An overview of the course "Digital Narrative Theory and Practice," required in the Video Game Scoring Minor & Visual Culture & Interactive Media Minor at Berklee College of Music. Lori Landay, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Cultural Studies.

1. LHUM P433 What Is Digital Narrative?Dr. Lori LandayFaculty, Video Game Scoring MinorBerklee College of Music

2. Digital narrative is storytelling that uses digital technologiesMODE OF PRODUCTIONTRANSMEDIAINTERACTIVE MEDIA

3. SOME THINGS DON’T CHANGEELEMENTS OF GOOD NARRATIVECHARACTERIDENTIFICATIONPLOTSTORY ARC—CONFLICT & RESOLUTIONTHEMES & SYMBOLIC MEANINGRELEVANCEOUR DESIRE TO ACT

4. MODE OF PRODUCTIONDIGITAL CAPTURE CREATIONMANIPULATIONEFFECTSCGIPROGRAMMING STORAGE NONLINEAR EDITING NETWORKED COLLABORATION DISTRIBUTION

5. TRANSMEDIA

6. INTERACTIVE MEDIA

7. Click: Interactive & Immersive Virtual Art

8. GAMES & PLAY: Theoretical Perspectives Roger Callois, Man, Play, and Games

9. PLAY = LUDIC PERSPECTIVE “The opposite of play isn’t work; it’s depression.” -- From Stuart Brown’s TED talk “We have to start making the real world more like a game.” -- From Jane McGonigal’s TED talk

10. Roger Callois’ Classification of Games Transformed into an Interactive 3d Model in a Virtual World Kind of Play/Categories of Games + Player Agency

11. Adding Player AGENCY to Caillois Machinima by Lori Landay

12. In Digital Narrative Theory & Practice, we consider video games from different perspectives, as: Play Production Technology Representation

13. PRODUCTION includes VIDEO GAME DESIGN PERSPECTIVE From "Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics" by Marc LeBlanc

14. TECHNOLOGY CONSIDER HARDWARE & SOFTWARE INTERFACE, DISSEMINATION, & PLATFORM MATTER CONSTRAINTS & LIMITATIONS SHAPE WHAT IS POSSIBLE IN A GAME, FORCE CREATIVITY

15. REPRESENTATION How do video games contribute to the human desire/need to create texts to make meaning about the world around them? What stories, images, situations, experiences, emotions, and subjectivities are constructed through games? How? What is the process of encoding & decoding meaning? What dominant, negotiated, and oppositional strategies of reading or viewing or playing are possible? How is meaning created through sound, images, movement?

16. Story vs Play Is a game narrative? How? When is it not? What difference does it make? (to video game composers?) What does the concept of “agency” add to our understanding of the subjective experience of playing a game? watching a film? designing a game? composing for a game? Is there a difference between narrative & plot? (yes)

17. Story & Play: LIMINAL “Betwixt and between” Similar functions in culture, in everyday life Remind ourselves of flow experience Maybe more illuminating to think of similarities from perspective of designers & composers than gamers? Why or why not?

18. Digital Narrative Theory & Practice