PERSPECTIVE
Narrative Engine
JON INGOLD
Write it like you stole it
So I played a game today that had a pretty linear opening and roll-based skill checks for doing stuff. I had to do this thing to proceed; I rolled my dice; my dice said no. Don’t worry, the game chimed in, you can gain XP doing random side stuff and then you can try again. So I did some random side stuff – laundry, emails, made myself a coffee – and I put the game aside.
It could be worse. I played Knights Of The Old Republic when it came out on iPhone, ran down the first corridor, died immediately, reset, ran down the same corridor, and didn’t die. OK, game, I preferred the second version, so let’s use that take from now on, OK? After all, dice exist in tabletop D&D to give the gamesmaster a challenge, not the players, and in a computer game the GM has already moved onto the DLC.