One of the main barriers to interactive storytelling has always been language. Once we have a cast of thinking, feeling virtual characters, how do they communicate with one another and with the player? Using natural language is out of the question, as it will probably be many years before a computer can have even a simple conversation with a person (there are techniques by which a conversation can be "faked" using a library of prefab sentences, but these are too narrow and cumbersome for artistic purposes). Storytronics answers this challenge with Deikto - a miniature language designed specifically for interactive storytelling. Deikto is small enough for the computer characters to be fluent in, precise enough that the player can always understand what is happening, intuitive enough that any person can learn it with ease, and versatile enough to express any dramatic occurrence possible in a given storyworld.

Here's an Example:

In this sentence, the player is saying: "I advise Mary (with moderate urgency) that she should go… (the word 'where?' denotes that the player has not yet finished the sentence)." Deikto may not be the most inspiring language to write sonnets in, but the singular beauty of interactive storytelling is not in its representation - it is in the richness, depth, variety and drama of the interactions it allows.