By Jessica Cieply Toby Fox’s Kickstarter project Undertale challenges the gaming industry on pre-existing expectations in the community. Fox is well known for his Earthbound mods, such as “Halloween Hack”. He was well known in fandom community prior to Undertale with his involvement in the “Homestuck” series. He provided music to go with chapters found online. For this project, Fox found typical RPGs “too boring” and used Undertale as a way to explore new concepts for gameplay on the system for game creation: GameMaker: Studio. Undertale is very much a choice based game and that creates multiple outcomes for every action a player makes. There are three ways to play, essentially. From the start you are given the choices to kill, spare or do both. Depending on the way you play, you are given two very different stories. If you choose to spare enemies, you are taking the pacifist route. This is also called the “true ending” to some. In this version, Frisk, a fallen human, enters the world of monsters underground and befriends them instead of killing them. The team of monsters ultimately ends up teaming up with them. (Frisk’s gender is ambiguous and the pronouns are always they or them.) The ending reveals an age of peace between humans and monsters. The alternate route is the genocide route. This is the path that puts pre-conceived notions about RPGs, and video games as a whole, to the test. In this version, Chara is the human sent to the monster world that tries to kill every monster in their way. They must end by facing off against Sans, a punny skeleton who seeks revenge in this run. The only other ending, which usually follows with this version, is the neutral ending. In that one, a player chooses to kill some main character monsters but spare some as well. Undertale tells compelling narratives in any of these three routes. It puts what we know or perceive video game narratives to be and how to play them. Horror RPGs are usually made on the same or similar game creation systems. Games like “Corpse Party” and “Mad Father” leave expectations of what an RPG is for players. There’s also classic RPGs like “Earthbound” and early “Final Fantasy” games. Typically you kill what the game tells you is an enemy, save up currency and give extras to NPCs. Undertale takes all of these ideas and challenges them. Every character is active and has a personality. Every NPC offers different interactions as well. Some are starting their own bartering system, asking for a “glam burger”. Another is an energetic dog. Every interaction is personal. If you’re like me, it would be difficult to endure a genocide run when every character is so real with you. Another aspect of the game with these choices is that the game breaks the fourth wall. If you kill a major character and restart the game without saving, it will remember that. It will mention that later on. If you start with a genocide run, then restart with a pacifist run, remnants of that genocide run will come again later. At many points, the game will mess with you on your power to “save” and “quit”. The game challenges what players see as “the way it has always been.” What Undertale succeeds at is showing players how much weight their choices have. Instead of killing since the game tells you to, you are also given the chance to show mercy. Sparing gives a strong narrative and shows how different a game can be when you choose to not be violent. While the genocide route shows the weight these kills can have. The final battle involves the revenge for a major character, who is extremely friendly in the pacifist run. The game received critical acclaim since its release on September 15, 2015. Overall reviews were five stars to almost 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 on a rating scale by major publications like Destructiod, Game Informer, IGN and GameSpot. The Jimquisition and Zero Punctuation declared it “Game of the Year”. In the Kickstarter, over 2,000 people raised $51,124. This exceeded the $5,000 goal by far. Names of every funder made their way into the final product of the game. Music was created by Toby Fox, as well as character design, which he worked on with Temmie Chang. The artist is also featured in the game in a specified area. Undertale is relevant to digital literature since it begs for contemplation and involves the player in the story no matter the path they choose. It asks for player involvement more than simply choices. While it does border interaction and participation, since every choice is pre-programmed into the game, it draws the player in by using their expectations to create a further story. Optional (NSFW) playthrough videos: Pewdiepie's first playthrough, choosing Pacifist first Steam Train's experienced playthrough, choosing Pacifist first
By Sydney Brangenberg The website of Pottermore is a form of digital literature. It has many different links that you can choose from when on the main page. This website, once you have joined and become a member for free, you are able to interact with other members, read more little stories, and discover more about the wizarding world. This website was created by the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, and is a place for all fans of the series to go and to completely immerse themselves into not only the story but the world of Harry Potter. Within this website, you are able to read short stories that Rowling has written that give more in-depth information about different aspects of the story. You can find out more about the characters, spells, creatures, and places in the section of “Explore the Story.” There is also a section called “Writing by J.K. Rowling,” which includes extra information about the wizarding world. Something that was really huge and had quite a bit of publicity when it first got released was “The Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA).” Fans talked nonstop on social media about this special story both before and after it got released. This particular story was able to connect with a different audience in a more personal way, by showing how the US is connected in the wizarding world, when it was only about Europe before. There are also other sections about her other wizarding works that you can read more about. Then there is the part that most fans are the most excited about, being sorted into your house! Through this website, you are able to join and then sorted into the house that you belong by taking a quiz that J.K. Rowling created herself, so you know that it is as legit as it could possibly be. Once you are sorted into your house, your house is your family, just like in the stories. You can go through and re-read all the Harry Potter books while completing little tasks that earn your house points. Exciting aspects of being a member have been added in the last year or so, where you can discover what your Patronus, your wand, and your American school (Ilvermorny) house would be! After the story of the US wizarding world came out, all of the fans wanted to know what house they would be in, just like for Hogwarts, so this was a very exciting test to take to find your results, if you are a huge fan like me! This website stood out to me because it not only connects to every single Harry Potter fan in the world, regardless of whether they enjoy things on the internet or not, but it is also a very unique way to bring traditional literature and digital literature together as one. Most fans grew up reading these stories when they came out, and they were able to continue their love of the story by joining this online version, where the story never ends! This is also a way to get the younger generation, who have been born in and are growing up in this technologically advanced age, to go to this website, fall in love with it, and then go out and read the actual books as well. The member is also able to communicate with other members of their house, so they are able to associate with other people who love Harry Potter as much as themselves.
