Michael Annetta

For our third assignment in CTIN 534 (Experiments in Interactivity) we were tasked with creating a navigable space which should "convey a sense of space based on the collaboration of the author with the viewer: the author formulates a space within which the viewer can decide by himself or herself in which direction to proceed, where to look and how to read the space in such a way that the exploration follows a dramaturgical development." I've created a pastoral scene for viewers to explore, which is timed well with this weekend's activities.

Click here to explore Pastorale in full screen and with sound!

Continue reading "534 Assignment 3 - Navigable Space: Pastorale" »

‹dread› IMD Forum for 9/23/09: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, University of California, Santa Cruz
‹dread› http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11757
‹Little› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons
‹bo1v› http://books.google.com/books?id=M9dshxV-T0cC&dq=little+wars&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=3amJOMNcZr&sig=AsrMk20hWmMPQFmLCNlM_B_HGFk&hl=en&ei=U8m6Ssu1EpH8sgOuwYHlCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false
‹Sam› Love that game. Bioware rules.
‹Little› One of the best games ever.
‹dread› Noah et al's Grand Text Auto blog: http://grandtextauto.org/
‹ryan› I remember that scene... but I think when I did it everyone died
‹Little› if you did it and chose to follow the Dark Side you probably helped kill everybody
‹david m.› maybe he has short term memory problems
‹Little› I think I had this problem too
‹ryan› bioware's portfolio:
‹ryan› http://www.bioware.com/games/
‹david m.› is that a metal book?
‹Mannetta› metal-ish
‹Little› you mean "metallic"?
‹david m.› no, made of metal
‹Little› well
‹Little› "metal-ish" isn't really a word
‹Little› maybe it is. looks weird to me, too
‹Mannetta› my sarcasm is lost on you, Little one.
‹bobo› isn't it made of paper?
‹david m.› a lesser book would be
‹david m.› there's no straightforward way for a designer to test the incontinuities of multiple intersecting narrative branches
‹Little› that's a big "break" in the story. I played that game a few times through and had to remember not to screw it up the same way the second time around.
‹Little› maybe a little more playtesting on that could have helped
‹david m.› right but there's no assurance. casus being dead or not as something that breaks the other plot branches is something that does not neccessarily stick out in design
‹david m.› its only looking back that the problem is revealed
‹Little› yeah I agree it's difficult and probably still impossible to fix everything... but that was a large break and it was disappointing when I did it the first time through. I had a few big problems the first itme through.
‹ironman28› http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html
‹david m.› eliza?
‹ironman28› http://www.chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.html
‹david m.› i had a text to speech version of a therapist chatbot on an old dos computer
‹david m.› it was frustrating and hilarious
‹david m.› is this where the chinese box argument comes from?
‹craab› Do you feel strongly about discussing such things ?
‹Sam› Do you feel strongly about feeling strongly about things?
‹craab› Oh, I feel strongly about feeling strongly about things ?
‹david m.› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
‹Sam› Eliza's kind of creepy.
‹craab› 'm not sure I understand you fully.
‹Ed.› chinese box? is that the linguistic thingy?
‹david m.› its an AI question, if something apears to be intelligent, is it really?
‹Ed.› yup... i remember that
‹david m.› i confused box with room
‹Ed.› is the argument whether a computer really know the language or not... something like that...
‹ironman28› Mr. Mind: an inversion of the Turing test: http://www.mrmind.com/mrmind3
‹ndef› Eliza breaks down when the player becomes sophisticated... but what about suspension of disbelief?
‹ndef› Can people deliberately act in an unsophisticated manner, and does it prevent the experience from breaking down?
‹Ed.› i think there is a really strong argument saying that eventhough the computer might be able to produce the syntax, it does not KNOW the language in the chiniese box scenero
‹Sam› I'm not sure if people can force themselves to take Eliza seriously when her simple nature is revealed
‹Sam› it's human nature to want to test the boundaries of a system.
‹david m.› i think the most germaine thing to designers is, it shouldn't matter
‹david m.› if the player is fooled i'm happy
‹craab› @Sam - I'm not sure of that.
‹david m.› to advocates of civil liberties for artificial beings, there might be some application
‹Ed.› yea cog sci :)
‹craab› Some humans try to test boundaries, others not.
‹Little› I don't know if humans bother testing all systems. I do think we probably test boundaries to systems we don't like, but I'm not sure it's human nature
‹ndef› @craab Or in some cases, and not others.
‹Sam› In conversation with a human-type intelligence, wouldn't we try to see if we can fool it? I know that's my first reaction.
‹ironman28› that's also what the computer does with you!
‹ndef› Depends on the presentation of the intelligence. Depends on the context.
‹ndef› Depends on what I hope to get out of the experience.
‹david m.› we can't rely on the altruism of players
‹Little› usually anything resembling "human" even in a loose way... I generally want to see if it can be blown up, shot at, turned into a zombie, or if it can have *** on screen for me. so... I dont' try to break the game right from the start.
‹david m.› even a well meaning player will break a faulty system
‹Little› I agree with David.
