Interaction Vs. Story
As I mentioned in class I had the thought yesterday that perhaps stories and interactivity are incompatible. That maybe we are trying to force it, maybe stories are inherently un-interactive. Now that of course would be blasphemous and make this course awkward, but let's look at it. In a sense what makes stories such a powerful and enduring medium is that the user/listener is passive to the active storyteller (be it a person, book, movie etc...) An incredible story completely enraptures you.
A quick example: I finally saw Toy Story three last night; the movie took me in and created a an experience. I laughed, I cried, and I marveled at Pixar's ability to reveal elegant truths through the use of story. All of this emotion and realization came from a masterfully constructed combination of storytelling, sound, and visuals.
So this leads me to the topic; is it actually possible to create a story as compelling as the one i just experienced if I was forced to make decisions? But free will and choice are always good things right? I'm not so sure when it comes to stories. When you must interact, that is make a decision on the conscious level you are immediately ripped from the visceral flow of the story. When you read an enthralling novel you first lose conscious awareness of the page turning, than the pages themselves seem to disappear. However in the format of a modern interactive sory such as a video game, the constant high level decision making ultimately pulls you out of the narrative and lessens it's effect on you. That is why I have seen plenty of people cry over movies, books, or theater, but not over videos games (well not for the same reasons).
However, I did re-read some of Jesse Schell's game design book and he did bring up some interesting emotions in chapter 2 that games can engender that maybe other formats can not, such as feelings of accomplishment, or of responsibility.
So computer or video games are not at a complete loss as a format for an interactive story. They can create some experiences and emotions in the user. However, the challenge than is, how do we make the action or decision making process in interactive stories become so non-demanding that it can become as unconscious as turning a page. Sorry the post got so long :) (bonus question: can we keep users from making bad stories and still call it interactive?)
Comments
In the way of making these choices non-demanding the method of asking and responding would have to be a way that never makes you take your eyes off of the screen. A potential way that i have thought of would be having a button for each hand that you could press for yes and no with very little thought and maybe even two foot buttons if the questions needed to be more complex. Another way would be to use something that can capture different brain patterns from a person and create a story based upon their reactions in that way. The only problem is that everyone makes bad decisions, I don't think anything will change that but I do believe that the film maker could be skilled enough to create a great story no matter the choice be it a completely different direction than the other choices it would be their job to make any story choice enjoyable even if it is a bad one. I think it would still be interactive to allow them to choose a story that could end badly but that is saved through very creative and out of the box writing.
In as far as the method of choice making for an interactive story we can already move beyond the need for button pushing as eye tracking and head tracking systems are already easily implemented, one would only have to look at something to make a choice. (Brain wave technology is a nice notion but still a long ways out).
What really needs to happen though is the disappearance of the awareness that you are in fact being forced to make a choice. It needs to feel so natural that the user does not feel any disconnection between the narrative and their experience.
It may be that the decision making peculiarity of interactive storytelling is indeed its richest quality.
As Ben mentions in his post regarding films, people gather in large theaters to watch films not just because it is economical but because it is for the masses on a mass scale. I understand that digital media, as the most popular form of media in the world currently, is mass market yet its interactivity is what makes it personal--it is at once both personal, in experience, and impersonal, in scale.
Perhaps we need to reconfigure the way we look at decisions in interactive stories not so much as barrier to immersion but the pathway to it.
Ben I have seen some of those devices before like the eMotiv and they are really cool! However, from what i've read they are not as "powerful" as their manufacturers make them out to be, you could definitely use it for a simple yes/no interface but anything beyond that and they loose effectiveness, still it's something definitely worth exploring!