The Games We Play - Wk 14 Response

I am in my third semester of the graduate program in eLearning Design and Implementation at The University of Colorado, Denver. Each week we read a scholarly article pertaining to digital storytelling. This is my response for week 14.

How does all of the new media: Web 2.0 tools, video games, networked books, social media, etc. contribute to storytelling? In The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media by Bryan Alexander some of the new media/digital storytelling questions are unraveled.

This week’s post explores chapter 6: Gaming: Storytelling on a Small Scale. This chapter explains how gaming lives across the continuum that is digital storytelling. Withstanding arguments that gaming is more about somatic manipulations versus storytelling, there are digital storytelling elements. The marriage between play and story is thoughtfully explored in this chapter.

The chapter focused on the role of “Small” games vs. Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. Notwithstanding the next chapter, Gaming: Storytelling on a Large Scale, both chapters explain games as digital storytelling mediums.

The immersion of the player in the story’s environment is a key aspect of the storytelling component of gaming. The immersive world becomes a feedback loop based on the player’s manipulation of the objects. The gamer’s navigation through the virtual world is central to understanding the “story.” Unlike say a blog or YouTube, gaming is explained as an interactive, iterative process of understanding story.

Typically, the physical environment, sights, and sounds combine to spatially immerse players into a sense of place. This sense of spatial immersion may be one of the most powerful contributions gaming offers to digital storytelling, according to Alexander.

Character development, a key building block in storytelling, takes place in gaming across an iterative process crouched in player choices.

Many game designs include cut scenes that serve as a type of connective tissue. They are used to bridge time, introduce new characters, or even reward players who reach new levels. The author references Salen and Zimmerman’s dual track model of game-based storytelling. The design of these digital stories’ can unfold in a pre-determined way of a crafted story, interactively told. On the other hand, depending upon design, players can create alternative stories based upon their choices. The latter creates an emergent narrative, story and play experience. The dual track concept may be the most compelling argument for games as rich digital storytelling tools. This Baby Boomer, who missed the 21st century gaming wave, can now see the appeal of this more aggressive consumption of story.

Gaming provides a diverse array of options to advance plot and story content. Art games, interactive fiction, social games (Farmville), and other casual play gaming constructs richly expands the realm of digital storytelling.