Theory & Design of Games: Play & Critique 2
I won’t go into too much detail on why Majestic Online failed. I perused other peoples blogs and I they pretty much covered it. I have no contentions. Beth has an amazing gem, mainly Greg Gibson blog response on what went wrong…
Some noteworthy concepts in Majestic Online as it relates to interactive narrative:
- Allowing different gameplay story paths for different types of players.
- Allowing the players to let the game progress at an accelerated pace (different modalities of play)
- ARGs are usually situated in the real world an can have as much in common with TV as they do with videogaming (thus can better incorporate dramatic writing principles more familiar to the participant)
- The challenge to maintain audience interest is that each episode must be a complete and satisfying experience.
The real take away for me is the emergence of Alternate Reality Gaming and how it is motivated by a different notion of user interaction (casual gamer – non gamers welcome). SO Majestic failed, we can learn that there are many avenues and paradigms for game-play exploration here. There seem to be dozens of ARG iterations sprouting up and dying like weeds – each with it’s own take on the narrative expereince. One common thread to all ARG’s is the notion of searching for information and sharing information, which are playful tasks we already do on a daily basis . No need to learn a console controller!!
ARG’s are an emerging genre like interactive narrative and I will keep a close eye on new developments. I see many similarities with ARG’s and my project for the Computational Poetics course. I am thinking of building a situated game of the SFU Surrey mezzanine – that people play while in the mezzanine. Please ask me for more info if you’re interested…
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