My personal favorite you ask? Enslaved: Odyssey to the West I say. But if what you want is the best example of an interactive story then I’ll go for Heavy Rain, Last of Us, and the recent Walking Dead Games. All notable for their QTE approach and which has denied their “game” status by some as I have said previously. Regardless, here is a final entry and the longest to finish out the 'questions I have been asked' by my university students - well, for now anyway. 

Many bibliophiles have a favorite book that every so often they dust off and read again and again. For me, one of those books is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., a three part post-apocalyptic sci-fi set in a monastery in New Mexico which survives against all odds in the wasteland of what was once America across three different ages of this new world. When asked, I can describe this pulpy book in abnormally high detail for no other reason than I like it and have read it over and over many times. To me, though not especially plausible as an authentic portrayal of the real world, it is a brilliantly crafted fictional world with its own deep and complex history, and as a result has an artistic validity that speaks to me on a personal level more than the average read. 
        Similarly, many gamers have a treasured digital gem that they like to dust off and play through again and again. I do not refer specifically to pervasive MMOs or social games, nor to games which necessarily are designed to present multiple story options or quest lines on later play-throughs; but rather any game at all, including those with very linear plots or even no plot at all, and by all measures no real significant variance from one play-through to another.  Perhaps not surprisingly, one of my personal favorites to play again and again is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, a post-apocalyptic science fiction action platformer in which the player takes the role of a drifter named “Monkey” who becomes trapped first by slavers, then by a beautiful woman named Trip who hacks his slave headband and forces him to help her escape back home to her mountain village in the Rockies from the crumbling remains of what was once New York City. Once again, it is a lesser known title that sold poorly and has only a small cult following that at first glance might be accused of being just another title where you "swing at robots with a stick;" but this would be premature as I argue that there is a deeper validity to be found in the title as a successful re-imagining of the ancient Chinese story “Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng'en, one of the four great classical novels of China. (I’ll circle back to this below).

       To me, what these two works above have most in common, (aside from their setting and my fondness for them) is an amazing story which drew me in as a member of the audience. But, what is perhaps less obvious is the somewhat puzzling reality that while we often expect a good story from a book, we do not necessarily demand it from a video game. So what then is to be our metric for a “good” story? Do we dare try to compare dime store novels with Elizabethan plays? Should we attempt to devise some kind of metric which will determine the value of Homeric prose over that of Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf? I dare not, save for this assertion: the statement that “Games are art” is as foolish as the inverse statement “Games are not art.” For while one might be able to find a serious critic with harsh words to be said about Kandinsky or Pollock, they would perhaps be more hard pressed to find one who would be willing to state that the Mona Lisa was not art. Yet most would agree that “painting one’s house” probably isn’t art, and therefore to say that “painting is (or isn’t) art” is too broad of a stroke. It is the same for games. It is subjective, it is personal, and it is not fair to judge video games as a whole in one broad stroke of dismissal.   
        This is not to be mistaken for a hackneyed narratologist argument in any way! Rather, I have as much distain for the narrow minded narratological models as I do for the ludological ones. They both engage in the same kind of broad dismissal of the other. Indeed, this duality is at the heart the now old and often narrow minded debate over which is more important. The debate has naturally inspired polarized reactions: we either get gameplay models which are infused with minor story elements from action-oriented game designers exemplified in current rules-heavy systems; or else we get rhetorically heavy arguments which disregard the basic rules structures of a game like the ones that can be found in narrative-heavy systems, but I digress - more on "games as art" in some future post.
        So, to put too fine a point on it - because I can and you are apparently still reading for some reason - “Enslaved: Odyssy to the West” is a brilliant game which has the perfect balance of gameplay and narrative for myself as a player and lover of story games despite the fact that is it entirely linear and almost completely free of player story choices, but brilliantly filled with developer story that would have suffered by my interference with it as a player. Further, the authentic seeming locations are clearly identifiable as the remains of modern day Manhattan while achieving a stunningly beautiful Edenic quality unlike any other post-apocalyptic game to date. These elements drive me to want to explore the game more, but players are denied the ability to free roam within it through a masterful narrative device of Monkey’s hacked slave collar placed on him by his captor and fellow escaped slave Trip. Even the digital HUD is not presented to the player until later when it really is needed, and only then though a highly valid seeming narrative device explaining in context that the same collar is tapped into the character’s brain. 
      The characters are fully developed and extremely believable as well-rounded and dynamic characters from an epic of old so that my own agency was secure from the very start. This was leveraged by the wonderful dialogue and the ability of the characters to convey genuine range of emotion throughout as they slowly discover they need each other and ultimately are falling in love. At the right narrative moment a third character “Pigsy” is introduced, causing tension with this budding relationship and a love triangle is exploited to great success. Faithfully structured around the premise of the ancient Chinese tale, the plot flows superbly and unapologetically forward, entirely scripted by the linear platformer elements toward ever grander challenges that make perfect sense within the story. With no overt attempts at shoving the backstory down the player’s throat he is left to his own devices and the context clues of the world itself such as billboards and ads, evacuation signs, and remnants of the old-world’s technology which is both their salvation and actively trying to kill or re-enslave them. The only real element of mechanical choice is accessed though the upgrade screen, where every stat and ability can be modified through an in-game currency of power orbs scattered throughout the levels, deeply satisfying to my desire to explore them. On top of all of this is the engaging gameplay with meaningful goals and intuitive battle sequences with robotic enemies of varying – even impossibly large - sizes and intelligence which ultimately I got to swing and shoot at with my upgraded big stick. Quite possibly my perfect game.