‹Little› hey there's a censor in this room. -.-
‹ndef› When we design an experience, do we have to design it for everyone?
‹david m.› tout le monde?
‹Mannetta› narrative as string theory?
‹ndef› Can we design it for people who are willing to play along?
‹david m.› digital games generally don't work well with player adjudication
‹Sam› Well, players of D&D have to play along in order for it to work
‹Sam› but if the DM sounded like Eliza, they probably wouldn't want to play for very long
‹ndef› Sure. I'm not arguing that Eliza, specifically, works.
‹ndef› I'm arguing that the Eliza effect may have value.
‹david m.› thats a fair argument
‹david m.› its not good enough for researchers, but for games maybe
‹bo1v› I like the idea of Eliza systems that reveal the nature of their users. Try online dating sites for example and you will find Eliza Style systems in action. In fact, “Eliza” is a great name for a fraudulent online dating profile –
‹david m.› but how do you alter the game state by talking to a chatbot
‹david m.› without having keywords
‹bo1v› yes, I have a fraudulent online girlfriend… and yes she is basically an online game.
‹bo1v› I haven’t sent her any money – yet…
‹bo1v› Ah, Eliza… she cut’s and pastes all the right thing’s l(by hand of course) iike “Really?”, “Oh, cool” , “tell me about what you do for a living” (again), “a little girl I’m taking care of is sick”, “I need money for a plane ticket”, and the rest of the story is generated by me. I think this should be the future of online dating.
‹Little› I think you've just destroyed the good parts about meeting anyone through the internet.
‹ironman28› I don't see any difference between that and real dating
‹ndef› "The rest of the story is generated by me." That's the key phrase.
‹bo1v› It's nice to meet you.
‹Sam› "You (insert subject name here) must be the pride of (insert subject hometown here).
‹ndef› Can't we work with that?
‹Little› and also, somewhere in there I think you hit on why guys on the internet thing there are no females using it as well
‹david m.› definitely maybe
‹bo1v› maybe the females are males - but they only like to date one person online at a time .... so they are very genuine
‹Little› what??
‹Little› they are genuine because they are unavailable?
‹bo1v› yes
‹Little› that really seems like bizarre circular logic. I don't get it at all.
‹Mannetta› http://www.cosplayamerica.com/lebowitz/universe.html
‹bo1v› love
‹Mannetta› http://www.terminaltime.com/
‹Little› it seems like when you give up control over the narrative - like in a neverending universe situation - which maybe relates to having a bunch of authors write a long series - seems like you lose control over the constraints on story... and leave a lot of room for things to get weird.
‹Little› so isn't it expected that we haven't found a particularly "perfect" model yet?
‹david m.› could you make the idealogue a religious materialist?
‹ironman28› Terminal Time was all about playing with the algorithms that defined each ideological position
‹ironman28› they encouraged you to adopt multiple and contradictory subject positions
‹ndef› @Little Is it possible to define the constraints on the story ahead of time, in such a way that they will be observed even when you don't have direct narrative control?
‹dread› Noah is the author of the lead writer/designer of The Impermanence Agent, which tells a story, monitors the user' s web browsing, and uses browsed materials to customize its story out of existence.
‹dread› http://www.noahwf.com/agent/index.html
‹Little› I'm saying that since we haven't figured out how to do that just in writing or telling a story... it makes sense that we haven't figured out ways to make computers do it for us.
‹Little› although in the Star Wars universe, for example, there are a few things that stay the same. But any writer can still decide who lives, who dies, and whatever ridiculous plot twist they please goes where in the universe
‹ironman28› http://eis.soe.ucsc.edu/
‹Little› http://www.amazon.com/Expressive-Processing-Fictions-Computer-Software/dp/0262013436
‹david m.› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dmitri_Project
‹david m.› sounds like an uncanny valley issue
‹Sam› I was just about to say that lol
‹dread› http://kotaku.com/5275204/testing-molyneuxs-milo-a-virtual-boy-with-yes-a-dog
‹ndef› Scott McCloud talks about iconic imagery as something that the reader projects themselves into.
‹ndef› Seems related to that.
‹david m.› does anyone have a link to this thing he's talking about?
‹david m.› i can't figure out how to spell it
‹Little› what he was talking about on how to -at this moment - improve an RPG like KOTOR? or something else?
‹Little› whoever archives the backchannel should get links to some of the things he was talking about before they archive it and add it
‹dread› Noah's immersive text: http://www.noahwf.com/screen/index.html
‹dread› play shade
‹Mannetta› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_%28interactive_fiction%29
‹KylaG› This one? http://www.kongregate.com/games/cgjordan/shades
‹KylaG› What is "Shade"?
‹Mannetta› http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html#shade
‹KylaG› Thank you.
‹Mannetta› de nada
‹david m.› http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/
‹craab› http://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/index.html

Fast on the heels of Disney buying Marvel Entertainment and their vast stable of characters, storylines and dramatic elements (or most likely in response to that purchase) comes news this morning that an old DC Fanboy like me can really get behind. Warners Entertainment has repositioned DC Comics as “DC Entertainment", a “new” company in the Warners family.

