By Brittany Larsen & Sam Miller Horror has to constantly evolve in order to capture the interest of audience members. This applies to movies, novels, and video games alike. In recent years, horror games have become less about fighting the monsters you see and more about running from them. One of the biggest examples of this is Outlast. Created by Red Barrels, Outlast is the story of investigative journalist Miles Upshur as he explores Mount Massive Asylum. The building was bought by the Murkoff Corporation, a business known for doing arguably questionable things. What Miles finds inside is much more than questionable though. The building is derelict, there are bodies everywhere, and the patients of the asylum are deformed and traumatized beyond measure. Miles is faced with danger after danger throughout the asylum and his only choices are to run, hide, or die according to the game’s introduction. Miles has no way of fighting against the patients that chase him throughout the halls, so much of the game is fast paced and forces the player to think quickly if they want to avoid getting killed. On top of running for his life Miles must also uncover the truth about what happened and is happening at Mount Massive Asylum, which is where a key part of the game comes in: the notes. The notes and how they inform the story are what make Outlast, as well as other games like it, a digital narrative worth exploring. In the game, much of the actual gameplay is action-based; players spend the majority of their time running around and avoiding monsters out to violently kill them. However, much of the actual narrative is delivered via a series of notes for the main character to find and a reporter’s journal of the character’s thoughts as he comes across some of the more interesting or disturbing landmark events in the game. This reporter’s journal is the only real way to understand Miles’ character, from his sardonic humor to his pessimism and inner thoughts about the workings of the asylum. The notes, on the other hand, are a series of official documents, usually letters or emails, from doctors or other people involved with the asylum. These notes reveal information such as patient files, background on how the asylum was founded, the story of the man who founded the asylum, and the background of the mysterious “Walrider”. These notes provide insight into the story of the game and what you are trying to save the asylum from. Without them, you are simply running for your life. However, the interesting part of the narrative take is that you are not required to pick up these notes, and most players frequently forget to look at Miles’ reporting notebook. Here, we offer two separate accounts of how gameplay and the narrative are very different with or without the notes. One of the most popular Let’s Players on Youtube goes by the name of Markiplier. His playthrough of Outlast is extremely thorough in that he strives to explore everything and uncover as much of the story as possible. As a result, Mark is able to speculate and piece together the story behind Mount Massive Asylum and “The Walrider”. He reads through the notes and documents as well as the entries from Miles’ reporter’s notebook out loud, which gives an additional layer of experience to those who are watching him play. Mark picks up various notes about key patients in the asylum like Chris Walker, the first “big” enemy you meet in the game. Chris Walker is ex-military and obsessed with so-called “security protocol,” which translates to him eliminating anyone he deems as a potential host for The Walrider. All of this is revealed through a single document that Mark finds and reads, as well as the small amounts of dialogue that Chris says throughout the game. Markiplier In addition to understanding the antagonists of the game better, Mark understands more of the overall story because he takes the time to gather all these documents. He gets information about the process through which the Murkoff Corporation released The Walrider as well as information about Billy Hope, the Walrider’s current host. All of this information ultimately adds to the playing experience of Mark as well as the viewing experience of the people watching his videos. Not only do they get the story but they get Mark’s interpretation of that story as well as the opportunity to interpret things on their own. This is the ideal experience of the game, because while the notes are not necessary to beating the game, they offer a deeper look into the story that heightens the fear players experience while trying to get through the asylum. On the other hand, a Let’s Player called Pewdiepie plays the game very differently from Mark. Felix (Pewdiepie) is from Sweden, and while he speaks English fairly fluently, his comprehension, especially in reading, is significantly slower. As such, his reading of all the notes would significantly slow down his gameplay. Therefore, after the first two notes in his playthrough, he doesn’t even pick them up. As such, he misses key background information and frequently calls characters by his own names for them, since he doesn’t know the patient’s names without the notes. For example, the character of Chris Walker, the main patient that chases Miles around during the game, is called Gabe by Felix for his entire playthrough, because he never reads the file containing his backstory. PewDiePie The first notable occasion of difference between the experience with and without notes is that Mark reads the note where Miles first learns of the dream experiments being done on the patients that explains the odd behavior and appearance of the residents of Mount Massive. Without the notes, gameplay is still possible, but the player misses the entire element of what they’re fighting for. As the game moves along further, without the notes explaining what and who the Walrider is and why he came to be, Felix and other players who skip the notes are left confused.
