Ludonarrativity and player agency

When it comes to interactivity, detective plots in video games encounter an interesting barrier: the game must guide the player to a predetermined solution, since the narrative can’t continue without some sort of conclusion, but limit the player’s access to information to keep them in suspense. This study analyzes the intersection of story, setting, and gameplay: how do games use the reconstruction of a crime as a functioning, player-controlled narrative? How does the science fiction setting allow designers to use more interactive gameplay techniques? This study focuses on the analysis of narrative and gameplay techniques in Trauma Team (2010) and Detroit: Become Human (2018), specifically how the crossover of genres impacts a player’s ability to control the narrative rather than follow the typical linear problem-solving process of crime games. Using literary theory, flowcharts, and coding techniques as a basis for analysis, this paper examines a way to map narrative theory to gameplay techniques in crime games. Overall, analyzing these narrative nudging techniques will help designers better understand how to combine narratology and interactive story-building to design games that make players feel more in control of reconstructing narratives. Keywords: crime fiction, detective games, narratology, problem solving, puzzle, science fiction, storytelling, video gamesThesis (M.A.)Department of JournalismLiterature review -- Methods -- Case analysis of Trauma team -- Case analysis of Detroit : become human

GeoCamera: Telling Stories in Geographic Visualizations with Camera Movements

In geographic data videos, camera movements are frequently used and combined to present information from multiple perspectives. However, creating and editing camera movements requires significant time and professional skills. This work aims to lower the barrier of crafting diverse camera movements for geographic data videos. First, we analyze a corpus of 66 geographic data videos and derive a design space of camera movements with a dimension for geospatial targets and one for narrative purposes. Based on the design space, we propose a set of adaptive camera shots and further develop an interactive tool called GeoCamera. This interactive tool allows users to flexibly design camera movements for geographic visualizations. We verify the expressiveness of our tool through case studies and evaluate its usability with a user study. The participants find that the tool facilitates the design of camera movements.Comment: 15 pages. Published as a conference paper at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 202

The principles of database storytelling / remembering Bogle Chandler

Designers are increasingly creating interactive stories for use in diverse situations, such as online newspapers, galleries, museums and courtrooms. Although there is a large body of scholarship devoted to storytelling in video games, there is a lack of comparable research into the design of interactive narratives for other applications. This study applies Lev Manovich’s theory of database narrative to the practice of web-based interactive storytelling. The study incorporates the creation of an interactive website that utilises a database of audiovisual material to tell the story of the Bogle Chandler murders. Gilbert Bogle, a physicist, and Margaret Chandler, the wife of one of Bogle’s colleagues, were found dead on the banks of the Lane Cove River on New Year’s Day, 1963. The cause of their deaths has never been established and the case is still unsolved. The online project, Remembering Bogle Chandler, demonstrates the viability of a dialogue between new media theory and the practice of interactive storytelling. This is accompanied by a formal and technical document that systematically elucidates a theoretical framework of database narrative. This document looks at a range of interactive narratives, focussing on two case studies, Remembering Bogle Chandler and The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris. This practical and theoretical study results in the following conclusions about the aesthetic design of an interactive narrative. The designer may use metadata to create a narrative that is variable across multiple dimensions, including time, space, point-of-view, scale and theme. The designer may harness the user’s knowledge of a range of mechanical and classical HCI interfaces. The designer may create an audiovisual interface that simultaneously illustrates a narrative and allows the user to operate it. The designer may automate the functions of an interface to assist the user’s co-authoring of the work. Most significantly, the designer may create multiple versions of a story that the user assembles into a multi-faceted and complex understanding of the narrative

Narrative visualization with augmented reality

The following study addresses, from a design perspective, narrative visualization using augmented reality (AR) in real physical spaces, and specifically in spaces with no semantic relation with the represented data. We intend to identify the aspects augmented reality adds, as narrative possibilities, to data visualization. Particularly, we seek to identify the aspects augmented reality introduces regarding the three dimensions of narrative visualization—view, focus and sequence. For this purpose, we adopted a comparative analysis of a set of fifty case studies, specifically, narrative visualizations using augmented reality from a journalistic scope, where narrative is a key feature. Despite the strong explanatory character that characterizes the set of analyzed cases, which sometimes limits the user’s agency, there is a strong interactive factor. It was found that augmented reality can expand the narrative possibilities in the three dimensions mentioned—view, focus and sequence—but especially regarding visual strategies where simulation plays an essential role. As a visual strategy, simulation can provide the context for communication or be the object of communication itself, as a replica.publishe

Lights, camera, interaction! Interactive Film and its Transformative Potential.

