Interactive systems as storyworlds. An approach for building coherent interactive narratives

Unlike the fixed and predestined sequence of narrative, interactive artefacts such as games appear to be based on the relative freedom of the player and his/her ability to influence the course of events. This paper reports on a study investigating the scope of Interactive Storytelling with a narrative approach, emphasising the debate between narrative and interaction and analysing issues related to narratology and ludology. The starting point is framing the friction between the rules that run an interact ive system and narrative coherence. Starting from the construction of an imaginary world, it can be possible to trace a framework for the creation of interactive narratives. The framework is applied on a pre-existing story: The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, turning it into an interactive narrative. Then, the original narrative and the interactive one are tested by two groups of users, gathering data through a survey. The results suggest the potential of th e interactive narrative in terms of immersion and participation.