April 2018
Beginner
476 pages
14h 4m
English
The idea of a world state comes straight from the notion of the State Machine.
A State Machine is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time.
Imagine that the State Machine is your world (or story) and each state is a moving part of the narrative.
In a traditional branching narrative, structured in a Tree, for example, a decision opens up a new branch of the three, which now requires moving on in a different direction from the other branches. In a narrative with states, a variable is generated to track the decision, and this variable will only affect the nodes in which it is referenced.
Imagine a story where a character might either die ...