Idea-Generating Exercises

Q1 - What traditional ritual have you participated in, or are aware of, that reminds you in some way of an interactive narrative? What is it about this ritual that you think is like a computerized interactive experience?

A1 - Christmas is almost always prepared in advance, basic narrative/process cook food, dress the tree/house, wear a posh frock, eat, drink, presents, watch TV, etc... This process has a tendency to follow the same script every year, with variations IE. different menu, guests, clothes - but the actual ritual remains the same. Computerized experience is in many way very similar one follows a preset (by the programmer) plot, however one can get to the same outcome using many combinations of links, methods etc...

Q2 - What game or sport have you played that you think could be adapted to a work of interactive entertainment? What would remain the same, what would have to be changed, and in what way?

A2 - When I was a child (not much has changed there) I used to play a ball game called squares, we would draw a big square on the ground which then would be divided in to four even squares, each square is one persons field. The game is quite simple one has to juggle the football within the designated field (small square) to another player without the ball touching the ground or hand touching, if the ball touched the ground in or out of the square the player is out of the game. Any game is essentially INTERACTIVE, I presume that, what this exercise refers to is digital entertainment. Assuming this is true, I believe that what would change is the type of interaction, should this game be converted in to a computer game the interaction would still heavily rely on skill of the player however it wouldn't be as physical (no fancy footwork), this would be replaced with skill and speed of using a computer input device (mouse, keyboard or joystick)

Q3 - What work of traditional storytelling (a novel, a play, a movie, or even a comic book) have you read or seen that contains a narrative technique that could be applied to a work of digital entertainment? What is this technique, and how could it be used?

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Q4 - Describe some ways that hypertext could be used to deepen the characterization of a fictional character?

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Q5 - Can you think of any work of traditional entertainment (poem, short story, novel, play, movie, TV show, etc.) that breaks the "fourth wall"? Describe how the fourth wall is broken in this work. Could the fourth wall be broken in a similar way in an interactive work? Why or why not?

A5 - Oliver Hardy in 'Laurel and Hardy' films, breaks the fourth wall by staring in to the camera and making facial expressions as if to say look what I've got to put up with, this is quite disjointed from the action in the film. Action in the movie halts and the viewer becomes aware that Oliver is starring at them and tries to communicate with them directly by addressing them.. This action appears to be totally unnoticed by other actors in the movie, but very noticeable by the audience. Can this be achieved in interactive/digital work? Good question. The longer I think about it the vaguer the answer becomes. Firstly I thought of the dreaded Microsoft Paper Clip application that definitely attempts to Break the Fourth Wall, by directly asking the user a personal question 'What do you want to do today?", or "Did you mean...?" etc... . This process could be improved by addressing the user by their User Name or First name based on the data entered at Log-On, ie ... "What do you want to do today Peter?" (as pointed out by Claire the answer below is not correct, above is the corrected answer) A good example of a traditional entertainment that breaks the 'fourth wall' is a TV sitcom 'Frasier' where the audience sat in front of the TV screen can see at all times what is happening inside of the 'Frasiers' apartment thru an imaginary wall, camera moves around the, what appears to be an city block apartment, always facing one of three walls, it never points towards where the fourth wall would normally be, towards the audience. With digital/interactive work this could be and has been achieved in very similar way if not even more successfully, 'SIMs' game is a good example of this, where the fourth wall quite literally disappears in front of the player as one navigates around the environment. It's more successful because user can choose which wall becomes the fourth wall, as the navigation is three dimensional one could choose to see the stage (game plan) thru the roof, should one choose to.