Excerise 10(AT LAST)

In her paper "The Puppet Master Problem: Design for Real-World, Mission Based Gaming", Jane McGonigal suggests that "the success of the puppet master challenges our assumptions about the kinds of action and interaction that qualify as gameplay, reveal dramatic interpretation to be a viable game mechanic, and demonstrate the value of a dramaturgical perspective for pervasive game design." Discuss how these ideas could be applied to designing elements of narrative and gameplay in interactive media systems.

Let's take a look at the game I Love Bees, the game changes what traditionally makes a game a game. In games like "I Love Bees", the idea of the Puppet Master is one that "moves" the players under his control like a game piece, to where he wants and to do what he wants. However, is there any control by the players? If there isn't, how can they be playing a game, rather than being just part of the game?

I feel that powerplay is very similar to games that are highly narrative in nature, the puppet master gives a predefined path for the player to follow, but the player can interpret the narrative in any form he wants to. It's very similar to adventure games where puzzles/challenges are given to the players to overcome. In powerplay, the commands given by the puppet masters are similar to this, the players have to interpret it accurately to finish a mission.

This allows the players to immerse themselves totally into the game as now they not just controlling a character but IN the game itself. The puppet master have to design the commands such that the players interpret it the way it is supposed to be, and thus experience what the puppet master wants them to. However, if the players interpret it in another way, there is real-time feedback for the puppet master to either lead them back to the original path, or to follow along the path they walked if possible.

Does the player has free will in this powerplay? I would say yes. The player has to follow the instructions of the Puppet Master, otherwise he would not be able to follow up with the game, however he can follow it in any way he think it is right. Like the example of the "Go Game" in which players interpreted the instruction of "It's time to drop your pants and dance!" literally and dropped their pants and started dancing in the middle of a park. This gave the puppet masters a sense of loss of control as the players chose to interpret the commands in this way. Thus different interpretation can lead to vastly different experience in a same powerplay game.

Thus powerplay games shows us that games that allow the players to have as much free play as possible while being kept in a rigid structure allows for vastly different and interesting experiences. Also, a game should respond to the inputs by the players and changes it's predefined path. Powerplay games allow players to be in control of their own experiences yet still following the instructions of others thus becoming a part of the game instead of just playing the game.

I believe players want to feel part of the game, and not just play a game. A game in which their responses affect the responses of others and the game itself.

(Side Note: In fact, I believe this is one of the reason why MMORPGs are so popular nowadays as players can interact with each other, and in same, the game designers often add in new story lines that changes the landscapes of the game as the balance of evil gets better or weaker. It's like allowing the players to experience a life in another world.)

Exercise 9: Narrative Architecture

This is probably one of our hardest readings so far, so I'm pretty confused about what both of them is saying. :P

I have to first say that I disagree with the way Markku Eskelinen simply dismisses Henry Jenkins approach towards games being "spaces ripe with narrative possibility". Eskelinen says that Jenkins did not "define the contested concepts(narratives, stories, and games) so central to his argumentation", however I do feel that Jenkins did have his platform to start off when he started off talking about the points that he feel everyone can argee on, like "Not all games tell stories" , "Many games do have narrative aspirations."

I have to say I agree with Jenkins that games are filled with rich possibilities for narratives.
In my previous entry, I said, "I believe that it is because with computer-based games, one can let the player experience things that he cannot by just reading a book. This is with the clever use of graphics and sound to let the player be immersed in the story of the game."

All this affect the experience of the spectator in "constructing his fabula". Also as Jenkins said, "the experience of playing games can never be simply reduced to the experience of a story." This is due to the main factor of what makes a game a game, the gameplay itself. Thus I do not feel that Jenkins is " ignoring and downplaying the importance of these and other formal differences between games and narratives" as Eskelinen said.

The same goes for "reducing his comparative media studies into repetitive media studies: seeing, seeking, and finding stories, and nothing but stories, everywhere." What I feel Jenkins is doing is saying that games nowadays have evolved into adding in a big part of narrative element to attract more spectators who might feel more immersed into the game. This is shown when he group games with narrative elements into groups such as spatial stories and environmental storytelling, evocative spaces, enacting stories, embedded narratives and emergent narratives. This shows the great possibilities of games having narrative elements.