Overall, what this game and these playthroughs illuminate about digital narratives is that the narrative portion is not always intricately embedded within the gameplay itself. This is one of the games that experiments with whether the two can be mutually exclusive, to some degree. Most horror games either contain little to no “story”, or the story is contained in cutscenes and is therefore unavoidable. In Outlast, however, the story is hidden and it’s ultimately up to the player how much of the story they get out of their playthrough. This creates a variety of possible experiences within the game, thus making it a unique digital narrative experience. By Amberlee Seitz & Rick Trask The digital narrative that we have chosen is Avatar. Most (all?) people have seen the movie directed by James Cameron, which came out in 2009, and takes place on a world called Pandora. People from earth come to “visit” (ie, rape the land), but as the atmosphere is poisonous, humans have to use human/Na'vi (Na’vi are the native inhabitants) hybrid avatars which are then linked to their brains, in order to move about the planet. A paraplegic man ends up falling in love with a Na’vi female and aids in saving her planet. Before researching ideas regarding “digital narratives” I had not realized that Avatar was, in fact, a transmedia narrative. I found that there were books published before the movie even hit theatres, one of which included information regarding the biological and social history of Pandora, and Ubisoft Montreal created a game that was released at about the same time as the movie. I also found a website with over a thousand fanfiction entries, and that was just the first one that came up on my Google search! I chose this to write about because it was something I was familiar with, the movie at least, and I don’t think it was something we had discussed in class. This narrative has many more layers than I thought, and I thought it might be something interesting to talk about. Another thing that makes Avatar transmedia is the fact that it has its own language. Na'vi is the language spoken by the Na'vi people. It was created for the movie by Dr. Paul Frommer, a retired professor of USC. I believe the language makes Avatar transmedia because it can stand on its own. If you have a desire to learn Na'vi, even if you watch the movie over and over again and write down all the word translations, you are still taking the page with you to memorize them. It also allows for websites such as learnnavi.org that can act as a database for the language and even help people who are interested learn more about it. Something else that this is similar to is the Klingon language from Star Trek. Klingon gave people who loved Star Trek something more to do to immerse themselves in the series. Eventually enough people learned the language that groups started forming where people meet and talk in Klingon. If the Avatar universe builds with each installment as much as was introduced in the first movie, the same could happen for Na'vi.
One of the most exciting things is how much potential this world still has. There has only been one mainstream movie released thus far, thus we only have so much primary information available to us. The current plans for the series is to release a total of five movies. This will provide an incredible amount of opportunity to build upon the history of the world and the richness of the characters' background. This will also give more material for the fan fiction writers to work with, creating a snowball effect of ideas. Transmedia could become a much larger role as well. Along with what has already been released there could be a comic series, a TV show, or even stage play. With a world as large as what was given in just the first movie the possibilities are nearly endless. Transmedia is a very interesting concept. The fact that anyone can continue a story, elaborate on a world, or tell the story their own way is awesome! We learned that transmedia is NOT redundant, and judging by the fanfiction written it is anything but redundant. I thought choosing the narrative of Avatar was also compelling because in the movie, you must literally adopt a different persona, you, in essence, become someone else, and the game is third-person, giving you direct control of the character. All of it involves genuine participation, as an avatar is the connection between a character and you, yourself. By Trevor Hooth & Logan Mclaskey Disclaimer for my side of this argument: I do not support the side of this debate that believes video games make people violent.
Now that that is out of the way, onto my side of this post. For the last ten to fifteen years people in the media have made the argument over and over again that violent video games make non-violent people more violent. This argument was especially prevalent during the time following the Sandy Hook school shooting. When we talk about video games like Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Call of Duty, etc. the argument that these video games make people violent is pretty easily supported because all you do in these video games is, well, kill things. Obviously when the mission in video games is to kill enemies that will cause a more violent reaction within the brain, especially if you’re playing a game like Call of Duty online with people over the internet. I will be honest and say that I have thrown more than one controller across my room because of my anger caused by a video game. Charles Williams, PH.D. from Drexel University made a good point when he was interviewed on the O’Reilly Factor in 2013. The point he was trying to make was conveyed through an anecdote about him as a child watching WWF and trying out the wrestling moves on his siblings in between commercials. I do not believe that video games could make someone go out and shoot up a school or a church, but I do believe that they can cause people to be more violent, in general, when acting with anger upon someone else. The video games may change the tone or the language with which some people speak to one another. These video games can also cause people to be more inconsiderate of people’s feelings or emotions because being considerate or kind to someone is the complete opposite of what people are shown and experience when