http://www.storytron.com/index.php
*Welp, they say they've got a working demo up now. I'd be extremely interested if this paraliterary platform, or whatever it is, actually functioned in an entertaining fashion
(in whatever way that "entertainment" emerged.)
"How Is It Different from Literature?
"Storytronics is not a kind of literature, nor is it a replacement for it. Storytronics is a new artistic medium, and as such it is very different from any other existing medium. When compared with literature, Storytronics has one key disadvantage and one key advantage. Its disadvantage is that it must communicate with the player in a simple language, unsuited to artistic embellishment. Its advantage is that the player can take an active part in the story, and shaping the action in a manner that is impossible to achieve in non-interactive storytelling. The two forms do have one thing in common, however. As in traditional literature, the player can form a strong emotional bond with the characters, and as with the best stories, perhaps even come away with a new insight...."
http://storytron.com/play-bop2k.php
How to Play Balance of Power: 21st Century
If you have never played a storyworld before, read How to Play first!
Then read these notes for how to play Balance of Power: 21st Century. It will greatly enhance your experience.
Balance of Power: 21st Century is a geopolitical strategy storyworld.
You begin on September 12th, 2001. You are the President of the United States and your job is to advance American interests, as expressed in a list of policy goals. These policy goals can be found by clicking on the Things button. Each of these is a policy of some sort, with its "owner" (the country that would actually do it) listed first. The USA's own policy actions are at the top of the list. If you select any of these policy goals, you will see a lot of text explaining exactly what it entails. The desirability of that policy goal to the USA is also displayed next to the bold text Undesirable_Desirable. You want to make certain that the policy goals that are desirable are eventually executed, and the ones that are undesirable are never executed. For now you can just skim through this list, but in order to do well in BoP2K, you'll need to familiarize yourself with each of these, even those that don't appear to affect you. Why? Because you will need to make deals with other countries involving some of those policy-treaties.
Your first task is to select which policy goal you want to pursue first. You'll see the incomplete sentence: "I" followed by a menu entitled "Do What?" listing two choices: "set goal" and "set goal to prevent." The first means "I want to set a goal for something I want to achieve." The second means "I want to set a goal to prevent something from happening." Select the first menu item ("set goal") and a list of twelve policies desirable to the USA is presented. This being September 12th, 2001, you want to get your hands on Osama bin Laden. Select that option and click on the little period button that appears. (It means: "period—end of sentence—that's what I want to say.")
Now the Storyteller (in the guise of Fate) gives you some information that will help you. It says: "Fate presents background briefing about Afghanistan: its government is medium-small popular and its insurgency is small powerful. The government's resistance to your attempt will be super-huge." On the right (purple) side of the window, your "Do What?" button lists twelve possible actions you could take. That's a lot of choices!
If you're not sure what any of the options means, just 'hover' your mouse over it (put the mouse directly over it and wait for one second without moving the mouse). A little blue box will pop up giving you a quick explanation of what that verb entails. For now, I ask you to select the option "ask for help." A new menu shows up, asking "Who?" That is, whom do you want to ask for help? Let's play it safe and ask the European Union (EU) for help; they're pretty sympathetic to our desires.
Now there's another menu asking "How much?" It wants to know how fervently you are asking. This is an important decision. You could use, say, "extra tiny," which means that you are asking without any sense of urgency or importance. Or you could use extra huge, which means that you're down on your knees begging. The good news is, the more fervently you make your request, the more likely the EU will be to agree to do it. The bad news is that, the more fervently you make your request, the more prestige you lose in the eyes of the country you're asking. In effect, you're making yourself look weak when you ask for help. You're also saying, in effect "I'll owe you if you do this for me."
Fortunately, the EU is such a good friend that you don't need to ask very fervently. So just use extra tiny. Notice how Storyteller automatically fills in the rest of the sentence so that it's clear exactly what you're doing. Now click on the period button.... (((etc etc)))