This thesis concentrates on the emerging field of interactive film. Digital interactive and networked media offer so many possibilities to create stories that it is necessary to define what an interactive film is and whether there is any continuity with the linear film form. This thesis explores whether interactive narratives in the form of interactive film have the potential to offer a transformative learning experience regarding societal and political topics. Butterfly is an interactive short film that uses a second-screen technique to raise awareness of the dangers of cyberbullying. As a case study for a potential transformative experience, the film is described and evaluated by means of interactive screenings and a user experience study. Findings show there is definite potential for interactive films to create strong emotions in users and to possibly produce a transformative experience with educational implications. Keywords: Transformative design, Interactive Narrative Design, Interactive film, User Experience Evaluation

“through My Eyes”, A New Narrative Model Using Memories As Self And Intergenerational Discovery

What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? According to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, the director of a 75-year-old study on adult development, a good life isn’t about wealth or fame. Instead, effective social interactions keep us, especially older adults, happier and healthier. Narrative projects like the oral history and collective memory are widely employed to invite older adults to share their memories about historical significant events. Although there were modest benefits in reducing participants’ social isolation (Bornat 16), the approaches of these projects are limited to narrative analysis, rather than narrative itself. The tension between older adults’ knowledge of historical events and their untold life stories, remained largely unexplored. Based on the systematic literature review and three research probes, this study explores the difference between task-oriented talking and meaningful communication; and reveals older adults’ real needs in the process of aging: sharing life stories with loved ones. In considering the appropriate role for narrative in reshaping older adults’ self- image and rebuilding their family relationship, the purpose of this paper is to develop a new narrative model, which includes both verbal and visual narrative, to provide a better interactive experience to older participants. As the final design, the project “through my eyes”, which includes three chapters as recollection, revelation, and reflection, will be presented, and elaborated by an illustrative case study

“through My Eyes”, A New Narrative Model Using Memories As Self And Intergenerational Discovery

What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? According to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, the director of a 75-year-old study on adult development, a good life isn’t about wealth or fame. Instead, effective social interactions keep us, especially older adults, happier and healthier. Narrative projects like the oral history and collective memory are widely employed to invite older adults to share their memories about historical significant events. Although there were modest benefits in reducing participants’ social isolation (Bornat 16), the approaches of these projects are limited to narrative analysis, rather than narrative itself. The tension between older adults’ knowledge of historical events and their untold life stories, remained largely unexplored. Based on the systematic literature review and three research probes, this study explores the difference between task-oriented talking and meaningful communication; and reveals older adults’ real needs in the process of aging: sharing life stories with loved ones. In considering the appropriate role for narrative in reshaping older adults’ self- image and rebuilding their family relationship, the purpose of this paper is to develop a new narrative model, which includes both verbal and visual narrative, to provide a better interactive experience to older participants. As the final design, the project “through my eyes”, which includes three chapters as recollection, revelation, and reflection, will be presented, and elaborated by an illustrative case study

Advantage of Backwardness: The Effect of Industrialisation on European Modern Design Movement

To answer specific questions of modern design history, historical analysis is needed, alongside chronicles and narrative, to promote deeper understanding. This paper, with the assistance of advantage of backwardness theory and the method characterised by historical sociology, focuses on the social origin of European modern design against the background of the industrial revolution. It aims to understand the link between technological change and the rise of modern design in Europe. The study starts with an explanation of the progress of industrialisation within those countries that were closely related to European modern design movement, and then investigates how this process diversely impacted the emergence of modern design in Europe through a comparative analysis on the interactive connection between industrialisation (as a case of technological change in modern times) and European modern design movement (as a cultural and social consequence of the change). This study particularly clarifies why the subsequent industrial countries, instead of the early industrial countries, had dramatically obtained the advantage to fully develop the modern design movement in Europe. It concludes that, in terms of technological change, advantage of backwardness played an important part in the origin of European modern design

Affordances for learning in a non-linear narrative medium

A multimedia CD makes an impressive resource for the scholar-researcher, but students unfamiliar with the subject-matter may not always work so effectively with such a resource. Without any narrative structure, how does the novice cope? The paper describes how we are investigating the design features that 'afford' activities that generate learning: What are the design features that encourage students to practise the role of the scholar? What encourages them to explore, but also to reflect on their analysis of the data they find? What kind of learning takes place when students are allowed to explore at will? The paper goes on to compare the learning experiences of students using commercial CDs with those using material with contrasting designs, in an attempt to identify the design features that afford constructive learning activities. It concludes with an interpretation of the findings, comparing them with work in related educational media, and situating the findings in the context of a conversational framework for learning