CS 148/248
Assignment 1
Spring 2008

Name: 
Game:

Play the game you selected for at least 8 hours, then answer each of the questions below about the narrative structure and interactivity of your game. Turn this in electronically, by email, as a text file, PDF or word doc ; the assignment should be sent to the course TA, Jennifer Flynn (jfly@soe.ucsc.edu).

1. Which of these four modes of interactivity, external/exploratory, internal/exploratory, external/ontological, or internal/ontological is evidenced in the game you played. Argue for your answer, providing concrete examples of interaction to make your point. 











2. Describe the Listen -> Think -> Speak loop for the game you played. You should describe each of the stages, giving examples from the game. 









3. Based on your interaction, what are the procedural and instantial elements of the game you played? 








4. Keeping the same interaction mechanics (same interface, same basic way of interacting), imagine two variant versions of the game: the most radically procedural version you can imagine (everything done in code – the smallest amount of data you can get away with) and the most radically instantial version you can imagine (everything done with data that is directly presented to the user – the smallest amount of code you can get away with). Describe each of these imaginary versions (how they work), what kind of authoring an author would have to do in each version, and how much work it would be to author each version.   













5. Describe how the game you played relates to each of Ryan's 8 narrative dimensions.











6. Describe the paida (manipulation) rules and ludus (goal) rules of your game.










7. Analyze the agency in terms of material and formal affordances. If you're arguing that the game you played has low agency, then argue how the material and formal affordances are out of balance (and in which direction they are out of balance). If arguing the game has high agency, then argue how the material and formal affordances are in balance.










8. For each of Jenkin's four spatial narrative strategies, argue how the game you played does or doesn't make use of each strategy. Use concrete examples when making your arguments. 









9. One of the distinctions in narratology is story vs. discourse. Describe the story in your game, that is, the characters, relationships, and the sequence of events in the order they happened in the objective storyworld.












10. Describe the discourse of your game. This is the order of the events as experienced by the player, the points of view from which the story is experienced by the player (e.g. from the perspective of different characters), and any other details of how the story is presented that don't effect the objective story (the story as understood in the mind of the player).