The block game that we looked at in class had a very similar dynamic to the IF game that I created. The simple fact is that you are given a set of rules and then you are trying to get to an end result. The game progresses with different difficulty levels as well as different landscapes. Similarly, when you play an IF, you are given certain rules and then the game progresses, with different problems to solve along the way. One difference is that you don’t know what the final outcome will look like right away.

Most alternate reality games have a somewhat similar approach to IFs, in that they have some final prize or conclusion to the game. They also have a bunch of challenges throughout the game. One of the main differences is many alternate reality games can move through different media types.

An article that we were suppose to read in class was the article This Is Not a Game by Jane McGonigal. In it she talks about the internet becoming a support system for people and evolving over time. In the process of making my IF I used the internet as a helpful tool when working with Inform. Collaboratively, me along with other IF users problem solved on forums and discussion boards. Thus, creating my IF I was actively supporting her article that people are evolving the web and helping grow information.

Another text that we were suppose to read in class was The Open and the Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression by Jesper Juul. In it he talks about emergence (things like rules) and progressions (things like games) that help develope a game. I believe that this is very relevant to all IFs in the fact that you are given a set of circumstances, then as you proceed the game developes with you. The challenge of my game, along with all computer games, is to figure out the rules then proceed through the game, taking on challenges as they arise. This is what Juul is saying within his paper and I believe this is what makes games so dynamic and addicting.

The program that i made the If on, Inform, was not as simple as it looked. With over 25 chapters in the help menu, there is a lot more to Inform then you would originally think. You have to learn what works within Inform and what the program does not recognize. Working through the three chapters took me over an hour. Starting a week in advance did not give me enough time to do anything on the scale that i was looking at. If i had taken a class on Inform, I believe i could have accomplished this massive IF in about a week. The code that you write for inform is very logical and requires a lot of time to figure out.

Needless to say, the IF that i put together is much smaller. I used the buildings WCC (Couches area and Bookstore), Wynne Chapel, Caruth (Entrance and Lobby), Administration Building, Hopkins Social Science Center and Collin Fountain. The mini games within the IF are finding a shirt, crawling through the window, picking up a key and using it, turning on the lights and confiscating items from a student. Although these mini games were not as complicated as I had originally planned, I think they are good for the plot and help advance the ideas behind it.

Once again, one thing I was amazed about was the ability for someone like myself to create an IF, even on a somewhat basic level. I took on Inform almost entirely by myself and was still able to create a game with a plot I designed. I had no idea about Inform until I downloaded it on my computer. With only the help menu and a few tips from my professor I was able to figure out how to operate the program.

I hope my audience will see with some time and effort that any one can participate in our culture. Today things are so accessible to anyone, as long as you take the time and energy to learn them. With the internet and computers our culture is participatory to almost anyone. Also, I hope my audience who probably are not IF pros can somewhat easily access my IF without having to rack their brain over commands. There are also many hints within the IF about what to do.

In talking about IFs that we did earlier, Shade and Adventure, they were much more exploratory and commands were harder to figure out than I believe my IF is. For this reason, I am somewhat glad that I made my IF the way i did. When i played these two IFs I easily became upset and quit, and i am hoping that the same wont happen for my story.

One text that talks about IFs and that was assigned during class was by Nick Montfort titled Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction. In it he gives four main components to a successful IF, which i believe that my IF includes. They are…

Another reading done for class by Nick Montfort is Interactive Fiction. In the first two paragraphs he talks about IF’s being a game or a story. Although he argues that the terms are interchangeable, I would argue that most IFs are a story. You are working your way through a story, to get to the end. There are game components but without the storyline there is no plot and no end product you would be working for.

Immediately a bunch of American soldiers rushed into the room. Sidewinder looked at Billy, Bell, Verne, and Wilde with a look of disbelief. They were trapped! Sidewinder immediately pulled out his steam powered grenade. He clasped the pin with his right index finger. “I will blow this place to pieces and everyone in it” said Sidewinder with a look of death on his face. The American troops immediately started to back off. Weishaupt screamed at the troops “Kill these men; there is no such thing as a steam powered grenade!”

Immediately the American soldiers started to converge back onto the heroes. Sidewinder looked at his fellow comrades as they had their backs against one another. “This is going to be quick and fast!” Immediately Wilde interjected “that’s what she said” and shot Sidewinder in the crouch. Sidewinder took Wilde’s steam powered water pistol, broke it in two, and then chunked it back at Wilde in disgust. “This is no time for your crap!” said Sidewinder. “They called my bluff on the steam powered grenade, but luckily I have a back up plan! Grab on to me!” Sidewinder pulled the pin on the grenade. Although the grenade didn’t explode, steam filled the room. The next thing they knew they were outside of the house. They ran over to the zeppelin and hoped in.