they play Call of Duty, Halo, or Grand Theft Auto online. People are extremely angry and become enraged when they lose to people when in online matchmaking. I believe that of all of these games Grand Theft Auto is the most violent of the three specific games I have mentioned in this post. There is never a moment when there is not violence being portrayed, whether it is directly or indirectly, on the screen. Just the simple fact that I can get in my car [in the video game] and drive down a city street and shoot civilians walking down the sidewalk, get chased by cops, blow them up, hop in a helicopter, fly it into the sky, jump out, and crash onto the ground and die all within a ten-minute span of time is a little too much violence. Now, there is a separation between the video game and real life because it is a video game, but that does not mean that people do not have the thought to get in their car and run some people over because they did it in Grand Theft Auto, and that game is basically a simulation of real life. I do not, in any way, condone anybody getting in their car and running people over, but that game does make those thoughts pop into someone’s mind. There is obviously a big difference between thinking about doing something and actually doing it, but when you actually do it is when there is a huge problem. (Again, I do not agree with this argument because I suppose I have more faith in humanity that most, but I also believe that the majority of the people playing these games are not psychotic enough to actually go out and do these things. There is always that one person though.) Be safe, and play on. By Jessica Cieply & Matthew Weatherford Game Trailer The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii is a totally incredible addition to the Legend of Zelda franchise that started on the Nintendo’s first game console in the 1980’s. While the Wii doesn’t have the power of its competitors, it really does deliver on its claim to be fun both children and adults by using motion to perform game functions rather than simple button pushing. The use of actual motion stimulates activity in the cerebellum, the region of the brain involved in coordinating movement in space. There is emerging research implicating lower activity of the cerebellum in a whole range of learning disorders, and some doctors and specialists are starting to prescribe cerebellar training exercises to improve their patients’ ability to stay calm, focus, and retain information better. So when someone complains that you spend too much time playing the Wii, you can tell them you are doing cerebellar training exercises! I applaud the Wii by really taking video gaming, storytelling, and the new age of the digital narrative to a new level by incorporating motion into its gameplay. Skyward Sword is a brilliant game that really makes good use of the Wii’s capabilities despite not being as powerful as other consoles. I loved the original 8-bit Legend of Zelda on the NES! While I wouldn’t want to play it now after gaming has come so far, it is a great example of how a good story that engages the player can still be fun despite some technological limitations. The thing that makes Skyward Sword so engaging and fun is that you are constantly facing new and interesting challenges that make you perform. Some of the Zelda games of the past could be pretty boring at times where you would have to traverse large distances in between dungeon lairs. Now there are new and interesting challenges all along the way even when you are between the main dungeons. You can say goodbye to trekking across barren territory for half an hour! What makes Skyward Sword different from past Zelda games is the use of gameplay to immerse its players. It also tells a compelling story of the “origins” of Zelda, which unlike prior games can provide an emotional connection to the player. Since the release of the original Zelda game, there have been debates on the “timeline” of each game - and whether they even can coexist. Luckily Skyward Sword was released and explained as the “first” in the series. Hyrule Historia was a book released in 2011 following the game’s release. The book clarifies that there are three different timelines that stem from Skyward Sword as all of their origins. It is a piece of transmedia that can engage players outside the narrative for more information. Due to its telling of the origins, the storyline is more connected and integrated for the players. The game takes place in Skyloft, an island in the clouds, where Link and Zelda are childhood friends awaiting his final exam to become a knight for the kingdom. He and his rival Groose face off with their “Loftwings”, giant flying birds, which are a mechanic in the game to move from location to location. Zelda is captured by Demise, who is trying to restrict the prophecy of the Goddess Hylia. Link must save his best friend while encountering a number of villains and challenges. He finally experiences the “surface”, which many Skyloftians believed to be a myth. Optional: Zelda Timeline explained The player does not have direct decisions, which affect the storyline. A player can choose different responses, die multiple times and go on side quests but the overall story remains the same. What makes that emotional connection is that the player is first and foremost controlling every action of Link. As explained before, the player uses the Wiimote and Nunchuck to move Link. You as the player are personally responsible for every action he makes. Some moments require you to hold the Wiimote up as Link would his sword. It has its pros and cons. Many past players rather regular console gameplay, especially with motion control issues, but many had little to no issues. I had some control issues but not enough to take me out of the game. If your experience was like mine, it’s easy to be interested in the story and create the best possible ending you can for Link and Zelda. There is an emotional investment in the plot now. It is hinted that Link and Zelda are “more than friends” from the start, but they are still teenagers so the need to protect their innocence is more present as well. Unfortunately the plot is not timed, like Majora’s Mask, and there are side-quests for the player but there is a definite urgency in saving the day.
