Nikki_00's blog

Now that we've all finished Cathy's Book, I think it is safe for me to say that I don't consider this book an Alternate Reality Game. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book - the mysterious forbidden romance was captivating [I know real girly]. Its a great book, but claiming Cathy's Book to be an ARG is a bit of a stretch. In my opinion, ARG's are supposed to magically break the barrier between fictional world and reality [not to the psycho extent of some people, as we discussed in class on Wednesday, but you know what I mean]. By definition, an ARG uses the real world as a platform; Cathy's Book however, lacks that. Sure one could say all those clip-bits, websites, and phone numbers are "real world," but get real. Those added props make the story more interesting, but personally I don't think its ARG material. It would have been more believable if the numbers in the book had to be called during a certain time period. For instance, 10:00 p.m ET, 9:00 p.m CT, or 7:00 p.m PT to get a certain message, other than the "normal" time [any other time excluding the times listed above] messages. Yes, that would have been more convincing.  read more »

Class discussion concerning Marie L. Ryan's concept of Internal and External Interactivity was intriguing. Most of the games we've played in this class have been internal, ontological games, for instance, Adventure, Zork, Doom, etc. These games not only allowed the player to interact within a virtual world, but also allowed the player's actions to dictate what would occur or not occur in the game - hence, these games are considered to be internal, ontological. However, I find that these labels/categories: internal interactivity, external interactivity, exploratory, and ontological lack depth. Most games can be internal or external, exploratory or ontological, and even sometimes a mix of both, but to what extent is not clear. For instance, the game Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PS2 goes beyond the typical label of internal interactivity. As I understand it, internal interactivity is when the player is 1. Playing as a character within the game, or 2. Somehow directly influencing the game play. In Metal Gear Solid 2, you are playing as Snake/Raiden therefore it is established that there is internal interactivity.  read more »

Marie-Laure Ryan's Avatars of Story presents to the reader some positions hostile to transmedial narratology. In my opinion, these positions are ridiculous. For one, she quotes Gerald Prince from his Dictionary of Narratology quoting: "A dramatic performance representing many fascinating events does not constitute a narrative, since these events, rather than being recounted, occur directly on stage." This is preposterous. From reading Chatman's Story and Discourse it is clear that a dramatic performance on stage can, and does in fact constitute a narrative, especially when one applies the ideas of story-time and discourse-time. Ryan suggests that Prince, Genette, and Chatman define narrative as "an act of storytelling addressed by a narrator to a narratee, or as the recounting by a narrator of a sequence of past events." Applying the previous definition to the dramatic performance, it can be seen as a narrative as such; for one, the performance is in story-time. Therefore within that story-time the performers are the narrators and the audience is the narratee.  read more »

Immersion as Janet Murray puts it is "a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool - the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus." I feel this definition of immersion truly captures what it means to be immersed in a game. It is for this reason I chose this definition to support my arguement that immersion and the fourth wall concepts are all subjective. As I mentioned in class the other day, text games such as Zork and Adventure depend on the user/player/interactor to have a previous experience with the content in the game. For example, [as we mentioned in class] in Adventure, we are exploring through a cave; if we didn't know what a cave was, then the game wouldn't be very immersive, rather it would be confusing. However, I don't think it is enough to know what something physically IS, to have a game be considered immersive.  read more »

This week’s discussion about magic circles was very interesting. For one, it was nice to see where each individual draws the line between what the magic circle encompasses, and what is left out of that circle. However, I don't think I was clear in my idea of what the magic circle includes [for me at least], therefore I will, with this blog entry attempt to clarify myself. A magic circle, in my opinion, is the line between the real world and the virtual world. In this case, the real world represents all the activities that are mundane; i.e.: chores, school, work, etc. The virtual world would be considered anything that takes your mind off these mundane activities; i.e.: video games, sports, music etc. Although these two worlds have different purposes and are separate, the magic circle envelops both the real world and the virtual world. The logic behind this idea is that, when we play a video game, Halo [a first person shooter] for example, you [the player] becomes that character - and is mentally removed from the real world.  read more »

