Wk 10: Grand Finale - Dramaturgs in Pervasive Play

In order to create the sense of performance, one needs to create the thrill of being watched. Without an audience, the interaction between the player and the viewer is lost. In IMS, platforms where audience can watch others ‘perform’ include MMORPG & simulations like Second Life. Another characteristic of pervasive games is the strong sense of community identity. Users of these IMS platforms are also characterized by a great sense of community (i.e. players who ‘mourn’ for death of a World of Warcraft player by gathering at his favourite haunt) thus making it a good match.

The advantage of IMS is the greater manipulability than real-life environments which provide authors with greater room for imagination and creation. This is effective for enhancing the narrative because it allows the author to make use of the space to tell the story. Injecting a strong narrative into the game can also increase the sense of immersion of the gamer.

However, the narrative in this case would have to be realistic and tangible, meaning that grand quests to save their beloved princesses are a no-no. Something that players can relate to reality i.e. alien watching, matrix explorations would be more tangible. In other words, the narrative has to connect to reality and this can be enahnced by out-of-game-world applications like blogs, emails and even internet telephony.

The narrative should also not be too prescriptive and left slightly ambiguous to allow for interpretation bythe player. This is easily achievable and perhaps possible to make more interesting in IMS where clues can be given in ways otherwise restricted in a realistic environment.

'Dramaturgs' should constantly monitor the feedback from the participants such that the design of the game is within the zone of proximal expectation. Players like a sense of unexpectability but if it were too unexpectable, players might not feel the sense of self-efficacy as when it were just one or two notches above their expectations. By keeping it so, players will be able to feel that their expectations (in the form of the guesses) are within the ballpark but there is still a sense of unexpectability that will keep them motivated to think of more possibilities and thus forward the game. This principle can also be integrated with the crafting of the narrative.

Also, it is important to ensure that whatever players do in the games, it has to be convention-breaking, which is the thrill that players seek. In a game like World of Warcraft this could take the form of a demonstration to protect the monsters and prevent their mindless slaying. This will create the same kind of desire to be surprised that gets players involved in real-life pervasive games experience.

Q9: Who is right? Eskelinen or Jenkins?

Personally, I feel that Eskelinen may have interpreted Jenkins’ intentions inaccurately because it is clear that he downplays neither the importance of sjuzet and fabula nor that of the distinction between games and narratives. In fact, his description of embedded narratives, Jenkins describes how the use of the game-specific element of freedom of exploration within a defined space can be employed towards the discovery of the sjuzet leading to the construction of the fabula.

Eskelinen, however, has a valid point in suggesting that ludology should not be centred entirely around narratives because gameplayers do not play games solely for the sake of narratives. Personally, I prefer racing games for the bite-sized pieces of action that give me that bit of an emotional ‘high’ within a short period of time so that my life does not get too disrupted by the game that I have little time for anything else (like writing this blog entry).

Perhaps, this also explains the proliferation of flash game websites featuring short games with relatively simple gameplay. The emphasis of these games is in the attraction offered by the process of the gameplay and in no way would be able to sustain the attention of gamers for more than a short while, which might just suit the interests of the players of these games (think office workers).

Despite these claims, it is still hard to disregard the importance of narratives in games because if we look merely at game types, there aren’t exactly too many genres that we can choose from. What drives gamers to purchase Half-life and Counter-strike and even though they already own half a dozen FPS games is more than just the slight variations in the gameplay itself. What attracts them to the new games is the different narrative that provides the framework for the new game. When the same type of gameplay is framed by different narratives, they take on different meanings and it is this new type of meaning that some gamers seek. In a way, it is much like Commedia Dell’arte players who are highly familiar with the gameplay but continue to play for the sake of seeking different narratives.

To sum it all up, it may not be too bad a thing that ludology is taking leaves out of narrative theory books at this early stage of its development. Just as game designers who make use of cut-scenes to tell their story have not fully realized the full potential of spatial exploration in story-telling, ludologists may not have sufficiently developed their ideas and concepts to make a complete break from the established theories of the narrative scholars. Narrative theories would thus provide a good basis from which ludology can grow and progress.

Q8: Are games of progression purely computer-based?

In my opinion, narratives and games of progression are a match made in heaven, considering the fact that narratives achieve the best effects when revealed in the manner intended by the author, which goes down very well with the stage by stage revelation in games of progression. To turn such a combination into a non-computer game would also not be much difficulty since non-computer games offer greater flexibility in terms of stimulus and response. As an example, just think of project 1 by Achu & co. except that it’s modified such that each piece of evidence is revealed in a stage-by-stage manner upon completion of a certain challenge i.e. solving an anagram, piecing torn pieces of paper to form a letter etc. by the player at each stage.

The reason why it is hard to name a non computer-based version of such a game is that games of such kinds can be informal in nature and may take many forms such that there is no standardised way of playing or a standard narrative used to give the game the form of prominence that can earn it a name or even a genre that it can call its own. There are others, however, that have managed to circumvent these limitations, which we shall find out below.

