Daniel Benmergui

Storyteller

15 September 2008

This is the third and last prototype I submitted for the experimental gameplay sessions at SOWN.

You are presented with a timeline, split into vignettes. It’s an interactive story about three characters and their choices in life in the context of a fairy tale. You can move them around in their vignettes to change their roles and what they do about it.

The interesting thing about this experiment is the immediate causality: you can see instantly how the choices you make affect the future, so the cost of experimenting with the story is almost zero. Some of the endings you can get are funny and not hardcoded into the game logic.

Hint: knights can kill wizards if they are overlapped.

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Cool idea. I don’t know if, in terms of the ‘gameplay experience’ I would have preferred it to one where you’re presented with the scenes in sequence.

The overlap-to-kill feature is very cool.

I like that people’s alignments are determined solely by where they grew up.

I have one ending scene where a tomb-stone (i think the woman’s) ends up being in love with the red-haired guy.

Aaah…exploring the other outcomes is interesting…

Okay; this is deeper than I originally though Big thumbs up

Wow, really surprising like the other prototypes. It’s soooo funny to expriment with all the possible combinations…
When will you be realeasing a game like this in DS!? It would be great, hah!?

LOL, is very fun to experiment with endings. I have a “gay” ending.

also: it would have *maybe* been fun if you could pull somebody back through time and have them kill their younger selves, causing some odd sort of paradox…(now that I think of it, that’s one of the interesting possibilities that this style of presentation affords you)

@increpare: I’m actually working on such idea…

(there seems to be a bug with the woman’s sword-fighting abilities that causes endless flickering in the future)

[...] can play the experiments here: Storyteller I wish I were the Moon The [...]

[...] prototype is the precursor point of the other two: Storyteller The [...]

Looks very interesting from the description, but it’s not working for me on either Firefox or IE. I’m only seeing the top vignette alone in the top-left with gray in all other areas, plus some unclosed tag code beneath it outside the flash movie. The movie alone doesn’t work, so I’m guessing it’s a problem when the swf isn’t displaying at the needed size. The other two work fine, and play great! Congrats on SOWN!

@noyb: I made an experiment on the website this morning, and it broke it… please try again

Thanks all for the support!

This might be my favorite of the three. The possibilities for this kind of gameplay are deep, indeed. It has the potential to incorporate an important message of how actions in the present can affect the future.

I liked that! Heh, I managed to get the final scene to be all 3 of them in love… but one of them a gravestone lol.

hey ummm i cant play nething y?

Your games are the best that i ever played. This one better than the rest. Thx for all !

Way to push the envelope. Good ideas. Keep pushing!

[...] que podemos modificar a nuestro antojo. Es de especial relevancia, bajo mi punto de vista el juego StoryTeller. Son juegos en formato web y muy interesantes, espero que os [...]

I really liked the pixel art in this, great concept too.

Amazing concept. I’m really excited to see what you do next as there so many different directions you can go with this type of gameplay.

[...] is a charming toy by Dan Benmergui. It gives the player three windows onto the same events, a vertical triptych. The [...]

[...] StoryTeller is a fun look a fairy tales, and the Happy Ending. It is playable here. The interesting thing about this experiment is the immediate causality: you can see instantly how the choices you make affect the future, so the cost of experimenting with the story is almost zero. Some of the endings you can get are funny and not hardcoded into the game logic. [...]

[...] alegorię lub fabularny odpowiednik migawek. Bogost przywołuje przykład gry Daniela Benmerguia, The Storyteller. Jest to historia utrzymana w konwencji baśni, w której sami ustalamy relacje między trójką [...]

[...] Storyteller, Fate and Today I Die: All three games are from developer Daniel Benmergui. “Storyteller” is a three-panel digital comic, in which each panel represents a moment in time of a story of wizards and princesses. (You can play this game here). [...]

hacemos un juego juntos?

tomi@punga.tv

[...] — I can’t pronounce his last name, but his name is Daniel — and he made the Storyteller and Fate [...]

OMG! i love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i like to make happy endings

[...] Daniel Benmergui’s I Wish I Were the Moon and The Storyteller [...]

More love!!!

[...] Today I Die is a beautifully emotive game by Daniel Benmergui, creator of the cute but heartfelt I Wish I Were the Moon and the excellent Storyteller. [...]

I love this!
I got three hearts in the end, but one died.

it’s sad though that the only way to get ‘love’ ending is to make one character die…

your game was fun u can make a gay happy ending, a boy and girl with 1 dead or make em all dead, but i made da happy endings!

how do you get three hearts? i think the proper ending is when the brown haired boy and girl are together

I think the red head and the girl go together. Problem is, there’s not enough options. You kill people, save people, move them far away, and make them evil. I don’tget the endings…

Wow its kinda sad because in order to have a good ending someone must die

I can’t play some of these games. Are they no longer up? Do I need a certain version of flash, java, or shockwave to play them?
Or is it because I use Vista?

Wonderful game!i actually had to change my way of thinking for a bit to come up with some of the odder endings, but I don’t know if that say more about the game or my way of thinking
I love that you can see the results of your actions immediately.Thanks for giving us a chance to play these games!

I saw this game presented at the GDC and loved it! Though “game” doesn’t feel like the right word, because it’s a different kind of experience. What’s great is that, unlike some of the experimental story games I’ve played, it doesn’t feel like a choose-your-own adventure book. I really love the multiple window presentation that immediately shows the causality of your actions.

I thought it was really interesting that it seems the only way to have two characters expressing love in the final panel is if one of the three is a defeated wizard in the second panel, and if another character is imprisoned. In this context, it’s an efficient to show that one character cares for another.

There is a minor bug that seems to crop up with one of the characters (it’s always been a male, though I don’t know if that matters) having the “love heart” get stuck on the third panel even when it doesn’t make sense. For example, after trying several variations, I had a defeated wizard whose tombstone had a heart next to it.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t detract from the game at all, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Kudos!

[...] ma sono ancora indeciso. Ci sarebbe un wargame, una space opera o una più interessante versione di Storyteller… vedremo. Interviste, Speciali, [...]

WHY CAN THE CLOUDS MOVE?! WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!

I really enjoyed it. I find it most satisfying to have 2 living people in love and one dead person in love.

[...] can play the game for free here. To be honest, I’m a little fonder of Storyteller – it’s just too slick to deny. But both are worth your time. And by the way, anyone catch the [...]

Is there any happy ending to Storyteller? this is sad!

대단하십니다! 이런 플래시 게임은 지금까지 본적이 없었어요. 정말 기발하시네요~ 게임 즐겁게 하고 갑니다~!

mhm

Hey, dropping by to tell you that you are one the greatest gameplay designers I’ve ever seen. I love all your games, especially Storyteller and Today I Die. Speaking of which, I really love the soundtrack to Today I Die. Does Hernan Rozenwasser have a CD or somewhere I can download it?

Pon-Chan:

http://www.ludomancy.com/blog/downloads/

you are the BEST online gaming designers!

Nice game but what are the clouds for? I don’t think they do a thing

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