We have learned that digital literature has the ability to engage its readers across multiple platforms. In this website, specifically, it is able to create a bridge between the traditional forms of literature, the actual Harry Potter books, and this new form of digital literature. With sites like these, many people don’t realize that they are actually a type of digital literature because it just seems like a fan website with interactive opportunities. Looking at it in this way gives websites like these a whole other meaning and way of viewing them. They are able to connect to, basically, all kinds of audiences by pulling you in through a love of something and then keeping you there with all the different opportunities that it has which would only work in this sort of platform. This is, what I believe to be, only the beginning of this sort of informative, interactive type of digital literature, that will only continue to grow, expand, and become something truly amazing and effective! By Brittany Larsen In deciding what digital narrative to write about for this blog post, I was inspired by our discussions about form and how stories are told, our previous discussions of transmedia narratives, and some of the themes we discussed about Gone Home this past week. As such, I have decided to write about how digital media has changed the nature of fandom and storytelling beyond the traditional text narrative. One major way the nature of digital storytelling has changed in the fandom context is through using images to convey character and telling stories with what are called social media edits. The goal of fandom, ultimately, is to keep a story alive beyond the confines of the original text. The most traditional way this is understood in terms of digital narrative is through fanfiction, where writers take the existing characters and continue their stories through writing. However, in recent years, new ways of keeping these characters and their stories alive have cropped up through other forms of storytelling. One way that have become especially popular lately are through “social media edits”. Social media edits are where content creators take a character and create a realistic looking social media profile for them. This can take the form of Twitters, Instagrams, text conversations, Snapchats, and more. Just like the objects in Gone Home told us a great deal about the characters without actually ever seeing them, these edits count as digital narratives because they show us how much you can tell about a person just from looking at their social media accounts. As our stories move more and more online, the form fits the function of conveying character because we as readers know how to gain insight into someone by seeing what they post on social media. To use an example with a character I assume we’re all roughly familiar with, Shaggy from Scooby Doo’s Instagram is instantly recognizable because it includes photos of Scooby, stacked pizza boxes, and photos of a UFO badge. Additionally, his profile name features his traditional catchphrase, “zoinks!” Therefore, fans of Scooby Doo can easily recognize whose profile this is and translate the character into today’s world. I also included social media profiles that were less easily recognizable so that people can look at the profiles of characters they’re not familiar with and still see how easy it is to infer certain aspects of their characters through these profiles. For example, in the edits that feature a character’s entire phone with all their profiles, it’s easy to get a snapshot of their entire lives. In this way, the form fits the function because we are very quickly made aware of many aspects of a character’s personality and are given information that in a traditional narrative would take several pages, perhaps even a whole novel, to figure out. These social media edits are popular in fandom because they are a quick way to gain insight to a character without having to write a long winded story. This is also important in understanding why digital narratives are important because it shows how digital narratives provide more access into the creative arts. Not everyone is a talented writer, but with these edits, more graphic artists can still engage in fandom storytelling and more people can share content. This is similar to how those who may not be able to write a traditional novel can tell a story through video games, or a short film. In fandom, all types of creation are valued and often you see artists and writers and graphics makers working together on collaborative works. In this way, we see several important aspects of how digital narratives can join together in one community.
