Digital storytelling with dinah: dynamic, interactive, narrative authoring heuristic

We present a novel method for defining and assembling interactive narrative while operating under an optimized constraint-based system. DINAH is a dynamic, interactive, narrative authoring heuristic that constructs textual stories from a database of short story components. Similar to video game techniques that blend short motion capture segments to construct interactive graphical characters, DINAH builds entire narratives from a database of indexed story segments. The narrative DINAH builds dynamically adjusts to a user’s interaction while run-time algorithms ensure that the essential ingredients of a compelling narrative are preserved. We use DINAH to further explore the potential and utility of interactive, computer-generated narrative, both as a learning tool and an entertainment technology.