Exercise 8

Jesper Juul distinguishes between games of emergence, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield a large number of game variations, and games of progression, where a game presents the player with a series of puzzles or challenges which must be accomplished in a certain order. Discuss whether games of progression, which often attempt to combine a narrative structure with gameplay, are unique to computer-based games.

I think it's definately not true to say that progressive gameplay is unique to computer-based games. Even Jesper Juul himself says that "Progression is the historically newer structure that entered the computer game through the adventure genre." So what are the examples of the adventure genre in a non computer-based game?

An example would be those choose your adventure series that was first started by Edward Packard. In this adventure book we have what is now very common in many interactive gamebooks, some choices for us to make after reading a passage.
For example,

If you decide to go home, turn to page 21.

If you decide to wait for Jerry, turn to page 17.

This choices that we made, will slowly lead us along a storyline that we choose, and finally end up at an ending which may or may not be the desired ending.
While this kind of adventure books might have a lot of endings, there is generally one ending that is a lot better than all the others, and most of the endings are undesirable as they probably end up in the main character, you, dying or going mad.

However why were games of progression not so popular before the advent of the computer? I believe that it is because with computer-based games, one can let the player experience things that he cannot by just reading a book. This is with the clever use of graphics and sound to let the player be immersed in the story of the game.

For example the game that is arguably the most popular RPG "Final Fantasy 7". At it's time, the graphics and sound of the game blew away all other games. It's groundbreaking graphics and music together with it's compelling story charmed the hearts of the public so much so that even today, people are still clamoring for Squaresoft to remake it for the PS3.

This is probably the main reason why games of progressions are more popular as a computer-based game, as it appeals to those who just want to immerse themselves into a story more than what a book can give them.

Exercise 7

The game I am going to talk about is Suikoden 2, a console game on the PS2 machine. . The obvious tension between agency and narrative structure that exists in the game arises from the player’s inability to modify the global agency, as is the case with most role-playing games (RPGs). The game proceeds like a storybook. While you have the local agency to play around with, choosing to spend as much time as you want talking to all the non-playing characters (NPCS), fighting random encounters, at the end of the day the background story is not greatly influenced.

The general plot of the game starts from a revolt by corrupt power holder, following the main protagonist's exile from his/her home, the disastrous misuse of the True Runes, the hero's struggle, despite overwhelming odds, to bring peace to the land alongside his/her friends, and the climactic showdown with the corrupted True Rune. Even though there is technically 3 endings, the main flow of the story line is fixed.

However every player’s experience of it will be quite different depending on the path they took. If some try to get all the 108 stars of destiny, they would in a way experience more of the story plot in comparison to someone who just tries to end the game as soon as possible. Also many of the characters in the game have their own story, like one is being hunted by a group of cooks (!) and if you help him to finish the cooking contest then at the end his ending will be one at peace; otherwise he’ll still be hunted by the group of cooks.

I do not agree that narrative and interactive cannot co-exist. To me, a narrative with a roughly linear path, but with many side tracks that one can choose to explore or not is a good example of narrative and interactivity co-existing together. Furthermore, the ending can be changed slightly due to the interactions of the player with the game. A good narrative should be one that allows a reader to experience the narrative and feels like he is part of it, and if interaction is fostered, the player feels like he has a say in the telling of the story.

I guess the main point of argument would be whether having minute changes that does not really changes the global agency be considered as interaction or not. To me I feel that while the game play is pretty linear, there are so many things the player can do to change his experience of the game. Each run through he could find a new small story about any of the 108 stars of destiny if he search hard enough. To me, that is a good example of narrative through interactivity.

phew.. lucky blogger came back up..

Excercise 6

2. Consider the work you created for project 1. Is this work actually a game? Why/why not?

I would personally consider my group's project 1(Prince Charming) to be a game, as that was our aim all along. However is it a game as defined by experts such as Zimmerman?
Zimmerman defines a game to be a voluntary interactive activity. In our project, there is no forcing of anyone to participate in our game. If the audience refuse to participate, he could choose to follow the pre-determined path of Prince Charming, and treat it as watching a movie.

