This week my main question was focused on Interactive Storytelling. I am still considering how animation and storytelling functions differently in interactive media and games as opposed to non-interactive animated media. In the back of my mind is the idea of the “Story Machine” (Schell, 2020) – that some games provide worlds and characters that are open to possibilities for how stories can be created through gameplay.
In “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”, Henry Jenkins sets out to bridge the gap between opposing views of strictly narratological and ludological views on game design. Jenkins proposes that game designers are “narrative architects” rather than storytellers.
• Immersive narrative storytelling:
• evoke pre-existing memories and associations
• provide staging ground where narrative events gets enacted
• may embed narrative information in the arrangement of scenery, props, etc,
• provide resources for emergent narratives
• enacted and embedded narratives:
• enacted - loosely structured narrative events that player encounters (like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that piece together to complete the main narrative),
• embedded narrative elements in the world “narratively impregnated mise en scene”)
• e.g. detective stories: Enacted - character acting and reacting to events. Embedded – backstory and mystery embedded in environment, objects, etc in the world.
Jenkins mentions the example of the Sims as an emergent narrative. Similar to the story machine explained by Schell, the Sims provide “an authoring environment within which players can define their own goals and write their own stories.”
Using these ideas put forth by Jenkins, I am considering how the world design can create the play space for a narrative experience. I set out to test ideas for how the game's story can be embedded in the world, as well as remain open to different possibilities for interaction.
The premise that I embarked with last week was a teenage dog who basically disobeys her owner/mum and possibly reverses the power relationship. I want to create an environment that has interactive potential for chaos and destruction. The environment could be one that is extremely ordered and organised, to amplify the concept of control. Towards this goal I made a diagram to brainstorm possibilities in the environment that shows an environment of strict control, as well as possibilities of interactions that could result in some fun destruction and chaos.
Reflections:
Considering the idea of an emergent narrative, I would like the potential to be there for a player to have other options for how this story might develop. The player could decide to merely be an agent of chaos, but they could also find other options and become a different kind of character. There might be some puzzles to solve in ways the elements of the laboratory can be used instead to mind-control the human owner. This might perhaps be the only way to progress and even discover more embedded narrative elements, like maybe there is some backstory to the human character that the rebellious dog is unaware of...
By Louis Fourie
Email Louis Fourie
Published On: 31/03/2022
