CH 22

CH 22 was another case study, this one about the pandora directive. It was rather interesting, and i enjoyed reading about the game. The only real term i learned was parrallel structure, which is basically just a game (or web page i suppose) where a gamer can pick different paths in a story that can give a variety of endings. The parrellel structure is different from a linear one in that the operator has a say in where the story is going, in fact, the story's ending is governed by the choices the operator makes.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20!
Good ol' Nancy Drew! I really enjoyed the movie! In order to get a better idea of what this chapter was talking about I decided to play the game myself!

This whole narrative thing is exactly like writing a story and making it come to life so to speak! It is also refreshing to see examples that we can emulate. This chapter is very detailed and extensive.

Chapter 17 & 18

Chapter 17
I am so excited to do the narrative! Like Rosie said we get to use our creativity. I really like how in the first couple of pages the textbook tries to explain different interactive multimedia narratives by genre. I had no idea that some computer games, even though they seemed storylike to me, weren't considered narratives. It is quite interesting that it is the character who grabs our attetion and whose situation we are drawn into. Though the "classical linear structure" is familiar there are a couple of things that are new and interesting to note. Scenes and sequences, Jeopardy, and Pace. It is amazing that these small things add so much to the overall story.


Chapter 18
With interactive narratives, the character is ultimately the person playing the game so I think that it is probably very difficult to design around the audience. I personally hate Grand Theft Auto just so everyone knows. Flow charts or Linear Structure with Branching will haunt me till I die!! (jk) I didn't know there would be so many flow chart like things involved with writing for interactive media! Guess I learned something new! It does help organize. Again it's amazing how much goes into interactive media!

Chapter 20

I like how Chapter 20 breaks down the Nancy Drew website to show how things like nudges and conversations with other characters push the user toward the ultimate goal, which is solving the question of who will recieve the uncle's money. I think it is cool how users solve different puzzles to build toward this goal. I also like how different different story lines are recycled and reused in bottleneck areas. Chapter 20 has reconfirmed the need preplan the different elements and storylines before actually producing the website.

Chapters 17 & 18

I'm a little late on the last post but I though I'd put my two cents in anyway. I think that the narrative project is going to be a lot more fun than the informational-based one. It'll be cool to use our English creative writing skills to provide story lines to users. I guess the biggest challenge will be to try and predict what the users will want to do with the character/story and plan it accordingly in the game.

Chapters 17 & 18

Although the simple fact that we're English majors pretty much assures we know what narrative means, it was nice to see it defined in the context of mulitmedia.  Since i'm a pretty big nerd, i think i've played or seen every video game the author has listed in the book (at the very least i've heard of them) there wasn't a lot of knew things the book presented in these chapters to learn.  Even still, it was nice to read about something i'm particularly intrested in and how it relates to English.  

p.s. lia World scripts like World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars, etc., are not narratives because they allow the reader to create their own story.  They're not linear =)

Chapters 20 & 21

I was reading this chapter on the Nancy Drew Game, and was wondering if and how they would be able to capture an audience that already exists for this game, such as my mother who used to read these books when she was younger. I know that it’s for ages 10 and up, but if they already have a market out there, why not take advantage of it. I do see how it has two difficulty levels, but I think if they are going to accomplish this by selecting different difficulty levels, then there should be more than just two. For the game Amped 3, I think it is awesome that they put the availability of changing the attitude of the character, as I have played Amped 1 and 2 and love that game. However, I think they should have kept many of the mountains from the previous games and integrated them with the new snowboarding resorts in this game. They did that in the last 2 games and I enjoyed it. I do like how there is a story play, but I think that that should be optional as sometimes you just want to go down a certain mountain against your friends.

Chapters 17 & 18

I think that it is stupid that some writers think of video games as just applying to consoles that are played via the TV. Most video games that come out for consoles also come out for use on the computer as well. And on top of that, many and most video games that come out now use a connection to the internet to play against others online, so if anything video games are more like computer games. I think that the player control of the character in the game is very important. I personally think that this should include the ability to control the view of the character. I like to either be able to see the full body of the character or be able to see through the eyes of the character in first person, but the author of the book barely even touches on this subject.

Chapters 17 and 18

I'm so glad that we are finally done with all the case studies! I think that narrative multimedia seems like a lot of fun. But, I think that probably it is a lot harder to write a script for a narrative. There are so many different factors you have to take into consideration. And I also don't really see why simulations and worlds are not considered narratives. It also seems like it would be hard to present the exposition well in a narrative.