Wk2, Q2: The implications of control on self-regulation

The author can take his or her time in providing links between existents in non-interactive media (think a detective thriller where the author begins by describing a character that’s totally irrelevant to the plot, only to reveal that the character is actually the real murderer). However, in interactive media, the control that ‘readers’ have over the sequence in viewing the existents might result in them overlooking the crucial moment when existents are linked together and thus causing them to term the existents as being ill-formed.

In terms of designing interactive media, it is thus important to ensure that ‘readers’ all have to go through the various ‘checkpoints’ in order to ensure the all critical existents are linked together. That’s why when we play games transposed from books or movies, there are always the bits of video sequences where you do not get any control over except for tapping on the ‘esc’ key (which would be your own fault if you do not find that the existents linked together).