By Sam Miller In thinking about what to write for this next blog post, I found myself trying to remember all of the various interactions I’ve had with digital literature. This also forced me to think about what I would personally consider digital literature and I found that one of the things that interests me the most is the concept of podcasts as literature. More specifically, podcasts that fall within the horror genre. At this point I am determined to do something horror related for as many projects as possible, and my knowledge extends far enough that I can bring something new to the table each time. The podcast I chose to focus on specifically is The Black Tapes, which is part of a larger podcast production company called Pacific Northwest Stories. PNWS podcasts focus on mystery and suspense, dappled with conspiracies and urban legends. It is essentially my overall aesthetic. The Black Tapes podcast focuses on host Alex Reagan (pronounced Ree-Gan not Ray-Gan) as she attempts to understand the mysterious and enigmatic Dr. Richard Strand of the Strand Institute. Dr. Strand is a paranormal researcher, but his perspective is that of an extreme skeptic. He doesn’t believe in anything paranormal, and has essentially dedicated his life to disproving it. His institute offers up a one million dollar reward to anyone who can provide genuine proof of the paranormal, meaning that he cannot disprove it. Alex Reagan is a real person working for PNWS, though the Alex that narrates The Black Tapes is likely somewhat fictionalized. Dr. Strand is not technically a real person, though I believe that he is loosely based on James Randi, a retired magician who founded the James Randi Educational Foundation and set up a similar “challenge” to the one that Dr. Strand has. Randi’s was focused specifically on people who claim to possess paranormal or supernatural abilities, whereas Strand’s is more general, but the similarities are there. This challenge as well as Dr. Strand’s know reputation as a skeptic is what prompts Alex to conduct an interview with him, to figure out more about who he is and why he’s made it his mission to disprove the existence of various paranormal phenomena. Of course if that were all that happens in this podcast, it wouldn’t be as popular as it is today (if you’re part of the community that listens to podcasts anyways). Alex soon uncovers a set of VHS tapes, which she takes it upon herself to name “the black tapes” because they’re…well, they’re black. It’s not creative, but the material contained on those VHS tapes opens up a can of worms no one was expecting. The black tapes are all cases of paranormal or supernatural activity that Dr. Strand has yet to disprove. What is so fascinating about this podcast is the level of interaction it allows the audience to have with the podcast itself. If you listen to the first season, you will come across an episode titled “The Unsound.” It’s the third episode in the series, which makes it a tone-setter for the rest of the podcast. This episode focuses on a sound (again, called the Unsound) and it is supposedly supernatural in origin. The “legend” is that anyone who hears the Unsound dies a year after listening to it. So what does Alex Reagan do? She plays the Unsound right on the podcast, forcing every single person listening to the episode to fear for their life, if only for a split second. Additionally, viewers can send emails to Dr. Strand explaining their own encounters with the seemingly paranormal and receive his scathingly skeptical responses in return. A podcast that’s just a podcast could still be seen as a kind of literature, even if the main method of absorbing it is auditory rather than visual. Adding in the level of interactivity gives The Black Tapes an extra boost that not many other podcasts have. I know of a few other horror podcasts that do this, but not many. What makes The Black Tapes such an interesting piece of digital literature is the fact that it is taking a seemingly obscure form and updating it to be even more marketable to a digital culture.
By Trevor Hooth NBA 2k16 is the first version of this game with a true narrative. As with any career in a sports game, there is always an element of story based on how your specific character performs. And that is the difference, to me, between a sports video game and a game like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. The player is you. They can have your name, and even look like you if you spend the time on appearance. For me, my Division III athleticism rises to a professional level of ability…still waiting on that paycheck though. With this specific year of the game, Spike Lee created a movie like experience for the player. The nickname of every player is the same, he will be known as Freq (pronounced “freak”). The interesting part about this though, is that the element of creating your own legacy remains in the game, even with the evolution of a grander story.
