Anticipatory Guidance of Plot

An anticipatory system for guiding plot development in interactive narratives is described. The executable model is a finite automaton that provides the implemented system with a look-ahead. The identification of undesirable future states in the model is used to guide the player, in a transparent manner. In this way, too radical twists of the plot can be avoided. Since the player participates in the development of the plot, such guidance can have many forms, depending on the environment of the player, on the behavior of the other players, and on the means of player interaction. We present a design method for interactive narratives which produces designs suitable for the implementation of anticipatory mechanisms. Use of the method is illustrated by application to our interactive computer game Kaktus.