The Freeform Fable is an interactive digital narrative (IDN) developed in the Unity game engine using Fungus and Gaia. The narrative is inspired by the many folktale accounts of the mythical "glaistig" of Scottish folklore, and endeavours to explore non-linearity and player agency through an adaptive narrative that is moulded by the player’s exploration of the virtual environment. The player finds themselves on a remote island, and must uncover the story of the island’s prior inhabitants by interacting with various points of interest scattered across the landscape. This video showcases a single playthrough of the game, but there are 18 different possible narrative progressions through the game depending on how the player chooses to explore the environment and interact with the narrative (represented by floating orbs/cubes - called the "Narrative Node" system during development).
Developed for the Interactive Digital Narrative elective module at the Glasgow School of Art's School of Simulation and Visualisation.
A playable build of A Freeform Fable can be downloaded here.
Figure 1 - Visualisation of The Freeform Fable's narrative structure.
The Freeform Fable is an exercise in creating a cohesive and consistent narrative experience that could dynamically evolve based on the player's exploration of the gameplay environment and interaction with the Narrative Node system. Each Node point in the environment responds dynamically to the active state of the other Nodes, presenting the relevant narrative progression relevant to the current story path. Each Node (as represented in Figure 1 by the IO [representing Rising Action] and E [representing Falling Action] blocks) contains three portions of narrative, prepared relative to the possible preceding and proceeding possible narrative portions to maintain cohesion.