I give you the next volley of questions put to me by my students at The University of Texas at Dallas about fields related to Interactive Story and Transmedia. Part 1 is below. The focus this time is on design and dev. 

Entire textbooks have been dedicated to that question. A quickish read is Jeff Howard's Quests.  One short answer that I like to give to this doozie requires an understanding of the word gameplay. You see, it used to be that some claimed "games were stories you play." These people were of the Narratologist camp. (So be careful with that word.) Others laughed and said that games were "fundamentally just systems that could have some story in them." These people were of the Ludologist camp. The Game vs. Story debate raged for decades until games evolved and caught up with what many game designers have always really wanted to have which is something in the middle and in my opinion best indicated by the compound word game-play. So it's not about just writing anymore. Its about creating scenario (not to be confused with simulation) and providing agency to the player though the gameplay. In other words you don't just write the story, you create an environment in which the player can create "their" story. Skyrim is a great example of this evolution. One video that illustrates this really well is HERE. Of course this is just one possible way of creating gameplay. Take the (non-crpg) heavy story games like the Telltale Games entries "Tales of Monkey Island" or "Back to the Future." These LINEAR stories were written and the game formed around them while always asking the question "how can we make this fun for the player to play this story?" 

Yes and no. Usually the ideal is a Creative Director who imparts the vision of the "story" to the team who is creating the level design from that gameplay standpoint I mentioned, and that individual does the actual writing. This is common in a linear progression game like the "Bioshock" series. In non-linear games like the aforementioned "Elder Scrolls" series or basically any MMO, there are teams of writers who are each usually given story "hooks" from which to write the thousands of lines of text and dialogue to be experienced in the game. Why not listen to Ken Levine's take below? 

Good game designers are in high demand the exact same way that good novelists are in high demand. Producers are in the business of producing. They want good talent because it makes everybody richer and there is always room for one more great writer! Story seeds start with these people and game design documents are often written largely by them (if at all) and supplemented by others as a team effort. That said, every game idea starts with an idea person and that person is effectively a game designer. High profile designers can often get funding without an idea at all. Take the recently over-funded Kickstarter done by Tim Schafer and Double Fine not too long ago which promises to be awesome because they make awesome - or at least that popular notion was enough to get them funded! Game designer Jesse Schell wrote one of my favorite textbooks which I have used called "The Art of Game Design". In it he says basically that Ideas are a dime a dozen, but all it takes is one great idea to be worth a million dollars. In that regard there is a lot of competition - but in my opinion it's usually among the second tier writers scrabbling around to try to prove their worth over other second tier writers. A cynical view perhaps, but not an entirely incorrect one I believe. Regardless, only one in ten games makes money and the others lose money - but the one in ten does well enough that it doesn't matter! Thats showbiz. Coincidentally it works the same way in Hollywood, and always has pretty much. 