Interactive fiction of the Choose Your Own Adventure kind is a good example of such a combination. These textual adventures have a strong sense of structure, such that they would pass the ‘walkthrough’ test with flying colours. Structurally, they resemble text adventures of the likes of Zork & Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, although books do not allow for a word-parsing component. The challenge in such adventures is to select the right options that will lead to a progression towards the desired ending. Choosing a wrong option will lead to less desirable endings, which can be constituted as a ‘lose’ state in terms of quantifiable outcomes. With much of the control maintained by the author, the adventures maintain a well-formed narrative arch regardless of its endings. Recently, DVD editions of the series have also been released, thus providing another example of a non-computer game of progression.

Despite the rigidity and specificity of the rules in such progression games, there seems to exist, possibilities still, for the development of emergent behaviours. Readers can choose to ignore the rules and read through the entire narrative thus moving in a direction not prescribed by the author. In this sense, the rules do not have full regulation on the player and points out the fact that emergence is an aspect that is hard to avoid in games because there are always game players who seek a varied experience. That probably explains why cheat codes, trainers and walkthroughs (sometimes provided by game developers themselves) exist as forms of meta-emergence even for the purest examples of computer-based games of progression.

Q7: Are agency and narative structure mutually exclusive?

If we look beyond computer games, there are definitely examples of games that manage to integrate agency and narrative structure seamlessly. My example would be theatrical improvisational games where actors are given a specific situations to improvise dramatic plots.

In improvisational games, the plot unfolds according to the input of the players, giving them both local (reaction from other players is immediate) and global agency (players determine how the plot progresses and concludes). In improvisational games, the interaction between players often results in strong cause and effect relationships and plots that are complex beyond the imagination of the directors, both of which are characteristic of narratives.

Moving back to CGs, I guess, the issue of whether they will be able to integrate narrative structure and agency is really a technological one. Why I say this is because in order to simulate the seamless integration of narrative structure and agency in improvisational games, computers need to be able to simulate human-like thinking and responding (much like that in improvisational games) such that the games will be able to interact with the user’s inputs to create a narrative. To do so would require immense processing power from the computers.

In fact, CGs like Façades and Last Express have already made such attempts at integrating agency and narrative in gameplay. Façades emulates a soap opera with characters which respond to player inputs whilst maintaining a well-formed dramatic arch to provide both formal and material affordances to the player. The Last Express is a detective adventure set on the Orient Express and provides up to 30 endings in response to the player’s actions in the game.

However, due to the nature of their design, both games are relatively memory intensive – The Last Express takes up 1.8GB (which, in 1997, was quite a huge file size) to provide 39 minutes of gameplay whilst Façades takes up to 1 minute (or even longer, as we experienced in class) to load up before the game can be run.

Façades, in particular, parallels the work of cognitive scientists who simulate the workings of the brain in neural network models such that computers can behave in a human-like fashion. This points to the possibility that one day, computers will be able to simulate the dynamic workings of the human brain and generate responses similar to that in theatrical improvisational games.

Therefore, it seems possible to integrate narrative structure with agency in computer games, although it might take some time and lots of processing power for computers to truly ‘think’ like humans.

Wk 8 Q1: What is Interactive Entertainment (IE)?

Costikyan basically shoots himself in the foot by making such a sweeping statement, especially when he provides the very examples that refute his statement in the same chapter itself. The examples of MUDs, RPGs and simulations like SimCity have been described as lacking in terms of explicit goals inherent in the design itself and so despite his use of the term ‘games’ to describe them, these applications do not qualify as games per se. However, that does not stop us from classifying these applications as being an IE, from which entertainment is derived from the act of interaction in these applications itself.

A very good example of another form of an IE that would not qualify as a game would be that off the simulation Sims 2, which is interaction personified. Sims 2 can be seen as a multi-function entertainment suite which allows players to play the role of plastic surgeon, costume designer, architect, town planner and most importantly, live the lives of their character in whatever way they choose to. Like SimCity, the simulation features no explicit goals and thus no victory condition, and cannot be considered a game under Costikyan’s definition, but it would be hard to question the entertainment value of the game.

Costikyan claims that it is not possible for IEs to eschew the sense of struggle characteristic of games, but if one were to look at the performance genre of improvisational comedy (think Whose Line is it Anyway?), it might not necessary be the case. It is definitely no struggle for the audience members to come up with keywords (for use by the performers in their improvisation) in the process of being entertained. The struggling is left entirely to the performers while the audience members sit back and enjoy how the performers struggle to include their input in the performance. Costikyan specified that the struggling has to be on the part of the user’s experience which clearly is not the case in this example, thus allowing us to qualify it as a piece of non-game interactive entertainment.

From what has been suggested thus far, the definition of IE definitely extends beyond the games genre and where Costikyan has failed is to provide a definition of entertainment to provide a frame for his definition of IE. This allows for the expansion of the scope to include any form of interaction that provides a generally enjoyable experience to the interacting agent, thus refuting his claims.