We have pretty well defined boundaries in that the players cannnot do what we do not allow them to do. However, within this rigid boundaries we allow the players via the usage of noise to shift the Prince Charming onto another path during the decision making frame. As Prince Charming is shifted onto a different path, we will actually see a different ending to the story. We do not set specific rules saying what the player can do, however we have a few decision nodes in the game for them to show their preference to the actions of Prince Charming. We even have 1 decision node that was not obviously shown to the players, hoping that if they laugh, they will see a hidden scene that does not really change the ending, kind of an Easter egg.

The clearly defined objective of our project is to save the princess from being killed by the witch. A player's decision should be based on the fact that he wants to save the princess and every decision should be made towards this goal. While it is not specifically said that the ending where the Princess becomes a skeleton is bad, we could hear in class when we saw her becoming a skeleton, the collective gasps of the class. Many decisions in our game seems innocuous at first, however the simple act of deciding whether Prince Charming sees a straw house first or a candy house first is game breaking, as without the candy, one can never save the princess. This gives some uncertainty to our project, as you do not really know what kind of effect your decision will have on the ending.

Thus finally I conclude that our project can thus be considered to be a game, albeit a very simple one.

more than just hypertexts!

Is there a difference between hypertext and interactive fiction?

Montfort point of contention is that in hypertext the reader does not "allows the reader to type and contribute text or provides the computer with the means to parse or understand natural language", and also it "does not maintain an intermediate, programmatic representation of the narrative world, as interactive fiction does."

While it might seem like a signicficant difference, i personally feel the difference is pretty small. While in a hypertext, the reader does not contribute text, he contributes the flow of the story by the links he clicks. Similarly, in an interactive fiction, the links are being provided by text.

Comparing both hypertexts and interactive fiction, their boundaries are already preset by the author, what the reader can explore is already defined and no amount of text/clicking will allows the reader to go in a totally off tangent from what the author originally planned.

Is "Carl" strip a cyber text?
I do not feel that "Carl" comic strip can be considered a cyber text. The story does not exactly change with each new click. The story remains roughly the same with just more details being added each time. Each "different" story could be alluded with the idea of just writing another paragraph for the reader to digest.


Let us review what's Crawford defination of interactivity
It is a process in which actors listen, think and then speak.

let's consider this from the audience point of view.
They are enjoying the play.(Listen)
Then they decide which scence they would like to see next.(Think)
Then they make their choice be known(Speak)

How about the play?
The audience make their preference known to the actors(Listen)
The actors follows the path of the tree to the next scence(Think?)
The play is carried on(Speak)

now notice the (Think?) for the actors
Is just following the tree structre to the next scence a process of thinking?
I personally feel that it cannot be considered so, as there is no real thinking on the spot, rather the reaction of the play has already been long ago decided by the author.

Text that are hyper!

15 years on and the impact hypertext on the world is nothing short of phenomenal. From the orignal use in academic insitutions, internet has branched out to many other ares like sports, games, news, personal websites. The internet is widely touted to be an interactive media, but to me i feel that most of internet usage is a one-way interactive media.

This is because i feel that while the media is somewhat interactive, information is generally transmitted one-way. An interactive medium should be a simultaneous engagement of different users, but the truth is that the Internet has many artificial limits set upon it so much so that it is for the most part a one-way medium. For example, in China, where net censorship is practised, many chinese are not given the full picture on issues.

Also I feel that the internet have increasingly become similar to any other media, in which information is broadcasted to us, rather than being an interactive media. I liken the clicking on each new link, bringing us to new data as being similar to the changing of channles on a cable tv.

However, even so, the internet is a wonderful invention. There is almost definately a topic on anything at all on the net, thus anyone can easily use the internet to search for the things they are researching on. However we will need to be aware that the information might not be accurate. This is because anyone who has access to the internet can write on any topic at all. Thus while making the internet accessible to everyone, we need the users to be responsible for them.