Other engaging aspects of this game that make it a compelling digital narrative are the soundtrack and art style of the game. This is the first and only fully orchestrated Zelda game ever created. An official soundtrack CD was released with the game. There are beautiful themes given for each character and allows the story to be more immersive. The art style of the game is a mix of impressionist paintings and simple watercolors. It has been compared to a Disney movie before with all these elements working together and the story Nintendo chose to tell. It is definitely a narrative I recommend playing or at least. By TRM Firewatch is a first-person game from developer Campo Santo. It was first released on PC/Mac and PS4 in February 2016, and will be released for Xbox One this coming week (on 9/21). The game takes place in the late 1980s in the Shoshone National Forest, near Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming. Players navigate the game world as Henry, a middle-aged outdoorsman who has taken a job as a seasonal fire lookout. While there are glimpses and traces of other people throughout the narrative, the game is spent primarily in solitude, with the only connection and relationship coming via walkie-talkie with Henry’s supervisor, Delilah, who is stationed at another lookout station, barely visible on the horizon. While there are certainly some traditional game elements in Firewatch, the experience of playing through it is just that: an experience. Henry spends his days hiking through the vast wilderness surrounding his lookout station, and the graphics of the game are absolutely gorgeous. Coupled with the subtle soundtrack — not just the music, but the ambient noise of the landscape — the game invites immersion in a simulated wilderness experience. Further, as a first-person game that has few other characters — and no direct contact with any — time spent playing Firewatch can truly feel at times like time alone in the woods (and one without the bug bites!). Still, the scenery and solitude is only one part of the game narrative. The gameplay is driven in two ways: by a slowly developing mystery concerning missing campers and half-hints at a troubled/troublesome predecessor in Henry’s job, and through the humor and nuance of Henry’s exchanges with Delilah. The game mechanic itself is one based on choice and branching narratives, and depending on the player’s decisions, both the mystery and the “over-the-air” relationship can deepen in significant and surprising ways. And as the story climaxes — with a wildfire encroaching — the tension and anticipation of both what is going on (mystery-wise) and what will happen between Henry and Delilah are both profound.
Ultimately, the success of Firewatch relies on the quality of the narrative and of the character development. There are neither bosses to defeat nor secret codes to deduce, and as stunning as the simulated environment is, graphics can only go so far. Firewatch stands out to me because of the depth of its story, particularly in terms of Henry’s internal life (highlighted in his solitude) and his nascent relationship with Delilah. In a highly unusual move for a major game release, the main character is in his 40s and shows it. He has a paunch, a bit of a drinking problem, and many real-life tragedies that he hopes desperately — and, inevitably, impossibly — to escape from in the woods. Firewatch weaves a suspenseful story, yes, but it also immerses the player in a contemplation of guilt, loss, the nature of forgiveness, and the hope for renewal. Henry’s choices have led him into the woods — literally and figuratively — and our choices may or may not guide him out. By Matt Gremo & Emma Hoyer Music videos in themselves are expansions on original content. Ideally, they allow for the visual representation of the poetic intent behind a song. Not so ideally, they can potentially cloud the personal meaning behind a song for the individual listener. Breaking this connection can prove catastrophic for emotional resonance by arbitrarily situating one given meaning to a work of art based on a single artistic interpretation. Artists who are intent on leaving this level of individual interpretation available to their listeners will often stray away from concrete definitions to their work and attempt to create a visual display that leaves ambiguity intact (e.g. Radiohead—No Surprises), but even this method will often work to confine the song within the shape of the video. Thus -- perhaps unintentionally, but most likely not -- the team behind ROME have worked to loosen these constraints by allowing listeners to shape the visual representation of music. Built on the foundation of the collaborative inspiration from multiple artists, spanning a wide range of genres (Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi, Norah Jones, and a 40-piece orchestra led by Ennio Morricone), the team behind the venture crafted a wholly original piece of music. It is important to note that the intent of the project was to add a visual component, which may not always be the case for typical releases by other musicians. That being said, it is far from fair to suggest that with a new set of tools -- such as the ones developed by Google and used for ROME -- that more mainstream endeavors in the world of music could not accomplish a similar result. Once the musical element was complete, artist and director Chris Milk took the reins and worked to craft an elaborate interactive space for listeners to create their own relationship with the music. Developing and rendering an entire world around the idea of “3 Dreams of Black,” the team crafted an interface which allows users to experience the music video in different ways each time they listen (see http://www.ro.me/tech/ for a more in depth explanation of the development process). Through the simple act of moving a computer mouse, the individual becomes a wholly interactive participant in the experience, altering and shaping their environment as they see fit. At this point in development, the finished product would have already been impressive. It would have been a collaborative effort to build upon a preexisting text while simultaneously exploring new possibilities for the form. However, the team pushed beyond this rather monumental accomplishment and strove for new levels of audience participation. Upon the completion of the experience, users are invited to “add to the dream.” This “dream” occurs at the finale of the experience, where users are given the opportunity to fly through a vast desert. This environment is full of rendered models created by the audience (see http://www.ro.me/tool to add to the experience). The result of this kind of development is a constantly growing world built on personal relation to an auditory experience. The “final” product created by the team behind ROME is a testament to what is possible when pre-existing accepted forms of media are reworked to include the audiences which they are trying to reach. While the abnormal discourse required to create wholly new forms of media will always be necessary, this experience shows how the leaps in the evolution of pre-existing form can help set a new standard for creative expression. Instead of simply abandoning what has been done in the past, works such as this allow for old mediums to be revitalized in an attempt to meet the demands and expectations of a 21st century participant.
