The Implications of Interactivity?
Edit: I just noticed the blog post, "Who Is The Real Artist In Telematics?" It's very similar to mine, so I apologize for not noticing it until after I posted this. Sorry.
I was thinking about how interactivity will impact any sort of media that people will try to achieve, and I'm curious about what everyone thinks, considering that most of us are pursuing some sort of creation-oriented major [I think...]. Sorry if this is obvious, but...
The question I had was, "What are the consequences of relinquishing control of the direction of a story from the author to the audience?" After all, many stories are based around experiences or messages that the creators want to give to their audience. By giving control of the plot to the audience, wouldn't they lose the ability to convey their ideas? The plot, and to an extent the entire experience, ceases to become a product of the author and becomes the creation of its individual viewer.
This is obviously an extreme. We can't have completely interactivity [Unless people want to play Real Life, the game], so obviously every creation will have a twinge of the creator's personal touch. I'm just curious as to what, then, the creators of these media want to achieve. Obviously, since this is a class, we're all aiming for a good grade, but me being the naive idealist that I am, I'd like to hope that we can actually create something that we'd like. If we aim to create a message or a plot for our audience, though, we stifle interactivity by binding the audience to our ideas for the story. Is that okay? Should we attempt to abandon any sort of message and create an interactive experience for the audience? I'm curious as to where everyone finds the middle ground [The guidelines call for some sort of plot, after all].
Of course, I could be wrong and plot and interactivity might not be mutually exclusive at all. I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks about how our goal of interactivity will affect the various aspects of the 'creative process' [creative process being the ambiguous phrase a not-creative person will use to describe the process in which something is created].
Also, I have a couple of other questions.
1. I was wondering if it was okay for us to ask questions to other groups/on the blog about the project. Are groups allowed to talk with other groups to bounce ideas off of each other or something? For example, if I asked everyone 'How are you going about interactivity?' would I just get shot down by, 'We don't want people stealing our ideas.' responses?
2. Will I get in trouble for sarcastic/self-deprecating/childish tags?
I was thinking about how interactivity will impact any sort of media that people will try to achieve, and I'm curious about what everyone thinks, considering that most of us are pursuing some sort of creation-oriented major [I think...]. Sorry if this is obvious, but...
The question I had was, "What are the consequences of relinquishing control of the direction of a story from the author to the audience?" After all, many stories are based around experiences or messages that the creators want to give to their audience. By giving control of the plot to the audience, wouldn't they lose the ability to convey their ideas? The plot, and to an extent the entire experience, ceases to become a product of the author and becomes the creation of its individual viewer.
This is obviously an extreme. We can't have completely interactivity [Unless people want to play Real Life, the game], so obviously every creation will have a twinge of the creator's personal touch. I'm just curious as to what, then, the creators of these media want to achieve. Obviously, since this is a class, we're all aiming for a good grade, but me being the naive idealist that I am, I'd like to hope that we can actually create something that we'd like. If we aim to create a message or a plot for our audience, though, we stifle interactivity by binding the audience to our ideas for the story. Is that okay? Should we attempt to abandon any sort of message and create an interactive experience for the audience? I'm curious as to where everyone finds the middle ground [The guidelines call for some sort of plot, after all].
Of course, I could be wrong and plot and interactivity might not be mutually exclusive at all. I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks about how our goal of interactivity will affect the various aspects of the 'creative process' [creative process being the ambiguous phrase a not-creative person will use to describe the process in which something is created].
Also, I have a couple of other questions.
1. I was wondering if it was okay for us to ask questions to other groups/on the blog about the project. Are groups allowed to talk with other groups to bounce ideas off of each other or something? For example, if I asked everyone 'How are you going about interactivity?' would I just get shot down by, 'We don't want people stealing our ideas.' responses?
2. Will I get in trouble for sarcastic/self-deprecating/childish tags?
Comments
There's a game spin off from Sonic the Hedghehog which focuses on his rival Shadow the Hedgehog as the main character. In this game, you make choices towards the Hero side or the Dark side. But, with every one of the 3d sonic games, there is also a hidden "final" story to play through which, in this particular game, requires that you play through all possible story endings in the main storyline. By this, you get a taste of all the different stories, but the ending and message remain the same.
Setting a strong goal at the beginning can motivate the reader to explore and reach the desired end goal.
The questions you pose in this post are similar to the struggles we have had exploring our idea as an interactive story. I am excited to see how everyone attacks this problem.
Self Deprecating and childish comments are most easily included on our own private blogs :-)