Chatman speaks.
Many narratives have been expressed in both an interactive and non-interactive medium. In this case, I am going to talk about Dragonball Z the comic and Dragonball Budokai 3 the game.
Dragonball was originally a narrative expressed in a non-interactive medium(comic), however due to it's immense popularity, it has been transposed to an interactive medium(games). In Dragonball Budokai 3, there exist a mode called the Dragon Universe in which the player takes on a role-playing aspect and goes through the narative. While the player can go all around the world exploring, he has to fufill certain 'tasks' to advance to the next stage. By doing so, the story of Dragonball is told through many different eyes(characters).
I would say that the structure of the narrative remains intact as the story is not told differently, rather the player has a minor say in how things advance. This minor say expands on a second play through in which there are new things to test that were not avaliable in the first run. These new stuff changes the narrative slightly, however as we have already went through the original narrative, this feel more like the icing on the cake.
Seeing that interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user, yet there must be self-regulation for an interactive narrative such that it does not become 'ill-formed'. There seems to be a contradictory issue here as an interactive media cannot be self-regulating, as self-regulation would results in lesser possibilities of interaction between the medium and the reader/user.
Thus when we design interactive narrative, we have to take into account how much interactivity to allow the reader/user. We cannot allow the reader/user to destory something that is vital to the narrative, an example would be allowing Gandalf to take the ring and be consumed by it in Lord of the Rings. While allowing the reader/user to explore the different events in a seemingly random order, the interactive narrative have to be pusing the story towards a certain plotline.
Using the dragonball budokai 3 game again, which is played on the playstation 2 console, the 'peculiar nature' of this interactive media is that it is a game that have fights that works in 3 linear axis. Rather than having a 2d battlefield, the characters exchange blows in a 3d arena. Playstation 2 games have a unique occurance to them and that is the vibration of controllers. This occus when you get hit or when both characters execute a death-blow at the same time, thus to signify the rush of the battle.
Also as a game, it have very visually pleasing graphics, which when combined with the game mechnaics, it almost feel as though each battle is a story by itself. Depending on how the player controls the character, we can do punches, kicks, teleportations, deathmoves, powerup, storing of energy(ki), ultimate moves. It is as though we are watching an animation but also advicing the characters how to fight.
The characters voices also lend an urgency to the battles as though we are in the world as we can hear the sound of the characters grunting when they get hit or shouting when they are using their powers.
A game can specialise in the narrative effect of sight and sound and in this case to an extent, touch. We feel as though we are watching through the eyes of the character and fighting for our lives. The vibration on the controller tells us that we are getting hurt and must be more alert in the future.
Dragonball was originally a narrative expressed in a non-interactive medium(comic), however due to it's immense popularity, it has been transposed to an interactive medium(games). In Dragonball Budokai 3, there exist a mode called the Dragon Universe in which the player takes on a role-playing aspect and goes through the narative. While the player can go all around the world exploring, he has to fufill certain 'tasks' to advance to the next stage. By doing so, the story of Dragonball is told through many different eyes(characters).
I would say that the structure of the narrative remains intact as the story is not told differently, rather the player has a minor say in how things advance. This minor say expands on a second play through in which there are new things to test that were not avaliable in the first run. These new stuff changes the narrative slightly, however as we have already went through the original narrative, this feel more like the icing on the cake.
Seeing that interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user, yet there must be self-regulation for an interactive narrative such that it does not become 'ill-formed'. There seems to be a contradictory issue here as an interactive media cannot be self-regulating, as self-regulation would results in lesser possibilities of interaction between the medium and the reader/user.
Thus when we design interactive narrative, we have to take into account how much interactivity to allow the reader/user. We cannot allow the reader/user to destory something that is vital to the narrative, an example would be allowing Gandalf to take the ring and be consumed by it in Lord of the Rings. While allowing the reader/user to explore the different events in a seemingly random order, the interactive narrative have to be pusing the story towards a certain plotline.
Using the dragonball budokai 3 game again, which is played on the playstation 2 console, the 'peculiar nature' of this interactive media is that it is a game that have fights that works in 3 linear axis. Rather than having a 2d battlefield, the characters exchange blows in a 3d arena. Playstation 2 games have a unique occurance to them and that is the vibration of controllers. This occus when you get hit or when both characters execute a death-blow at the same time, thus to signify the rush of the battle.
Also as a game, it have very visually pleasing graphics, which when combined with the game mechnaics, it almost feel as though each battle is a story by itself. Depending on how the player controls the character, we can do punches, kicks, teleportations, deathmoves, powerup, storing of energy(ki), ultimate moves. It is as though we are watching an animation but also advicing the characters how to fight.
The characters voices also lend an urgency to the battles as though we are in the world as we can hear the sound of the characters grunting when they get hit or shouting when they are using their powers.
A game can specialise in the narrative effect of sight and sound and in this case to an extent, touch. We feel as though we are watching through the eyes of the character and fighting for our lives. The vibration on the controller tells us that we are getting hurt and must be more alert in the future.
posted by SkyfireX at 12:26 PM
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