trauma and other mental
health issues, interpersonal relationships). They frame this discussion in the
context of an interdisciplinary conceptual view to complexity, outline limit-
ations of traditional media to represent complex issues, and depict the poten-
tial of IDN in this esteem, using the SPP model as a conceptual lens. The
paper concludes with aspects that need further work in order to more fully
realise the potential of IDN to represent complex topics in education and
public communication.
Andrew Perkins and Kuldar Taveter present in their paper titled “Appli-
cations of complex Narratives” an overview on 18 IDNs that address
complex issues. The aim is to gain to outline design decisions have been
taken in those prototypes and applications and then to make the resulting
knowledge available to practitioners for the representation of complex topics.
Lissa Holloway-Attaway and Jamie Fawcus reflect in their paper “Making
COVID Dis-Connections: Designing Intra-active and Transdisciplinary
Sound-Based Narratives for Phenomenal New Material Worlds” on the
design and implementation of an interactive digital narrative audio experience,
PATTER(n)INGS. The core function is to explore fragmented personal states of
being derived from the human/non-human/and inhumane experiences of
people who are suspended in the emerging complex patterns and troubled
times of pandemic existence, while drawing on transhistorical and transmedial
(pandemic) influences that inspire material narrative audio world-building.
They propose a model for both creating and analysing the content and delivery
for sound-based interactive digital narratives.
The paper “The Sacra Infermeria—a focus group evaluation of anaugmented
reality cultural heritage experience” by Jonathan Barbara et al., provides a criti-
cal analysis of an augmented reality installation in museum in Valletta, Malta. A
multidisciplinary focus group of 11 IDN researchers analyse the AR installation
on the technological implementation of the AR experience, the historical accu-
racy, gamification and the influence of social media-centred design, and the
representation of the complexity arising from the uncertainty of history.
74 F. NACK

The paper concludes with a list of recommendations and heuristics for the
design of complex AR installations in cultural heritage environments.
The final paper, “IDN based Framework of Virtual Reality Serious Games for
Solving Complex Issues: A Case Study in the Context of Natural Hazards” by
Shafaq Irshad and Andrew Perkis present and critically discuss the design,
implementation, and validation issues for a virtual reality immersive serious
game to enhance meaningful learning and the overall user experience for the
complex problem of weather hazards. Application of the framework is demon-
strated with a case study. The results illustrate the importance of narrative rep-
resentations in virtual reality serious games and provide directions for
designing and evaluating IDNs for virtual reality systems that address
complex issues.

Acknowledgements
The work presented in this text is supported by the EU COST Action 18230—Interactive
Narrative Design for Complexity Representation (INDCOR).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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