Wk 5, Q1. Difference between hypertext and interactive fiction

Q1. Difference between hypertext and interactive fiction

The opportunity for readers to contribute text to the narrative in interactive fiction might be seen as a somewhat superficial distinction from hypertext because most times, these contributions do not really affect the revelation of the narrative although it does provide the possibility for a differentiated user experience. When one contributes a command that cannot be processed within the limits of the system, the system restricts the progression of the reader until a recognizable input is entered. Thus, the interactive fiction would probably qualify as a more complex version of the hypertext in terms of the possible options that it provides. If one were to think of both forms as a network consisting of nodes which represent the opportunities to make a choice, nodes in the interactive fiction would appear as having more possible options as compared to the hypertext. In that sense, the author of an interactive fiction might thus have to generate more possible narratives to provide the user with this sense of control over the unfolding of the narrative. Basically, I would see both forms as similar forms of narratives revealed in a non-linear fashion which differ in terms of perception of control on the part of the reader and complexity structure. In saying so, I am not suggesting that one form is greater than the other in the two aspects because these variables can be adjusted according to the intentions of the author and hypertexts may be designed to present greater control to the reader and complexity of structure in the narrative than a piece of interactive fiction. 

Q2. Is "Carl" a cybertext?

What I interpret of Arrseth’s interpretation of a ‘non-trivial effort to traverse the text’ would be that of a risk-taking endeavour on the part of the reader. This effort would entail taking risks on the part of the reader that he or she might be rejected in the process of imposing their own interpretation on the text. In McCloud’s ‘Carl’ comic strip, the possibilities are planned out in advance by the author and in traversing this multicursal labyrinth, there is no risk involved in the part of the reader because every path that the reader chooses to take is straightforward and coherent and the reader should expect no obstruction except when they come to the end of the narrative. In fact, the metaphor of a labyrinth might not be that fitting a description for the structure of the ‘Carl’ comics because it entails unexpected twists and turns shrouded in an air of enigma while the arms of each variation of the comic seem more linear in nature. Perhaps a more fitting metaphor would be that of a map of a mass transit system.

Q3. Is 'The Tree Theatre' interactive media?

By Crawford’s strict definition, “The Tree Theatre” cannot be considered as a form of interactive media because at the point of interaction, there could be no thought process going on in the minds of the audience as they view the presentation. At the point where the audience makes a choice, one might just act according to one’s whims and fancies and not consider the plot that has unfolded thus far since both possibilities are equally plausible. Also, on the part of the performers, the thought process that they go through might simply be that of recalling the actual sequence of events. I personally feel that a thought process should not merely be a memory process but more of a reflection on the input from the audience and then giving it a good think through before coming up with an appropriate response to the input (but one can generally argue that the actors, based on the selection by the audience, might be able to gauge the preferences of the audience and modify their execution of the scenes such that it panders to their liking).

In short, “The Tree Theatre” might simply be a slightly more complex form of Crawford’s fridge, but then, one should always question if there is a need to employ such a strict definition in deciding what constitutes interactive media. Personally, I feel that “The Tree Theatre” can be considered a form of interactive media because it surpasses the level of interactivity that can be expected of conventional theatrical forms which do not involve audiences as much in their performances.

Wk 4, Q1: Impact of hypertext on the world

Reporting live from Changi Airport Terminal 2 Arrival Hall, in the thick of the action at the IMF-World Bank Boards of Governors Meeting, we reflect on the impact that hypertexts have had on the world.

Briefly speaking, there's probably more of a penchant towards instant gratification probably due to the fact that at the click of a mouse we are brought to a whole new chunk of text. Gone are the days when one takes joy in spending time in the library looking through the catalogue to locate books that would interest one and then proceed to the storage location to be greeted with the satisfaction of finding the book of one's desire. Nowadays, I find myself researching solely based on the internet and oftentimes when I can't find a reference in an electronic format, I would probably ignore it unless it is entirely essential to my research. This might also have had an effect on the times people choose to work in a way that since the information is available online 24 hours a day, people might tend to gravitate towards working later into the nights, but this would probably be seen as more of an impact of the internet than the hypertext.

In another sense, people are probably less focused in their thought processes since they impulsively jump from one section to another as and when they see a link that interests them. It might also have an impact on the writer's part in organizing their thoughts since hypertext allows for greater segregation amongst the individual components of the text. They might thus spend less time trying to write in a continuous, coherent sense. This might be reflected in a greater focus on individuality in the society since hypertext places such a great emphasis on personal choice and how the use of hypertexts emphasise the importance of individual elements rather than the composition of the whole.

This loss of emphasis in organization can be seen in the concept of searching for your mail espoused by Gmail whereby people are no longer encouraged to organize their mail in folders according to the origins of the mail. In a way, the search bar in Gmail might be seen as one master hypertext which will link one to any mails which contain the keywords that the user types in.