Write! Write! Write! When you aren't writing, read! When you aren't reading, play games (of all types!) with lots of story and take note of the tricks of the trade. When not doing that, watch lots of podcasts and let's plays and tap into the gamer culture at large to get a feel for the pulse of the greater gamer culture. Eventually though what you just have to do is take a running jump over the edge and start making games. There's tons of tools for doing it, UDK is free now, Aurora Toolset has been around for a decade, and I'm a big Gamemaker Pro fan for beginners, especially since it came to steam. Heck you can create a minecraft scenario with relative ease now and that's arguably a "game" with absolutely ZERO story. The Yogscast has proved that you can be successful doing this! Just check out their posh Bristol office which they funded through YouTube fame and a bit of Kickstarter awesome themselves. Knowing your tools is just the tip of the design iceburg. I'm not saying designers should program, but they should certainly understand the tools of the trade (in as much that a school administrator should know how to teach even if they don't do it anymore, for example). 

When I get this question I always ask for clarity. What does it mean to you if it 'falls through' for you? I mean I would look into Alternate Reality Games and Transmedia first, but if "you" think that game design is something that will be limited just to video games, then I think I'd let game designer and Carnegie Mellon colleague Jesse Schell answer that question for me. Even if you watch no other video - watch this one below! As for what minor to take, I'd go with Humanities or something within it. In fact my Ph.D is in 'Humanities, Aesthetic Studies' and I wouldn't have it any other way. I was an English/Art double major with education certification and my Masters of Education is in 'Gifted and Talented Studies' believe it or not. I have a great understanding of models of education as well as models of story, as well as models of game design - and its all because I chose not to narrow my focus too much! To others though the answer is CS or eMac, or well... any of dozens of related fields because that's sort of the point of Emerging Media and Transmedia isn't it? 

As a university professor who actively teaches courses with titles like "Interactive Story" and "Storytelling for New Media" or "Game Studies" it is perhaps natural that I receive a lot of questions about these relatively "young" transmedia topics. (One of those questions is "When are you going to go get a real job?" but I think dad has mostly stopped asking it because mom made him.) More commonly though I get questions from students looking for 'answers in their field' for everything from 'personal betterment' to a 'class assignment' from another professor teaching networking, to a thinly disguised example of the latter pretending to be the former. Below are a few of the most common questions I have received throughout the years and my mostly 'un-retouched' replies, courtesy of archived emails and a very precise gmail search. Enjoy!  

Gameplay is the most important aspect of games. It is defined as the place where the mechanics of the game (anything the player does) meet the story being told (ie the developer's story) and the result is the player's story at whatever level of immersion and/or emergence allowed by the game's fundamental design and structure. Conversely, In a movie adaptation, the most important aspect should be a balance between the story originally told and the interpretation of that story to the screen. Peter Jackson said that decisions are made (ie it is edited) at three points for movies: 1) At the time of writing 2) at the time of filming 3) at the final edit. This is why we sometimes see "special editions" or "director's cuts" and perhaps why George Lucas can't stop picking the scab off of Star Wars long enough to let it heal. Much of my current research is focused on exactly this question and has led me to transmedia “crossovers,” especially with movies and TV, because so often people do not realize that movies are short stories - not visual novels. When we try to cram too much into 90 minutes we too often fail - whereas really good adaptations tend to be much longer films including many of the classics and more recent entries like the LotR Special Edition, and serial TV with one continuous story arc and smaller story arcs within a given episode (e.g., LOST, Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time) are really much more like novels - or perhaps more appropriately graphic novels. Why are the H. Potter, LotR and Star Wars games lame and stinky except for those entries with either original content like SW:TOR or Lego people? This is a translation issue. Why can the kid in Walking Dead (spoiler alert!) shoot the best friend in the second comic but not in the series until the second season and THEN only after he’s turned? Well aside from being 'better TV', it's the same reason that the audience for Mass Effect 3 has had such a strong reaction to the ending of the series: Agency! Read on and I’ll explain. 

