The Java toolbar is what you will use to navigate through the stories. It is purposefully designed to be as simple as possible, so you only get two buttons.
"Next" displays the next part of the story on the screen. "Prev" backtracks so you can read previous parts of the story. If you back up, "Next" moves you forward again. Simple, no?
This story is generated dynamically by a story agent from a large potential pool of story fragments. Any web page can be a story fragment, and the toolbar buttons will bring up the next story regardless of any hyperlinks the user may have followed. Details of this algorithm will be available soon, but for now you are encouraged to read Brooks' paper on Story Agents for the general idea. The process is not just random, but uses relations between story fragments to generate hopefully more compelling stories. This system is presented as a proof of concept. After I clean up the code and write more content, it should be possible to select from multiple agents, points of view, etc. to get a story.
If you are interested in submitting your own story fragments or have any other comments or suggestions, please contact harrisj@mit.edu. Thanks!
Click "Next" to begin...