By Sydney Brangenberg & Brittany Walsh The piece “My dead girlfriend keeps messaging me on Facebook. I’ve got the screenshots. I don’t know what to do” by Reddit user natesw is a form of digital literature that engages readers using psychological thrill. This story was originally posted on Reddit in July of 2014, and a significant amount of social media shares and interactive comments exist. Reddit, a discussion website where users can post direct stories or links, has subreddits, a specific destination for certain types of material. For example, the subreddit, NoSleep, “is a community for original horror stories. Stories may be true or not (but they are almost never true). While our stories are fiction, we treat all stories like true, real life experiences, because the best scares come when you are immersed in the story. If it helps, don’t think of it as reading a story. Think of it as witnessing an event” (ObliviousHippie).
This story is about this guy named Nathan’s experience. His girlfriend, Emily, had died in 2012 from a 3-way car crash. The timeline in this story starts in 2013 where Nathan describes things that have happened that are very strange. He says that only him and Emily’s mother have the password for Emily’s Facebook page and how Facebook comments, posts, and messages are being sent from Emily’s Facebook page. At first, Nathan just believes that someone is messing with him, that someone somehow managed to hack into her Facebook account. The more time that passes and it keeps happening, he notices that a majority of the posts that are coming from “her” make no sense and seems to be snippets from past conversations that her and Nathan had had on Facebook messenger. What made things even more strange was that Facebook was saying that the messages were being sent from either his home, his work, or Emily’s mom’s home. Nathan is so freaked out by this that he decides to memorialize her page. After quite a while of having nothing from her Nathan gets another message that is the exact same messages that he had sent her when she had been in the car accident, with little add-ons about her being “so cold.” This is where this story ends, leaving you hanging and wondering what happened next. This piece stood out to both of us because of the specific and direct engagement with the text. Although most of the stories “are almost never true,” it still gives many users an opportunity to engage with the text. Because the stories do not have to be true, it provides more people who have not experienced something extremely spooky with the opportunity to write and create text. This subreddit allows creativity to flourish because stories do not have to be realistic, they can include elements that we would not see on earth or in our lifetime. Another reason this form of digital literature is important is because it can be shared crossed multiple platforms: to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. Reddit users from all over the world and even unregistered audience members have the ability to read these stories and connect with them on some level. Users can directly engage with the text by commenting and continuing the story. Oftentimes, authors ask the audience what to do next, and readers can reply with advice. When the author has received ample comments, they can, and often do, create extensions of the story with parts 2 and 3, etc., all based off of the users’ comments and suggestions. As we’ve learned in Digital Literatures, literature across multiple platforms has the ability to engage readers that may have struggled to connect with traditional forms of literature in the past. The idea of Reddit, a user-generated website that allows discussions of all types, is an extremely powerful asset to the digital literature community. All types of stories, posts, and discussion occur on this site, ranging from scary stories, to stories about embarrassing moments, interesting finds on the internet, and many more. Without this platform, many people would not have access to the benefits of reading and writing. Anybody is allowed to post on this site, giving all people the opportunity to be creative and engaged with text. This story specifically functions well on this platform because it relies on direct responses from readers. The story would be interesting as a physical text, but it is more engaging and effective on this platform. There are so many different types of digital literature out there in the world that people may not realize that they exist. Sites like Reddit and the subreddits are just one type of digital literature that allows people from anywhere in the world to not only just access the site, but they can also become involved by responding directly to the post as well as posting works of their own. This is such a great way to engage readers across multiple platforms, and we believe that it is just the beginning to an even more advanced, interactive type of digital literature that will be available in the future! |
AuthorWe are the students of "Digital Literatures" at Millikin University. These are some of the digital narratives that entice, inspire, and challenge us. Categories
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