Hypermedia Story Link
http://netmed2016.wix.com/story
Reflection
To develop a successful hypermedia story the text must have an obvious element of ‘play’, using multimedia to entice audience interaction (Davison 2008). Andrew Colman in Game Theory and Experimental Games, notes in hypermedia stories that the notion of ‘play’ and gaming elements can deal with the logic of making multiple decision through interaction.
Through a series of options portrayed through multimedia elements in our hypermedia story, the audience make decisions in order to play out their fate within the narrative.
By clicking through a series of options that link to one another, the audience is taken on an adventure, encoring them to “choose their own fate’. Multimedia is included to be less descriptive, encouraging the audience to ‘play’ through decision without being explicit as to what the options entitle. This allows development in their own path within a context in which the reader has impulsion to act (Davison 2008) [1].
“How we tell stories online”[2] week nine lecture was our inspirational starting point. As our story is an adventure we focused on developing a strong narrative, therefor it was uncanny to channel elements of Catharis and Flow within this (Bolter 2012). The narrative is evident of Catharis, featuring a “strong main character, with a rounded story”. Our Hypermedia story also draws from aspects of ‘Flow’ as it reconnects with no liner conclusion involving a “forgetting of identity”.
We wanted to focus on creating a relationships between the text and audience through our narrative. Visuals used are filmed in first person, allowing the audience to embody the role of the main character Stacy, enhancing the audience to create their own fate. The fate is created through a series of options in which the audience must interpret the meaning themselves. Our story takes the audience through a series of pages where the theme and layout of the story is clearly presented.
A successful element of Hypermedia stories focuses on allowing the audience to develop their own story or fate. As options are already embedded into the game, the audiences’s flexibility to create their own narrative is minimised, however a ‘ hypermedia adventure’ must embody some elements of a story line. This could be perceived as a limitation within our story, however we argue the audience does choose elements of their fate through options, some options may conclude an ending but all manage to link back to the start if you keep clicking.
Elements of ‘creating their own story’ might be lacking however we believe our text has a strong enough loop and multi-storey lines to carry out successful elements of a hypermedia story.
Through our narrative we also drew from “novels without endings” (Douglas 1999) [3] as the text may never come to an ending if the right options are clicked. This link to our story tree shows the multiple narratives that intertwine https://camillemusicblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/hypermedia-story-tree-narrative/. Although we have developed complexity in our storylines, overall aesthetics were limited due to the difficulty in filming story lines.
Overall the audience take on a strong element of ‘play’ and interaction with the text that continuously loop back to the start. The audience are able to choose their own fate through ambiguous options that are not specified through text however due to these options are unable to crete their own narrative.
References
- Davidson, D. (2008). Stories in between. [Pittsburgh, Pa.]: ETC Press.
2. Bowtell, J. (2016). “How we tell stories online”
3. Douglas, J. Yellowlees. “Books without Pages—Novels without Endings.” The end of books or books without end? : reading interactive narratives. University of Michigan Press ; University Presses Marketing, 1999. 11-36
Bibliography –
Fraïssé, S. (1996). Hypermedia design. London: Springer.
Bernstein, Mark. “Delightful Vistas: Revisiting the Hypertext Garden.” Travels in Intermediality. Lebanon, US: Dartmouth, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 8 February 2016. 142-146
Bowtell, J. (2016). “Thinking about communities, commercialisation and governance online”
Douglas, J. Yellowlees. “Books without Pages—Novels without Endings.” The end of books or books without end? : reading interactive narratives. University of Michigan Press ; University Presses Marketing, 1999. 11-36
Oatway, Jay, Apr 26, 2012, Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader Wiley, Hoboken. 97-109. ISBN: 9781119943457.
Colman, A. (n.d.). Game theory and experimental games.
Hanselman.com. (2016). Choose Your Own Adventure, HyperMedia, and the death of the permalink. – Scott Hanselman. [online] Available at: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ChooseYourOwnAdventureHyperMediaAndTheDeathOfThePermalink.aspx [Accessed 1 Jun. 2016].
Kothari, D. and Saxena, A. (2004). Hypermedia. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India.
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