The Garden of Forking Paths: Threading Narrative Archetype as a Semantic Signal Through Gameplay Planning
Read the original on arXiv AI →The paper introduces Forking Garden, a branching game generation system that threads narrative archetype as a persistent semantic signal throughout the generation pipeline. Narrative progression is modeled with soft Rise/Fall states, guiding the creation of plot nodes, structural constraints, encounter composition, objectives, rewards, and difficulty adaptation. Experiments across ten storylines show that the system produces distinct archetypal trajectories, improves entity diversity, and that Rise/Fall distinctions remain meaningful during play, aiding both narrative understanding and creator interpretation.
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