Our class discussion on Friday about the documentary 'Helvetica' put us on a tangent about fonts and their innate attributes. I agree that the font Helvetica has a neutral undertone that it relies more on the content behind the font rather than the font type itself. However, the same can be argued or denied about other fonts as well. For example, in the attachment file, I have uploaded a random story typed in four different font types. The idea is that when reading the exact same story in different fonts you [the reader] create a distinctive setting for the story without really knowing the facts. I assume this is the case because of the association that drawn between the content of the text and the font itself. In reference to the attached file, example #1 gives the reader the impression that the war is set during the middle ages. Example #2, is assumed to be futuristic, a sort of star wars epic. Example #3 alludes to a sort of Persian or Middle Eastern war. Finally, example #4 could be assumed to be a made up story by some random person for a homework assignment. These four fonts have their own unique characteristics and personalities.  read more »

The discussion on meta-pictures and image texts on Friday was very interesting. Although we didn't get to talk much about the second example on the board (lower case A and capital a) I will share my two cents on the subject. First of all I think the main concept of a meta-picture/image is that upon seeing an image it activates a schema inside your brain that you have about that particular image. For example, if I saw a black object in the sky, with wings, a beak, and feathers I would immediately think "oh that’s a bird." My schema, which is a concept by with an object of knowledge, idea or image may be understood, about 'birds' [birds have feathers, beaks, wings etc.] would remind me that what I see is truly a bird. Similarly, with the example of lower case A and capital a, one's schema should reveal what the sentence is really saying. One may say its contradictory because an "A" written like this is not lower case, and the same with the capital "a." However, we read left to right, and if someone is asking for a lower case letter, then a capital letter (A), the order would give precedence to the lower case letter and vice e versa.  read more »

Characters, according to Chatman are anything that does 'stuff.' Therefore, the Cursor and the Stick figure in Animator vs. Animation are characters because of their very entertaining war. Both characters I would argue are complex and have their own personalities and characteristic traits. However, I find it hard to label the Stick figure as the protagonist of the story. According to the story, the Stick figure was labeled as the "victim" from the start, but considering the actions of the Cursor versus those of the Stick figure I find it hard to accept the Cursor as the antagonist. For instance, if the Cursor were truly the "evil" character he could have simply wiped off the Stick figure's head with the eraser, or simply not created him at all. Yet, as the story plays out, it seems more and more believable that the Stick figure turned on his creator rather than was created to be destroyed. This idea unfortunately conflicts with story space and discourse space. In story space the reader is expected to accept the labels of each character, but in discourse space, the reader is allowed to interpret the events of the story.  read more »

[sigh] Seymour Chatman, I would admit, seems like a very scholarly theologian, but for our reading purposes he can be hell (at least to me). Personally I think he goes on, and on about a topic and loses the reader’s attention. That is to say, he dives deep into one topic and literally loses the reader when he tries to get back to the main point. I mentioned in class on Wednesday that I was rather confused about his two possible dispositions of events. I'm sorry I can't recall who gave the example in class, but I am thankful for their input. This blog is basically to summarize what I think he means on pages 66-67. Hopefully it helps others who are also confused by this elaborate theory. When he is trying to describe the two types of story-strands the second 'type' gets confusing. The first sequence, as you all of you may have gotten, was the continuation of one story to another. [Story A starts -> Story A ends -> Story B Starts -> Story B ends etc]. The second sequence however, is somewhat like this (I think). [Story A starts -> Story A ends -> Return back to the beginning of Story A, -> Story B starts -> Story B ends -> both Story A and Story B ends at the same time].  read more »

As we discussed in class, it is evident that the video game Passage, is about life's journey. Well, to me the game was quite boring at first, until the wife died and I got mad. I thought she had died from me running into a wall, but after playing the game a second time I realized that, that was not the case. After reflecting on the game it was obvious that there was more to it than watching a poorly animated character run to the other side my the screen. To me Passage represents life and death. No matter what one does with his or her life, in the end you will die (gasp!). But before your time comes, we all have choices, as we do in real life. Your character can have a wife, explore to find treasures, and earn "life points". Depending on what you do your points will vary, and I think thats the message of Passage. I believe the point is not where you start or where you end, but what you do in-between. All in all, the game's moral was deeper and more clear than what really meets the eye (literally and figuratively).