Erasmatron
The Erasmatron is an interactive storytelling development system, designed and programmed by Chris Crawford. It is named after Desiderius Erasmus, Crawford's personal hero. Erasmatron authors create storyworlds, comparable to IF's story files, but these products should not be considered as "games" as such.
Internally, a storyworld is very concerned with modeling the NPCs with an elaborate system of personality traits and emotional relationships. Also, a storyworld will use a complex "verbweb" of verbs, from which both the PC and NPCs can choose from, according to their perceived roles and inclinations. It is desired that a storyworld favors story breadth over depth, and that the primary focus of the experience is with people, not things or locations. Erasmatron locations are called "stages", as in the theatre usage, and aren't geographically contiguous.
The Erasmatron was not well received by reviewers or game players. (See Links.)
The newest version of the Erasmatron engine is called the Storytron, which is being developed during 2006.
Erasmatron Storyworlds
(These are demo storyworlds; are there any non-demo ones?)
- Shattertown Sky (Laura J. Mixon; 1997, 1998). One review said this storyworld was 5 megs in size.
- Barroom Brawl.
- Meeting.
Links
- Erasmatazz - Erasmatron home website.
- Crawford's Erasmatron story engine - RobotWisdom's overview of the Erasmatron.
- All That Erasmatazz (archive) - Review article by Neil deMause for XYZZYnews #14.
- Chris Crawford's Open Letter to the Hypertext Community - An alt.hypertext thread crossposted to rec.arts.int-fiction.
- Neil K's post which contains a partial transcript from Shattertown Sky.
TODO: Is the Erasmatron or its demo storyworlds still publically available anywhere? Add more about reactions to the Erasmatron. Add a Features section.