Linden Lab is Making Multiplayer Online Storytelling Game

Gamasutra's Christian Nutt has a long interview with Linden Lab's Emily Short, and the conversation provides some very strong hints abou the kind of game she has been making for the company since her studio (founded with AI expert Richard Evans) was acquired earlier this year. It is, as Gamasutra puts it, "a multiplayer interactive online narrative". Here's how she describe the project's overall philosophy:

"If you're going to do a powerful multiplayer narrative, then ideally you want to explore in a direction where everybody is having significant agency over what's going on, and it's not simply a matter of the characters each exerting a skill. It's not a raid, it's not people teaming up in an RTS or something. It's about your charter making decisions, my character making decisions, exploring why."

This is a bit different from the Linden project she described a few months ago, which sure sounds single-player to me. Or that could just be another project, because what she's talking about sounds closer to Dio, which we got an advance look at here. In any case, we do know Linden Lab is planning to announce two more non-SL projects before the end of this year, so my guess: one is a single-player storytelling platform, the other multiplayer. However it shakes out, do read the full interview with Short, it's quite fascinating.

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Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It sounds like they're exploring in a direction I always hoped the industry would explore. I shall have to investigate further. This is very intriguing.

[virtual girlfriend game]

Story telling game!!! Sounds something very different and creative!Good luck to Linden Lab for this! Hope for the best!