Continue reading "The Transmedia Zeitgeist Continues" »

NPR's "Morning Edition" program featured game designer Will Wright interviewing one of his inspriations, Harvard University professor emeritus Biologist E. O. Wilson for the "Open Mic" segment.

Continue reading "Will and Wilson: Will Wright Interviews E. O. Wilson on NPR" »

For our first _____________ assignment for Tracy Fullerton's Design for Interactivity class, we had to provide a simple analysis of a game system. To that end, you can now enjoy my analysis of Price Stern Sloan's popular and ____________ language game, Mad Libs!

To view, you can download a ___________ PDF version of the file here.

This may go without saying, but since those of us waiting on SPO production numbers (and therefore equipment) won't have access to a camera before Monday's 534 class, will we be doing the assignment in-class?

More of a re-post than anything else, but since I'm new to the blogging thing, I thought this press release would be of at least some interest to the IMD community:

LOS ANGELES and HONG KONG, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- RDF Digital USA and Artificial Life, Inc. ( http://www.artificial-life.com ) (OTC BB: ALIF) are announcing today a collaboration to produce an interactive animated TV show entitled Sleuths. Implementing Artificial Life's innovative MoPA-TV(R) system, Sleuths will be the first television show in the United States to let audiences become part of the storyline.

Artificial Life's MoPA-TV technology has been greeted with resounding success in Japan and across Europe. Now, RDF has created a format around the technology to bring it to the States for the first time.

Sleuths is a half-hour animated episodic series featuring four kids solving a mystery every week. In the show, the audiences register and customize their own avatar which will appear on the screen representing them while the show airs live on national television. Three times per episode, the avatars of the registered audience members will appear in the show for voting sessions. A question will be asked in each session and they will have to text in their vote within a limited time frame. Those who get it wrong will be eliminated from the screen; those who get the question right will be congratulated on the correct answer and stay for the next question. At the end of each episode, the top five avatars who answered all of the questions correctly will appear on screen one final time standing with the main characters. All audience members will have a shot as seeing their avatar standing next to the show's stars.

Along with the engaging and entertaining show comes a robust online community and additional revenue from premium SMS text messages that bring the audiences' avatars live on screen.

The show was created by Max Benator, Senior Vice President of Multi- Platform Entertainment for RDF USA. RDF will produce the series.

"It's both a television show and an interactive experience -- it's revolutionary and we couldn't be more excited to introduce this to the States," said Max Benator, Senior Vice President of Multi-Platform Entertainment for RDF USA.

"We are excited about the first appearance of MoPA-TV in the US -- a home to many original, creative and innovative show formats. Nowadays, television programs must compete with many other forms of entertainment such as the internet and video games, so by adding something new to the traditional TV viewing experience it helps to satisfy the thirst of audiences for something fun and new. The interactive home entertainment that MoPA-TV provides ushers in a new era of TV entertainment!" said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.

Full Link to the press release here:

I’m Michael Annetta, first-year IMD MFA student and clearly an amateur blogger. I hold a B.A. in Film and Communications from Penn State University, with an emphasis in Theatre and Computer Science. I am also a Graduate of the Professional Classical Acting training program at the (now defunct) National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York City.

I’m considering my move into IMD a career-change, even though in many ways it’s more of a lateral move. After my graduation from NSC, I was a professional actor for a number of years, in both New York and Chicago. My theatre work centered on two main areas: classical theatre (Shakespeare, Shaw, the Greeks, etc.) and musical theatre (there are surprising correlations between Shakespeare and musical theatre. Really.) During the last part of my acting career I was focused almost primarily on the development of new musical theatre pieces. I’ve worked on over forty new shows, both in Chicago with the Theatre Building Chicago (formerly operating as New Tuners) and in Los Angeles with the Academy of New Musical Theatre (formerly operating as the Lehman Engel Workshop). Musical Theatre is still something I’m very passionate about and I try to sing at least once a day (usually in the car to the confused stares of many a passerby). My experience with script development has given me a very focused eye and talent for story and character in any project that I’ve come across.

When I recognized that it was time for a career change, I went back (as many changers do) to what fueled me when I was younger. Time and time again my quest brought me back to computer programming and design (I bought my first computer when I was twelve years old, using a combination of Christmas gift money and newspaper delivery wages). Note to all those who tend to grow older: the things that excited you when you didn’t have “adult” responsibilities are a great place to discover your inner, hidden passions. I’ve spent the last year or two renewing my programming skills.

My interests outside of media design include cooking, costume and set design (you don’t work in the theatre world too long and not gain an appreciation for these fields and they honestly do help with world-building), weight lifting, and another holdover from my youth, comic books. Little did I know that comics and sequential art would play such a large part in how I view my life and my work.

Oh, as you can see from my blocky avatar, I dig Legos too. Better than a Zen garden for breaking all types of creative blockages.