Narratives for Interaction Sharing: The Man From Earth


The Man From Earth talks about the story of a college professor that is a stone age man. He managed to survive to modern day time. During his farewell gathering, he revealed to his fellow colleagues his true identity. They were stunned by his story, and an engaging discussion occurred among them debating about the stone age man’s fascinating identity. 

It is an intriguing science fiction movie. It emphasized immensely on the importance of story quality in a movie. I feel the movies in modern times especially sci-fiction genre focus too much on other areas of the movie elements such as the visual effects and hiring famous actors or actress. Somehow along the way, it causes the movie to lost its magic as a satisfying storytelling medium. 

The Man From Earth did just the opposite of what most of the conventional movies are doing. The entire movie was filmed in an apartment with some outdoor scenes around the apartment. The main bulk of the movie was spent focusing on the development of the story and the verbal interaction among the people. Many thought provoking questions and ideas were raised and discussed among the people. Even sensitive topics such as religion were examined. It caused viewers of the movie to rethink about the information they possessed that shaped their world through the words of the characters in the movie. 

Narratives for Interaction Sharing: Cross-Media Worlds – Connecting across Games, Film, Books, and More


The video emphasized on the potential of cross-media platform interaction among games to play a major role in the future of the gaming industry. It provided various examples, and one of them is the game “Dust 514”, a first-person shooter developed by CCP Games, as an example to explain the concept. In the game “Dust 514”, the outcome of the games played by the players will have a direct impact on the gaming world of Eve Online, another game developed by CCP Games. The aim is to engaged the players for a long period through the interactions between the different gaming platforms by different players. This allowed them to share their gaming experiences with more people. It also provided more exposures for the games through this notion of game sharing experience.

 

 

Narratives for Interaction Sharing: Façade


Façade is an interesting artificial intelligence-based interactive project that was created by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern. It provides a unique gaming experience for the users. The player plays the role of a close friend of a married couple, Grace, and Trip. Throughout the game, you will be interacting with them in first person context, and you can explore the house through the use of arrow keys. You will also be able to communicate with them through typing on the keyboard. During a meet up with them at their apartment, a marriage related conflict will occur, and you will be dragged into it. During the conflict, you will need to take a side and make decisions that will ultimately change the lives of both Grace and Trip.

What I love about this interactive project is its openness to possibilities and explorations. Right from the start, it gives you the opportunities to decide the type of personalities your in-game character will possess as it provides limited information about your character. It gives you the freedom to be yourself or be someone that you want to be. The interaction with Trip and Grace also creates an engaging experience. Your conversation with them will have an immediate impact on their relationship and also their relationship with you. The intriguing part of the game does not provide you with pre-set options in response to their conversations towards you. You are free to type in any reply in your words as responses to them. This leads to limitless possibilities in your interaction with the couple. This motivates you to experiment with different dialogues to discover different outcome possibilities. You can try to persuade them to stay together or try to break them up. It allows you to do anything you want by not providing any objectives.

Through the responsibility of providing personalized responses to the couple, it allows you to be emotionally connected with them. You do not feel that you are just part of an interactive project but rather part of a real-time conflict. You have a clearer sense of attachment to the information you convey to the couple. You are not merely performing the conversations with them for the sake of achieving certain objectives, but it is for the outcome of the relationship between Trip and Grace. I feel that this interactive piece is a revolutionary attempt that makes us rethink what interaction with a virtual dimension is about through the blurring of virtual and reality.


You will be able to download the interactive project through the following link: http://www.interactivestory.net/