This is the first example of a digital narrative in a sports video game, and I think it opens the door to a larger opportunity of narrative in sports video games. This can launch a platform where the story becomes more interactive and personalized. It can essentially evolve into most of the things we have looked at in class. As of right now it is at a primitive level and is not good at all. It is very long and drawn out in the videos that take place with no control over the actions that take place. It is all scripted for you the entire time. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I said the entire genre of sports games has a stepping stone to use now. I have played through the entire story once. It takes the player through their rookie year in the NBA. But the interesting, and most successful part, is that the player starts as a high school player for two games. After that, there are several colleges to pick from during recruitment. After picking a school there are four games at that level. By the time the NBA draft comes, the player has won a championship at both the high school and college level. Once in the NBA the player goes through eight games of a 52 game season. After that, the digital narrative ends and it becomes like the career modes of the past. During the course of the eight games, the player deals with a controlling sister/manager, his agent, his girlfriend, supportive parents and a well-meaning, yet seemingly gold digging best friend. Normal stuff. At the ending is fairly sad. The family, team owner, and agent all try to push Freq away from the best friend, and they succeed. This ends with a letter from the best friend that Freq finds and reads after a sudden death of the best friend. After that, the rookie season is over and the “normal” career mode begins with choosing a team to be on through free agency. In the future with other sports, I really want to see a more interactive game where the player can make more decisions throughout the game. It would not only make the story better and more interesting to follow, but give the game an element of replayability. As it stands, after going through the story one time, I don’t have any desire to play it again. I also want the ability to make different decisions to make the game less boring. The long story, and videos, really caused me to lose interest. I felt compelled to skip them, but never did because I wanted to see how the story developed. I will say that, even though I think the narrative wasn’t good, it is a great starting spot for these types of stories to evolve from and become better and more successful narratives. By Emma Hoyer Gather round and let me introduce you to this wonderful resource and treasure trove. While I was searching for material for my first blog post, I stumbled upon ROME, as well as an interactive documentary from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) site. This is just one of the subsections of the site. There are films, documentaries, and even educational resources that you can check out and explore on your own. It’s worth at least a look, so click here if you’re interested. However, the main focus of this blog post is going to be this interactive subsection, because when you go searching for interactive fiction on the Internet, you’ll find references to this documentary about a bear. Bear 71, as it’s called, is an award-winning, 20-minute documentary about hunting, endangered species, and our role, as humans, in the natural world. It requires you to use your mouse, the arrow keys on your keyboard, your webcam, and allows you to explore the expanse of land on which the documentary focuses. While we have talked a lot about interaction within the contexts of the games we have been playing (which means that aspect is nothing new), the main reason I want to bring up this resource and this documentary (as well as another in just a moment), is for their subject matter. The discussion we had about Cibele was incredibly insightful in terms of bringing to light the notion of games and what their content can look, feel, and sound like. Many of us had issues with Cibele being marketed as a game, when in reality, it felt very much like an interactive film. There wasn’t much “game-ability” to it, and thus, we were left frustrated. What the NFB has on its site is much of the same types of interactive films, among other marvelous projects. What’s even cooler and expands upon our class discussion on Cibele is that the topics featured on the NFB are not “game” topics. They aren’t about saving the princess or preventing an apocalypse. They’re about real-world issues, things that matter to us in the here and now. They are not an escape, like video games tend to be. Instead, the NFB features media that blends interactivity with activism, awareness, and pertinent information. The other interactive film/documentary/media thing (see, it’s hard to describe this stuff because it’s so foreign to what we’re used to!) that I want to show off in this blog post is one called The Seven Digital Deadly Sins. I think it’s important, especially after the discussion about how Device 6 highlights our attachment to our devices. Each of the seven deadly sins are put into the context of social media and the digital age. This interactive film allows users to see just how damaging what they’re doing might be to other people, and it features a variety of formats. There is a film to kick things off, with plenty of quotes to mull over as you explore, such as, “When you get on your phone, what you’re saying is that none of you people are good enough for me” and “When do you get the time to take 719 photos of yourself?”
Following the brief video, the seven deadly sins are displayed. You can explore each one by clicking. Once you choose one, there are surveys and opinions to the left, stories to the right, and a video to watch in the center. You can see what other people experience, their opinions on particular topics, and read about what others have done with the technology they have at their disposal. I, personally, thought it was a very eye-opening experience, or at least thought-provoking, if nothing else. This is the power, though, of interactive films and digital narratives. We are thinking long and hard about things that matter, especially with the content that you can find on NFB. Typically, to think long and hard about heavy content, books were required to access the information. Conversation was also conducive, but now, we have resources like the NFB. What’s a better way to raise awareness than through digital interaction? You don’t have to talk to anyone, you don’t have to worry about the judgements of others, and you can even do it without wearing pants. With the way the current generations are being raised and introduced to new technology all the time, this may the best way to reach them. Additionally, since I always have to involve education in some aspect, the classroom could benefit greatly from the use of interactive films and experiences. It’s a new way to engage with material, and it’s much more familiar to students who might be used to playing video games or receiving information through a digital format (i.e. their phones). This site can also be considered a compromise between using traditional texts and using games in the classroom. Games might be a bit out of a teacher’s comfort zone, but just using traditional texts is no longer modeling the real world that students need to be prepared for. Interactive films are in the middle of the two and strike a balance that both students and teachers could navigate and manage within the contexts of the classroom. Also, since the NFB features real-world topics, thus eliminating the notion of “game-ability” like Cibele did, teachers and administrators are likely to be far more comfortable. |
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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