There is no one "best" media for telling stories, but there certainly are media that one should NOT use to tell particular stories! Watch PICNIC 'O9: Once Upon These Times - New Stories for New Audiences with Matt Locke and Jeremy Ettinghausen and you will see that publishers have been experimenting with new ways to tell all sorts of stories for a while now in really cool ways - but not everything is right for a story anymore than barbecue sauce is right for all foods. (I've had it on breakfast cereal - not a good fit.) I suppose the same holds true for any media - there are things that are a good fit for it and things that aren't based on the characteristics and the purpose of the media type. I'd say that a NOVEL is best adapted into a mini-series. By doing this the story arcs can be preserved and the integrity of the work's many aspects retained. Note again though that a Short Story can often be done as a movie with no major ill-effects. I do not say "Video Game" suits it well for a few reasons. 
1) The translation of a title piece into a game is often disastrous and ridiculous and often results in non- or extra-canonical content being included in the work. 
2) The translation of a non-interactive piece into an interactive piece is often even more disastrous as we find ourselves needing to invent content - ie something for the player to DO when there was no need for it in the story originally. 
That said, the most important rule of thumb is what I used to tell my Computer Game Design students: If it's not interactive write a book or make a movie out of it. DON'T try to make a video game!

Much of my storytelling ramblings find their way to the COURSE BLOGS but I will happily summarize here for you. I like to consolidate theories into visual representations and my students know me as much for my ramblings as for my ability to organize them in various forms such as presentations which usually end up embedded in the post for that particular week. I had a NON-LINEAR STORYTELLING Prezi I created for Mechanics of Story that actually went viral a few years back. Regardless, aside from the stuff mentioned above already like GAMEPLAY and TRANSLATION - AGENCY is my number one go-to buzz-word. This is why. Books do one thing REALLY well: they engage the imagination. if Video games use agency for the purpose of immersion, then it must be considered an ACTIVE AGENCY. Non-game (ludic/interactive) forms such as books then by exclusion must be a form of PASSIVE AGENCY. If I say "picture yourself as a tree" and then let you describe your tree - you will do much better at "being" a tree than if I show you a picture and say "Imagine you are this tree."  This is agency (a strong video game design principle) and is why a stage play in which a chair is said to be a beautiful oak is arguably more believable than a cheesy paper-mâché tree. Why? Its a difficult question that I will give you a very professory round-about answer for. It's the same reason why some people saw Harry Potter the first time and went - "Wait! That's not what Hogwarts is supposed to look like." If however you mean that War and Peace is more descriptive than a Twitter Novel then I would say it has more details, yes - but is more better? Charles Dickens was said to have been paid by the word when he wrote for the papers. Consequently he's considered a master of description. In effect, when his "chapters" were re-collected, bound, and resold the the same audience the novel was "invented" - the exact same words - still too wordy, yet somehow more than it was before and more than the sum of it's parts. We could make the same argument for a TV show. I like "Firefly." This statement implies I've seen all the episodes and the movie - but is that really required? I also like "Dr Who" - and while some would argue that the series was rebooted a while back others would say it is all one contiguous show - and I certainly have not seen all of those. In fact many are not even available anymore and much of the 8th doctor was radio drama only. Ironically, studies have shown that most people pick a book based on the cover art (what is that old saying about judging a book by its cover? Hmmm...) The point is this: Willing suspension of disbelief combines with the "fourth wall" when we engage in fiction (or any story really) and we have a better chance at succeeding as a storyteller when the audience understands what we are attempting to communicate. For those highly literate logophiliacs (look it up) reading is preferred in almost every case. I have a friend who is still incensed that Hermione's S.P.E.W. didn't make an appearance in the Potter movies - but the truth is we would have been in that theater all day if so!  Those kind of details are best suited for a book, and while a picture may be worth 1000 words, our imagination is worth an infinite number of words (and pictures) including all the ones there are no words for. A picture captures it and locks it in. So for those who read about Hogwarts Castle and imagined something less grand than the one in the movie - to many of them the movie was better. That's OK too. If that kind of audience interaction isn’t interactive - then I don’t know what is!