As they gained some altitude they saw Weishaupt running to his time machine. “Not this shit again” said Sidewinder. They propelled the zeppelin forward. They saw Weishaupt’s time machine. Sidewinder said “Jump!” The zeppelin crashed straight into the time machine and both steam powered machines burst into one giant steam cloud.

Weishaupt dropped to his knees. “NOOOOOOOO!” The heroes stumbled over to him, disoriented from jumping to the ground. “You fools! You have ruined everything for me! How could you!” said Weishaupt. Immediately Wilde opened his mouth. As he spoke some of the most profound words ever came out of his mouth.

Next—>

Originally, I had made a storyboard altering the Old School DVD to a somewhat serious tone. The goal of the mashup was to make the movie the exact opposite of the genre it truly was, a comedy. After talking with my professor, we decided that one of the best ideas would be to start taking clips of the movie that were somewhat serious and compiling them. I could then look through these clips and put them together in whatever way I wanted, having a little bit more leniency. I did this and came up with a somewhat serious tone to the movie, but I decided that I would also add a somewhat interesting twist to the end. I made the three friends criminals to add a somewhat unserious edge to the whole mashup.                              

I hope the audience will see how I was able to use different clips and compile a somewhat serious tone to this almost entirely comedic movie. I want them to see the acting in a different light, something that is very hard to do unless you have a somewhat organized story.

I am hoping to show you the ability of contemporary digital networked culture to transform any type of media. Although it was somewhat of a struggle for me at first to figure out all the conversions and what I needed to do successfully to make this mashup, I am proud of the final product. This is my first time ever to make a mashup and to use windows movie maker, but yet I feel as though I was highly successful in creating a different plot line for the movie Old School. It’s more serious but there are times when you can laugh in the trailer.

Taking the songs “Show Me What I’m Looking for” by Carolina Liar and “Ruff Ryders Anthem” by DMX, I feel that I was effectively able to transform a couple of scenes that did truly not have the undertones that they were given. In this case video and audio are a powerful combination together.

I hope you enjoy the mash up!

Chapter 3 talks about how game designers should care about the meaning of play. Being able to create great game experiences for players is the goal of meaningful play. Salen and Zimmerman then break meaningful play down into two kinds (pg. 34). One idea is that meaningful play is developed “from the relationship between player action and system outcome,” which is also known as descriptive. The other idea is that meaningful play occurs when we “evaluate the relationships between actions and outcomes, and decide whether they are meaningful enough within the designed system of the game.” This idea is also known as evaluative.

Chapter 4 discusses design and the semiotics behind it. When looking at semiotics we are talking about “the study of how meanings are made” which are usually done through signs (pg. 42). These “signs are interpreted; they stand for something to somebody” (pg. 44). The context which the sign is given helps determine how we interpret the message. Ultimately the design is trying to create this message. 

I personally agree more with the evaluative description of meaningful play. Specifically that this meaning is developed through our own experiences. When I am playing any type of game sometimes the outcomes are rewarding for others but not for me. For instance when I played Guild Wars I didn’t enjoy the outcome of gaining experience points when going on missions with other players as much as getting new items. Others on the missions did enjoy just getting the experience points though. Therefore the designed system of the game was rewarding for some but not always rewarding for me. Thus people approached the gameplay differently.

The design of a game is the most important step to creating meaning. The signs in the game help establish meaning, as long as we interpret them in the right context. To me, context is one of the most important parts to semiotics. When some see the US flag, they think of a land of the free and opportunity for all. Others who don’t live in America might look at the flag and see it as an indicator of America and that is it. Either way, context usually has a big part in the interpretation of signs.

He then goes on to say that ”games are disposable, and boredom is inevitable” (Koster, pg 37). This statement I do not entirely believe in. Not all games end up being boring, which you can especially see in MMOs like World of Warcraft. The ability of game designers to add new experiences into the game causes the online population to grow. Online games like this can keep adapting and adding new elements, thus I do not see players getting bored with this gameplay.

Gameplay to me becomes more fun when you start to master certain areas and become better than the others that you play. When you do this you feel as though you have achieved something. Koster talks about learning within games being a “drug” that makes us happy (pg. 40). I relate this to the times that I would play Halo. As I learned new ways to play the game and got better than my opponents I became happier with the game, and thus learning was my drug.

Koster describes games as having these four characteristics (pg. 76):
* They present us with models of real things-often highly abstracted.
* They are generally quantified or even quantied models.
* They primarily teach us things that we can absorb into the unconscious as opposed to things designed to be tackled by the conscious, logical mind.
* They mostly teach us things that are fairly primitive behaviors, but they dont have to.
I agree with these points although one type of game that i believe doesn’t fall into these characteristics is certain board games and card games. For instance poker requires a lot of active thought. On top of that watching other players in the game helps us find tendencies about their gameplay, which is not a very primitive behavior.

