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• Associated Readings
• Background
• Analysis
• Additional Resources
• References

 

Associated Readings

 

• Frasca, Gonzalo. "Simulation vs. Narrative: Introduction to Ludology," Video/Game/Theory, Routledge, 2003.
• Wardrip-Fruin, Noah & Harrigan, Pat. “Part III - Critical Simulation,” First Person: New Media As Story, Performance, and Game, MIT Press, 2004.

 

Background

 

The readings from the First Person text for this week discuss "critical simulation."  The focus is on exploring not only how simulation has been thought of in the past, but also to critically examine its uses in the present, and look toward what could be done in the future.  Wardrip-Fruin and  Harrigan (2004) explain in the introductory page that the authors writing the essays and responses in the book show some varying arguments regarding the focus on ethics and on the potential impact of action in the simulated world on a person’s actions in the real world.

 

If a player is successful at a violent video game does that mean the player will be violent in real life?

 

Throughout our course, we have been examining the relationship between narrative storyline and new media technologies.  This module compares and contrast narrative and simulation.  Narrative maintains a long, traditional history that is well understood; technology-based simulation is new, relatively speaking.  For clarity, we begin with a discussion of simulation.

 

Narrative – a story or account of

events, experiences, or the like,

whether true or fictitious.

 

Simulation – is an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs,

or process.  The act of simulating something generally entails

representing certain key characteristics and behaviors of

a selected physical or abstract system.

 

Scientists have traditionally used simulation for explanatory purposes and particularly for predicting behaviors of complex and expensive systems. Simulation is not a new concept. In First Person (Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, 2004), Gonzalo Frasca says that simulation has always been present through toys and games but its potential has previously been limited by the lack of technology. With the invention of computers, simulation is more accessible and can be used in many contexts, including the modeling of natural or human systems in order to gain insight into their functioning. Other contexts include simulation of technology for performance optimization, safety engineering, testing, training, and education.  Simulation can be used to show the eventual real effects of alternative conditions and courses of action.   

 

 

In addition to imitating processes to see how they behave under different conditions, simulations are also used to test new theories. To test a theory of causal relationships, we can represent the relationships in the form of a computer program. If the program then behaves in the same way as the real process, there is a good chance that the proposed relationships are correct.

In First Person (Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, 2004), Simon Penny discusses the body conditioning that takes place with simulations.  At a most basic level, cognitive learning occurs as a result of memorization or mental repetition and at the physical level, psycho-motor learning occurs as a result of practice or physical repetition.  Repetitive physical actions have been an integral part of training and education.  Training of all kinds, from sports to military, contains the commonality of repetition until, hopefully, successfully achieved at an automatic, reflexive level.  

 

 

Penny also elaborates on the military integration of training with simulation as well as their capitalizing of commercial products.  Simulation training for the military has immediate appeal when one considers the cost savings.  Training in a simulator rather than a commercial aircraft yields significant savings.  But our military's savings does not end there.  Application development from scratch can be time-consuming and costly.  Because of this, our military has a history of either leveraging commercial simulation software right out of the box or taking commercial software and modifying for military use.  The military has taken advantage of many simulation software products to date including Battletech, Doom, MARKS, and the Sims.

 

 

For her article in First Person (Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, 2004) Phoebe Sengers discusses simulation on a completely different level, that of artificial intelligence. Her most noted insight in the paper is that, “if humans understand intentional behavior by organizing it into narrative, then our agents will be more ‘intentionally comprehensible’ if they provide narrative cues” (p. 102). This seems important to our coursework due to the focus on the use of narrative when designing simulation agent architecture. She mentions the idea that people (users) tend to desire a narrative explanation of the activity of the agent in the simulation. This is important in the design of simulation in order to capture and maintain the user’s attention.

 

Analysis

 

According to Frasca (2003), to simulate is to model a source system through a different system which maintains to somebody some of the behaviors of the original system.  The key term is behavior.  Simulation does not just maintain the audio and visual representation of the original source system, but is intended to maintain the behaviors.  The model of behavior reacts to certain stimuli – conditions, input, movements – according to a set of conditions.

 

 

Whereas novels allow us to explore character

and drama allows us to explore action,

simulation allows us to explore process. (Friesner, 2005).

 

Phoebe Sengers (2004) mentioned a similar focus on behavior. Since artificial intelligence (AI) governs how a user interacts with a simulation, the user needs to be interested and understanding of the behavior of the agents in the simulation. Since the military uses simulations for training, as do an increasing number of commercial industries, this focus should be considered when designing the behavior of the agents within the simulation.

