WRT: Writer Response Theory

WRT interview with Chris Crawford: well-known game industry critic and interactive storytelling evangelist. Yes, that’s right. We’ve interviewed Chris and it is a podcast!

Chris Crawford has been pursuing the design of new worlds using new media for two decades. He wrote The Art of Computer Game Design whilst leading the games research group at Atari. He has designed and programmed many games and written many books on software. His latest book, Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, took a year to write and Crawford considers it the most important book he has ever written. The book covers the debates around interactive storytelling (IS); different approaches to IS, conflicts and potential points of reconciliation; what interactivity is; the paradigm shift needed to understand and create interactive stories; approaches to software actualisation; the market and predictions. He attempts much bridge work between industry and academia, ‘techies’ and ‘artsies’….

In the current media climate of convergence, participatory culture, mobile gaming, iPodfiction, iPodart, blog fiction and so on, audiences are not only familiar with technology and interaction, they crave it; and producers are scrambling to satisfy their desire. This book, and Crawford’s just released software, is poised at the cusp of a commercially viable and creatively unique form of entertainment.

Christy Dena (me) interviews Chris Crawford to find out just what is different about interactive storytelling and his software. I had a cold (and so a blocked nose) and I giggle a bit too much, but otherwise, I think you’ll really enjoy with chat with Chris:

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or download the mp3.

Relevant Links:

• Chris Crawfords’ company: Storytron
• Storytron blog
• Chris Crawford’s personal site: Erasamatazz
• Wikipedia entry of Chris Crawford
• Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling [amazon]
• The Art of Computer Game Design [amazon]
• The Art of Computer Game Design [online]
• Chris Crawford on Game Design [amazon]

Mentioned in Podcast:

• Previous WRT (text) interviews: Gnoetry: Interview with Eric Elshtain; Gimcrack’d: Interview with Chris Klimas; Lightwriting: Interview with Ken Wronkiewics; Ink: Interview with Kym Buchanan.
• WordPress plugin for Academic Citations
• Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern’s Facade

Let us know what you think of the podcast and the interview by commenting here or at iTunes.