From: Orion Smith <orion@2b1.org>

 

I've looked at two examples that I feel illustrate good and bad points

of interactive narrative. Of course, I have yet to embark on my own

narrative so I feel a little awkward making comments on others work. but

here it goes any ways:

 

Bad - Aseem Agarwala - The Party

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This isn't really a bad layout. It's just that it doesn't really stand

out. My first complaint is the context. An interactive story should be

engaging in terms of content, not only interactivity. Aseem's story have

a nice little Java applet that lets you easily navigate through the

different scenes. However, this is worth very little when the scenes

themselves are boring. The dialogue and action are merely frat-boy

chatter and play like a bad after school special on the dangers of drinking.

The different areas are fun, but I feel that this story suffers from a

problem that many of the archived stories suffer from: time problems.

The specific problem that "The Party" has is that it falls into the

hour-by-hour-action trap. Much of the action here could have taken place

within 1 hour but instead takes place over four.

For instance, in the main room at 11pm

(http://web.mit.edu/21w765j/Spring98/p2/final2/agarwala/l4t11.html)

Todd's ex-girlfriend walks in. Then, at midnight in Todd's room

(http://web.mit.edu/21w765j/Spring98/p2/final2/agarwala/l0t0.html) Todd

laments on how angry he is that she showed up.

My solution for this problem would be to either make the time segments

smaller or make the actions fit the time gaps better.

It's problems like these that make me wary of using free flowing time in

my story as I feel that linear time is something humans take for granted

and a story that uses linear time will be enjoyed more. Almost all the

stories that use free-time use it as a novelty, and it doesn't serve a

true purpose to the narrative.

 

Good - Philip Tan - Doorboards

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This is a very good project because it is so very simple. It focuses

only on Jack, Jon, Kat and Carrie, well just their doorboards in fact. The first good

thing about this story is the medium. The doorboards are not only a great stage

for college life but are easily brought into the digital realm as well. The

story only uses 4 characters and 3 boards so there is minimal confusion and high interaction.

The characters are nicely separated by their own personal whiteboards and handwriting.

The best thing about Doorboards is the navigation. All the user has to do is to

click on each character's board and then move on to a future date and repeat.

There is no gigantic time map to confuse the reader and Tan took away the

ability to go backwards, which works very well.

The only thing I would have changed is to add a quick little disclaimer before

the first page. It would show the navigation bar and tell the viewer that this

story only moves forward through time so be sure to explore each day thoroughly

for the best experience.