Weekly Links #110

Nearly thee years ago, I was writing about the importance of making story an integral part of your game, rather than a bandaid applied towards the end of development. And here's Rhianna Pratchett again, standing up to say, no more narrative paramedics. An article from last week, actually, but I missed it at the time, and it's too relevant to pass up. The good news is, game developers are learning. At long last. But the battle isn't yet won.

In unrelated news, Emily Short writes a post highlighting the diversity of media underlying storygames, and the many different ways you can use text alone. A good reminder that stories can take many shapes, and few of them are pure anymore. And while having preferences is fine, dismissing any possibility as inherently inferior is self-defeating.

Last but not least, Michael Cook delights us with an article about those times when procedural generation goes wrong. From personal experience, I can say it's always a problem, and my approach has always been to mitigate the worst cases -- to ensure the game remains winnable, or at least playable and fun, no matter what. Which is a lot like what you want in real life.

But that's all for today. Thanks for reading, and see you next week.