17. 42 Entertainment
• “Anything with an electric current
running through it.
• A single story, a single gaming
experience, with no boundaries.
• A game that is life itself."
25. • “Database and narrative are natural
enemies.”
• Lev Manovich (2001)
• http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/AI_Society/manovich.html
26. DAVID MAMET
3 USES OF A KNIFE
• ‘Our survival mechanism orders the world
into cause-effect-conclusion.’
• art & drama = ‘the human capacity to order
the intolerable into meaning’
27. STORIES/storytelling are innate
and function as the cognitive
tool for organizing the world
into a coherent, meaningful
experience.
28. • Any meaningful negotiation of a database
(vs. random) is potentially a story
• either of what is found
• or of the experience of finding
• Digital environments are story-spaces
waiting to happen
• waiting for structure / design
50. THE EPIC
• HOW DO YOU CONTROL A NARRATIVE
OVER MULTIPLE DAYS TELLING?
• poet’s ‘word hoard’
• patterns, set pieces, echoes, allusions, short hand
notation
• spatial design
52. POETICS
LITERATURE
• THEMES
• PATTERNS
• IMAGES
• DOUBLES
• INVERSIONS
• TONE
53. POETICS
FILM
• MISE EN SCENE
• LIGHTING
• PACING/EDITING
• POINT OF VIEW
• DEEP STRUCTURE (MCKEE)
54. POETICS
DIGITAL MEDIA
• INTERFACE DESIGN (click vs. zoom....)
• TACTILITY
• AESTHETIC (cell phone, webcam, vs. HD)
• FUNCTIONALITY (ease vs. resistance)
63. PLOT
• HOW YOU TELL (delivery & genre):
• linear & non-linear plots
• in medias res
• causally connected i.e.:
• all events connected through cause and effect
• DISCOVERY & REVERSAL - SWITCHING
68. IMMERSION
= SATISFACTION
• ACTIVE CREATION OF STORY
• COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT OF
AUDIENCE
• ‘WE - THINK’ / COLLECTIVE
INTELLIGENCE PHENOMENON
69. story & plot =
USER experience
IN FILM:
1Premise - ‘idea that inspires the story’
the ‘what if?’ factor
2v.s. Controlling idea: ‘the story’s ultimate meaning
expressed through action & aesthetic emotion of the
last act’s climax’ (McKee)
70. in digital media
core of story = experience
• The controlling idea = the experience
• The centralbe the centralexpressed through the plot
should also experience experience that defines the
interactive experience
• ‘Pirates all the way down...’
73. AUDIENCE &
MCKEE’S PLOTS
• Archplot: Chinatown, Matrix, Star Wars...
• Miniplot: Blow Up, Short Cuts,
• Antiplot: Wayne’s World, Gerry
• BE AWARE OF YOUR STORY DESIGN
74. REVERSAL
& DISCOVERY
• the most powerful elements of
emotional interest in Tragedy are
Reversal and Discovery as these
elements change our understanding of
the story(s)
76. NON-LINEAR
PLOTS USE
• JUXTAPOSITION:
• MEANWHILE / FLASHBACKS
• REVERSALS & DISCOVERIES THAT
CHANGE WHAT WE KNOW
• RECONFIGURE AS NEW STORY
77. • ‘Of course my films have beginnings,
middles, and ends, just not necessarily
in that order.’
• Godard
78. CHARACTER
• DEFINED BY ACTIONS (GAMES)
• OUR CHOICES DEFINE WHO WE ARE, NOT
OUR THOUGHTS & OPINIONS
• CHARACTER IS THEN A FUNCTION OF THE
PLOT
• POV - AVATAR, FIRST-PERSON
82. SETTING
• SETTING - contemporary focus on ‘story
world’ (Tali Krakowsky, Alex McDowell)
• Henry Jenkins - Game design as narrative
architecture
• spatial narratives are exploratory by nature
• setting can mirror, contrast, foreshadow actions
& themes
83. Architecture
= Narrative
• spatial/architectural design creates and defines
opportunities for narrative direction.
• i.e. what is available in the space, the specifics of
place already encode expectations as to the
types of action we will encounter
• strip club vs. Court of King Arthur
• hospital vs. Star Trek but...Battlestar Gallactica?