“On January 23, 1492 the Pentateuch was first printed. Everyone knows that!” exclaimed Stephenson. Realistically few knew what happened in 1492. Stephenson happened to be a devoted follower of Jewish history, which came in handy at this time. The Pentateuch is also known as the Five Books of Moses, one of Judaism’s main religious text. “But how does that help?” Stephenson wondered.

Sidewinder realized that this event in 1492 would be hard to correlate unless you had an in-depth understanding of Adam Weishaupt. Sidewinder made this mistake a lot but partly knew he was doing it, trying to make the moment more exciting than it was. “Weishaupt was a German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati, a secret society with origins in Bavaria,” Sidewinder said. It sounded like something straight off of Wikipedia (maybe because it was), but what came next no one knew, except of course for Captain Sidewinder. “Weishaupt had been forced to practice Judaism by his parents. He hated it so much that he decided to rid the world of religion, which was the reason he established the Order of Illuminati to start his New World Order. If he didn’t have to study Judaism he wouldn’t have turned evil. If we can stop the printing of the Pentateuch we can stop Adam Weishaupt from every having to study Judaism and then he wont ever create the Order of Illuminati and start his New World Order!!!”

Flashing back, Sidewinder was once a childhood friend of Adam Weishaupts. His anger towards studying Judaism eventually separated the two, as Sidewinder never liked to surround himself with negative people.

Stephenson looked at Sidewinder puzzled. “Why don’t we just go to when he was born and kill him.” Sidewinder immediately looked at Stephenson like he was crazy. “That’s exactly what Weishaupt wants us to do!” Another bit of information that Sidewinder forgot to tell Stephenson was that Weishaupt had a steam-powered time machine of his own and was probably waiting for Sidewinder and Stephenson at his birth. Stephenson said passively “Yea, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.” Stephenson hated when Sidewinder didn’t explain himself.

Immediately Sidewinder started running. Stephenson was wondering why they were running, as if they needed more time they should have gone a day earlier on the time machine. Either way he began to sprint after sidewinder. Sidewinder approached the area where the first Pentateuch was printed and could not believe his eyes.

Next—->

My video is about a college student named Will and his tech savvy friend Dan. When finishing up his paper, the last thing Will needs to do is add his name and date into a header. Although this is a relatively easy task, he can’t remember how to find the header in Microsoft word. He calls his friend Dan, who he believes will be able to help him quickly. Although Dan says he will help Will, he ends up doing a lot of different things on his computer before he looks in Microsoft word for the header, which he finds instantly when he does look..

My video turned out the way it did for several reasons. I chose this story because of the tools I had available. The story line relies on seeing the computer screens of the two characters because Dan is saying he is doing one thing but is actually doing another. I had two other ideas before this but I was limited on my pictures and technological know how to accomplish these two ideas.

I wanted the audience to find the story somewhat humorous. There are parts in the story that were somewhat unplanned, like when I typed in “how to insert a header in to Microsoft word” and “how to insert a tampon” pops up in Google. There were parts that were planned, where I poke fun at my teacher, Brett Boessen’s blog (which I might regret later) just to be funny. I also hope that my audience gets a couple of things from my story. One I hope that my viewer sees that sometimes we put things off because of the things we do on the internet. In the case of Dan, he put off telling Will where the header was when he was able to find it in three seconds. Instead he was too “busy” doing other things. I also wanted to poke fun at MAC users, because they always act like they are so much better than PC users. In the case of Dan, a MAC user, he tries to act cool but he instead looks like an idiot.

Digital networked culture in essence clutters our life and causes us to spend more time on things then we should, and that was what I was hoping to show. Our immersion in media can inundate our lives to where we are not responsive to the people around us. This immersion can be ok in our lives if we manage our time correctly, and not overwhelm ourselves in it.

Jane McGonigal speaks about ARGs in her SXSW 2008: Jane McGonigal Keynote speech. In it she describes the four ways that ARGs make people happy. They are…

1. satisfying work to do
2. the experience of being good at something
3. time spent with people we like
4. the chance to be a part of something bigger

I have trouble finding all four of these ideas being achieved in an ARG. ALthough ARGs interact with your life directly they are constructed moments. Therefore these moments are instantaneous moments in time. Finding “satisfying work to do” can be found in an ARG, even if it is only momentary. The second statement also has prevalence as many people can become good at ARGs. The third statement, “time spent with people we like” seems to not fit for ARGs. Although you might encounter people who are actively working in the ARG or are trying to solve the ARG it does not mean that you will like these people. This moment is entirely constructed, resulting in many people being involved in just the game. Those that you meet who are in the ARG with you might share similar experiences but this does not mean you will like their personality. Lastly “the chance to be apart of something bigger” is not really something I see in ARGs. Although you might complete some bigger objective, in the end this objective is constructed and is usually preempted for a specific purpose. Because of this I view ARGs as something that gives you instant happiness but not long-lasting happiness.