Blog Exercise 2

1) I must admit that I play little narrative games. A narrative that has been expressed in both an interactive and a non-interactive medium that I can think of is the Harry Potter game and the Harry Potter book series. In this example, the transposition to interactive media has not changed the original narrative much as most of the parts that involves user's interaction are the Hogwart games, such as Quidditch, chess games, etc... Thus, winning or losing the game does not really affect the kernels of the story much. However, certain rules are imposed to guide the player to the right track and keep the structure of the narrative intact by requiring the player to pass certain test before he/she is allowed to proceed to higher levels of the game.

However, in my opinion, not every narrative can remain intact after undergoing transposition to/from interactive media. The medium that Chatman quotes from Claude Bremond seems to be non-interactive medias. Transposition from a non-interactive media to an interactive media might change the structure of the narrative as part of the deciding factors of the denoument of the narrative now lies in the hands of the user. Thus, narrative might not necessarily be "independent of any medium. " Moreover, narrative comprises the story as well as the discourse. Can the way of telling the story remains the same in different medium? Is the discourse still the same if the narrative is told through the novel, radio or movie? Wouldn't the approaches used be different in different media, thus, producing different effects on the audience?


2) As interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user, it is not easy for the interactive narrative to achieve self-regulation. If the designer insists on following the self-regulation theory by obliging the user to move towards the pre-determined conclusion and prohibiting other moves that may lead to a totally different conclusion, then, the interactivity of the interactive narrative is questionable. These will restrict the user's choices and does not allow much interactivity. On the other hand, if too much choices and control were put in the hands of the user, then, there will be many conclusions and self-regulation cannot be achieved. In addition, the user might just purposely choose all the wrong moves that will lead to an incomprehensible groups of incoherent events, resulting in an ill-informed narrative. In that case, designing an interactive narrative that allows adequate control on the part of the user and yet still retain coherence and interest, as well as the kernel of the narrative is important. Perhaps, the designer could make many different sensible and interesting conclusions based on the steps taken by the users instead of restricting to just one conclusion. In this way, the interactive narrative will be more engaging as the conclusion becomes unpredictable.

If the designer insists on following the original conclusion, then perhaps the designer can allow the user more choices by inserting more satellites events which will still lead back to the same conclusion. Although the user chooses the other path, ultimately, having gone through a set of rather different events, the user still reaches the same conclusion. Or perhaps something which attract the user to choose the right path can be done. Or maybe the player has to pass certain tests in order to proceed to the next levels.

1st Blog Exercise

The movie "Memento" is an interesting one. The movie follows an unusual plot: the whole movie follows a backward chronological order, using flashback all the time, until finally it reaches the reasons and causes for all the events. It began with the murder, and then followed by all the flashbacks, which was meant to explain the whole story, thus, keeping the audience in suspence. It requires the audience to play a more active role by forming hypothesis of the incidences.

However, towards the end of the movie, I felt that there seems to be too many repetitive flashbacks, which might make the stories a little confusing in its attempt to make the scenario clearer. The denouement of the movie seems to left the conclusion to the audiences, which may seems to give a choice to the audience to choose their preferred conclusion. Different viewers perceived the conclusion differently. Some may perceive that Leonard is Sammy Jankins whereas some may think that Sammy Jankins is real. Is the murderer of Leonard's wife Leonard's imaginary creation? From my point of view, I feel that an ending should be more definite, thus, giving a clearer picture of the whole story. If not, what is the point of watching the whole story, and yet, unsure of the ending.

As for Lev Manovich's proposal of 5 principles of new media, they provides explanations and the concepts of new media. There seems to be much similarities between new media and interactive media. The differences might lie in the degree of interactivity. The five principles open up the dimensions as well as providing a general guidelines for narrative and play within interactive media.Within a boundary, the automation, variability, and transcoding opens up the possibilities of a multitude forms of narrative and play.

As for Crawford's conversational definition of interactivity, I feel that it is very restrictive, but not too restrictive. But in this case, it's good to be restrictive as it illuminates the definition of 'interactivity', which has become a buzz word with a vague definition. Setting restrictions on the use of the word will provide the foundation to explore the word and its accompanying issues further. If not, we will always be stuck in the vague definition and further porgress to explore and discuss the word cannot be made.

However, there is also a danger in doing this. Setting restrictions might impose a new definition to the word, thus raising the possibility of a new meaning which might differ from its original intention.

Although I don't really find the movie finale good enough, however, I really enjoyed the movie on the whole. I would say it's worthy of watching.

Regards,
Pooi Yean