 

 

Representation

 

In studying the structure and composition of simulation, certain ideas related to its characteristics need to be discussed.  The concept of Representation allows us to analyze the relationship between narrative and simulation.  Representation is said to be a form that allows us to understand and explain our realities.  It is an example, a duplicate, a copied or mimicked instance of a suggested reality.  Narrative then, is a representation of story.  Furthermore, traditional media are representational, not simulational.  A video or image may be a representation of an object or concept, but it still exists within the context of traditional narrative.  It is linear and sequential in representation. Specific to representation is that the modeling represents or models in audio/visual sequence or linear form. 

 

Narrative and simulation do share common elements – character, setting, events – their mechanics are essentially different. Narrative is the interpretation of story for meaning while simulation models an account/story and behavior, not just instance. 

 

 

Simulation differs from narration in that both

narrative and simulation contain representation yet

simulation also includes behavior and choice.

 

Levels

 

Gonzalo Frasca (2003) proposes a four-level concept to simulation with narrative being defined as a component within one level.  The four levels he discusses are Representation, Manipulation rules, Goal rules, and Meta-rules.   

 

• A Meta-rule is a rule that states how rules can be changed.  Not to be misunderstood as a malicious event, these rules exist because the simulation author intends for them.  Scripting tools or open-source are examples of tools that facilitate meta-rules. Second Life is a virtual environment/simulation that is abundant with user developed scripts and custom settings.  It functions primarily on the capitalization of meta-rules. 

 

Contemplating the added dimension of representation with rules, we learn that simulation authors could promote augmentations of their work while this is not likely true for a narrative author.  In summary,

 

 

Unlike narrative and drama, simulations essence

lays on a basic assumption:

Change is Possible

 

 

Examples

 

Façade is an example of narrative presented via simulation.  Façade is a computer program that creates a real-time 3-dimensional animated experience analogous to being on stage with two live actors who are motivated to make a dramatic situation happen.  The players’ actions and choices have a direct influence on what events occur, which are left out, and how the drama ends.   In most conventional simulations the scope of possibilities is finite although the simulation allows the player to play dozens of times without ever the sense that they have exhausted all scenario possibilities.

 

Through multiple choices and user-driven manipulation and multiple choices, the program Façade is a simulation based on a specific narrative category of relationships.  The program is an attempt to find a capable middle ground between structured narrative and simulation.  The goal of the effort was to combine the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of each approach.  The strength of the structured narrative approach is that the system can offer a well-formed experience.  The strength of simulations is that the player has a high degree and freedom of expression at all times.  Many things can happen at any time; the space of possibilities is often larger than what is possible in even a complex and tangled narrative structure.  Beyond what a pure simulation contains, however, is an additional invisible agent called the drama manager.  In this program, the drama manager continuously monitors the simulation and proactively adds and retracts procedures (behaviors) and discourse contexts by which the characters in the program operate.  That is, the rules of the simulation are regularly being updated in an attempt to give the player a well-formed overall experience (Mateas, 2003).

 

In the simulation, The Sims, Frasca feels its biggest achievement is that it fully opened the Pandora’s Box of simulating human life, even though at this time, it still is somewhat flat due to constraints of technology, the authors desire to maintain control, and the lack of coding knowledge by the general public. Because in The Sims, the player is, instead of actively involved in the game itself, but is more of a director, the player can make decisions for the characters in the game and determine where they go, what they do, and essentially who they are, except that there isn’t an ability to describe the characters in depth behaviorally. We see some interesting points about what could be done if The Sims was an open-source program that could be modified by any player, and any character in the simulation could also be coded with behaviors, instead of the current focus on mood and clothing. Although interesting, this idea opens the door for many questions of ethics and the implications on real-life.

 

Movies have been made about this idea of a “director” character creating and running the lives of people. For example, The Truman Show captures this idea, and brings up many issues of ethics and morals. The director in The Truman Show simulates an entire world for one man. He has been the star of this world, which it turns out is a widely-watched television program, since his birth. His mother, father, teachers, and indeed the entire world around him are simulated by actors and props. All except for the man; he is the only non-simulated person, and it is a social experiment to see how he grows up with different environments being presented to him. But is it fair to the character to be this coded person? Is it moral to allow him to make mistakes that could be injurious to him or others?  This is the same sort of idea we can see about allowing a “director” to make changes to the behavior of a character in a game that simulates the real world. The player may feel that they have, or should have, this ability to try to control things, not just in the game, but in the real-life situations as well.

 

The concern here is that if a game is effectively lifelike, will the lines between

reality vs. play and authority vs. participation be blurred?

 

How far might someone go to maintain the control that they think they should

have based on experiences in a narrative simulation?

