Elizabeth Swensen

On Monday I attended an all-day game writing tutorial taught by Evan Skolnick (Vicarious Vision). While I was familiar with the more traditional models presented (Three Act Structure, the Monomyth), I was impressed by the discussion of exposition and the inclusion of group exercises and debate in such a large setting.

Over the lunch break, Mr. Skolnick put the first Terminator film on the projector to emphasize one of his points about gradual delivery of exposition. I never realized that it takes 46 minutes to tell the audience the basic premise (At minute 46, Reese tells Sarah Connor (and the audience) that he is from the future and that she is the future mother of John Connor). Food for thought.

Anyway, I would recommend this tutorial to beginning game writers interested in learning about narrative structure through literary and cinematic models. (It seems as though this is a tutorial they try to hold each year. It certainly filled up this time around!)

Later I checked out the expo hall. It had the feel of one of those 6 hour set changes that you find in big repertory theaters- everything was under construction, people were rushing around, loading equipment, and it seemed vaguely of plastic and plywood. I can’t wait to go back when it is all completed.

Here’s a picture Daniel took of the Kid the World Saver booth: http://twitpic.com/2fknn

All the IGF finalists are together near the Nintendo display. Come visit us!

Ken Burkes on Makeuseof.com covers three free ways to collaborate visually online in Work with others without tearing out your hair.

Mr. Burkes himself has a very anti-collaborative tone, but the products he discusses are genuinely useful with varying levels of simplicity and functionality (from online white boards to more complex visual/audio sharing and organizational systems). He discuses the features of Scriblink, Twiddla, and (my personal favorite) Vyew.

While these have creative applications, they are generally marketed for business use. More creativity-focused (or play-focused) projects that also allow users to share or collaborate with their art include:

Roxik Pictaps
Users' simple paint creations are made to dance.

Odopol.com
A drawing tool with a unique aesthetic where one can view random users' sketches and how they were made temporally.

Webcanvas
The self-proclaimed largest online graffiti wall.

There are several relatively recent efforts to make broadcast, print and online news more interactive.

InteractiveTV Today covers the BBC:

–Corporation Unveils its Interactive TV Plans for the Olympics
–Round-Up of Recently Launched or Announced BBC Red-Button Apps
–BBC Three Invites Viewers to Help Create User-Generated Zombie Movie
–BBC Three Unveils Interactive Plans for “Spooks: Code 9″
–Extensive Broadband Video Planned for “Britain From Above”

Cnn.com's Electoral Map Calculator allows users to build their own election results. ...Though why they have options to paint the entire map red or blue is somewhat beyond me. Granted, the whole thing can be seen as political wish fulfillment, but still, do they need to be so blatant?

Techdirt talks about how newspapers are trying to cope:

"For quite some time, we've been pointing out that newspapers that are struggling to figure out how to survive on the internet need to get past the idea that they're delivering a final product, "news," and that's it. Internet savvy folks see themselves as a larger part of the news process -- whether it means contributing to the story or spreading the story. Unfortunately, too many newspapers seem to think that "interactivity" just means adding comments to the stories they've posted on the web. But that doesn't actually engage an audience and bring them into the process."

The article goes on to talk about how some newsgroups are being more imaginative, specifically the Chicago Tribune's use of Twitter.

From Ted.com:
"Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library -- every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history ... It's all free to the public -- unless someone else gets to it first."

Kahle covers user resistance to reading digital books as well as possible solutions to the most common complaints. More than anything else, this talk is about the feasibility of a complete digital library project including- mobile, book-printing buses, copyright protection, logistics, interface possibilities, and classical analogies. What more could you want?

http://www.archive.org/index.php

On October 6, the Institute for the Future is introducing its first MMFG (Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game), Superstruct.

The year is 2019. The Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has just predicted that the human race will become extinct by 2042. The culminating factors that the system identifies as 'superthreats' are declining global response to pandemics (Quarantine), struggling food systems and resource distribution (Ravenous), competing, disruptive, or inefficient energy sources (Power Struggle), increasing cybercrime and decreasing civil rights (Outlaw Planet), and growing populations of refugees fleeing climate change, war, and poverty (Generation Exile). Superstruct will throw the user into this future and challenge them to 'deal with it'.

From their main site:
“Superstruct is played on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces. We show you the world as it might look in 2019. You show us what it’s like to live there. Bring what you know and who you know, and we’ll all figure out how to make 2019 a world we want to live in...It's not just about envisioning the future- it's about inventing the future.”

It's that last claim that I wonder about. The problems within Superstruct are very familiar ones. The questions they ask are relevant now. Even so-

Can play-generated strategies for solving these issues forecast the real world strategies yet to come?

Roy Gould and Curtis Wong make an interesting argument for the educational and narrative worth of the WorldWide Telescope project- an interactive, high resolution map of the universe seen through the images of some of our most powerful telescopes. Users can take tours through the space and create their own paths, accompanying these tours with text, outside images, and music:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/roy_gould_and_curtis_wong_preview_the_worldwide_telescope.html

The video is older (Feb 2008), but the fact that the presenters talk about this universe model as a storytelling tool caught my interest. On their main website http://www.worldwidetelescope.org, narrative is the first talking point- Telling Stories comes before The Visual Experience and Context, the more obvious applications of this product.

Perhaps they take that framing too far. It is a bit grandiose to say one can have a “dialog with the sky.” Still, user-generated narratives that guide others through the stars is just plain grand.

If you haven't yet, check it out.