sims 3 emergent story
Today I read a short blog, going back to only June 9, in which a The Sims 3 player tells an ongoing story about their homeless sims. I’d seen it linked a few places, and finally checked it out today.
I don’t play The Sims 3. I’ve tried a few of The Sims games briefly, and really didn’t like them too much. They seem like games I would enjoy, especially since they got rid of the micromanaging of bodily functions (not that I have anything against bodily functions, it just seemed tedious), but the ones I tried were so glitchy that I just couldn’t enjoy them. Well, MySims was okay, although it was also glitchy. My point being just that I prefer a bit more polish.
So I’m reading this blog as someone who is not terribly familiar with The Sims 3. There were a few interesting things about the blog, but I’m only going to comment on the storytelling aspect. The author is doing something really creative: not just with creating homeless sims (and even sharing the sims by download), but telling the story online. The author, Burkinshaw, emphasized that the story only describes things that actually happened in the game. But Burkinshaw’s creative interpretation finds human emotion, motives, behaviors, in just this simple AI, without being provided the more explicit narrative of other games. For instance, a picture in one entry showed the homeless child, now a teenager, holding her teddy bear kind of absent-mindedly. I just saw the picture and didn’t think too much about it. But following the picture is this description:
She’s too old to cuddle teddy now. All she’ll do is hold him, but gets no enjoyment from it. She can’t even pretend that somebody loves her any more.
I think this is a good example of how interpretation is so necessary for emergent storytelling…
This is cool, thanks for posting! The Sims is so fantastic at putting players in the role of storyteller, but I didn’t realize just how autonomous the characters can be in their actions. Of course, I haven’t played the Sims since the first version, so I’m a bit out of the loop.
Obviously the blog author is guiding them a bit, and I doubt it would be nearly as entertaining if the they hadn’t taken the time to interpret the events.
I played a bit of The Sims 3 after all! The sims do things on their own if you just want to watch. They also come up with “wishes” that get you points if you grant them. I think that the blog author lets them do a lot on their own, but that he’s also guiding them. But I think the “free will” thing is kind of new — not sure.