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.