From Zak Arntson, both an rpg author and video game developer, comes this fantastic essay: Story Now in Game Design.
At its simplest, Story Now in a video game would be the following:
- Present an emotionally compelling situation which allows for a response.
- Accomodate different responses.
- Allow these responses to have different effects on ensuing gameplay.
This is really a fantastic article, and it’s worth reading the whole thing if you have interest in game design in any field, digital or acoustic. There’s even detail about how to make the algorithms work to implement “Story Now” concepts into video games.