 

 

As we mentioned earlier, Second Life is a specific kind of simulation known as is a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) that is abundant in meta rules, promoting user developed scripts and custom settings.

 

Second Life is a virtual environment without a back story.

Educators write their own narratives.

 

Military Role

 

As previously mentioned, the military relies heavily on simulations for training, planning, risk assessment, and system development.  They have invested extensively in researching effective simulation environments.  The environments that have evolved comprise fundamental components that include behaviors, models, and behavior agents.  The behaviors are dictated by specific military protocol.  Behavior agents control planning and manipulate the behaviors, and complex behaviors are created in their own behavior definition language. 

 

The following image summarizes the Army's ideology of simulation:

 

PEO STRI logo and mission statement

 

As mentioned previously, the military sometimes relies on out-of-the-box video games as a basis for its simulation activities.  It’s often that the commercial program is actually better than the military program; the gaming industry spends many dollars more a year on simulation technology than the military.  This is seen in the video, "Shift Happens."  However, the military’s simulations are meant to teach the students to do what is necessary to succeed, which includes all levels of violence.  

 

If the commercial games are being used as the basis for this,

 

 

Additional Benefits

 

From a training and educational perspective, the setting of simulations can also be leveraged for learning opportunities.  Settings can range from life-like, photo-realistic settings to abstract or minimalist environments, as long as they meet the players’ expectations of internal logic and consistency.  Mechanisms to track progress are also an important part in motivational and learner assessment.  Sound narratives become important and are a crucial component in goal orientation and helping to encourage players to achieve the game’s goals and objectives. 

 

In temporal terms, narrative is seen

as what already happened while

simulation is about what could happen.

 

 

In addition, both narrative and simulation contain elements of immersion and engagement, which contributes significantly to the players’ experience, enjoyment and time spent on task (Laughlin, 2007). 

 

 

Simulation is an ideal medium for exposing

rules rather than particular events.

 

Conclusion

 

The fundamental building block of a scenario is the action. A scenario then, is a form of narrative consisting of a collection of episodes with the purpose of describing characters and the actions of characters within an environment.  The simulation author believes that all simulations are essentially stories, either past, present or future.  These different forms of narrative can be used for problem solving, training entertainment, and any other activity that involves decision-making.  (Hobbs, 2004).

 

Additional Resources

 

 

Mixing Story and Simulation in Interactive Narrative -- an interesting article about incorporating story and simulation into interactive narrative.

 

An article including examples from the University of Kentucky-College of Public Health: Article is entitled: Narrative Simulation Exercises and Farm Safety. They discuss several paper/pencil simulation exercises, which can be downloaded and reviewed, and one multimedia, which is unfortunately only available through a CD that has to be purchased. But they do explain what the simulation is and the storyline used.

 

 

 

Learning Innovation -- a video that shows " A scenario based interactive, animated simulation of managing a portfolio of innovative projects. Enabling investors in technology projects to gain a better understanding of types of projects to take on board."

 

 

References

 

 

“All but War is Simulation” (2000).  PEO STRI logo and mission statement, U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation.

 

Frasca, Gonzalo (2003).  Simulation versus narrative: Introduction to ludology. In J.P. Wolf & Bernard Perron (Eds.), Video/Game/Theory. Routledge.

 

Frasca, Gonzalo (2004). Videogames of the oppressed: Critical thinking, education, tolerance, and other trivial issues. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Pat Harrigan (Eds.), First Person-New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press.

 

Friesner, Nicholas (2005). Narrative on the holodeck: storyworlds and the author.  Cyberspace, Hypertext,& Critical theory, Brown University, Spring 2005. Retrieved June 20, 2007, from http://cyberartsweb.org/cpace/theory/friesner/murray3.html

 

Hobbs, Reginald L. (2004). Using XML to support military decision-making. Army Research Laboratory, 1-2.

 

Laughlin, Daniel (2007). NASA eEducation Roadmap: Research challenges in the design of persistent immersive synthetic environments for education & training.  NASA Learning Technologies, Last Updated: 03/16/2007. Retrieved June 15, 2007, from http://learners.gsfc.nasa.gov/NLT/road.html 

 

Mateas, Michael (2003). Façade: An experiment in building a fully-realized interactive drama.  Literature, Communication and Culture and College of Computing, Georgia Tech, 4-5.

 

Sengers, Phoebe (2004). Schizophrenia and narrative in artificial agents. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Pat Harrigan (Eds.), First Person-New Media as Story, Performance, and Game.Cambridge: MIT Press.

 

Wardrip-Fruin, N. & Harrigan, P. (2004). Part III-critical simulation. First Person-New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press.

 

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