Assessment 1: Critical Reflection 2
Week Two explored the notion of interactive narratives in digital media—a concept which is becoming increasingly significant in an era where the story of a game is now of equal importance compared to its mechanics and dynamics. As discussed in our reading and lecture, the primary problem of interactive storytelling is that it must accommodate the player being granted a great deal of agency, as their actions determine how the game progresses rather than any predetermined course (Abraham 2011, pp. 62–63). This newfound role of the player-as-storyteller is especially apparent in first-person action games, where players move their characters around virtual maps and at times interact with their environment in a series of rapid commands.
Our reading thus explored the methods which interactive storytellers have employed in an attempt to maintain the presence of a narrative—particularly, we explored attempts to unite narrative and music in games, adhering to Western conventions of these two elements as being linear. In the case of Halo 2, the most direct solution which storytellers attempt is to impose restrictions, either by having actions fit predetermined scores or by making scores which adapt to actions. However, Abraham notes that such an approach is not practicable in most cases as it removes the crucial element of agency from the player, and so the notion of ‘forced marriage’—random synchronicity between otherwise aural and visual elements—is discussed as a less direct method of creating a narrative atmosphere.
Abraham also attempts to explore the musicality of Halo 2 outside of Western convention, by exploring the manner in which music can be ‘assembled’ from the components of a scene. The composer of Halo not only creates scores for each level with differing emotions, but he also builds musicality into the game’s virtual components by having the sound effects of weapons be tuned to the key signatures of certain pieces—a diminished form of leitmotif which enhances the player’s experience.
Meanwhile, my own further research on the topic of interactive narrative found a compelling method for influencing player behaviours, dubbed by its authors as ‘the Mimesis effect’. This research, headed by Dominguez (2016, p. 1) found that, in the context of role-playing games (which are becoming increasingly popular as immersive forms of storytelling), there is a correspondence between a player’s actions and the character they are playing as—a level of subconscious roleplaying which is present even if players are not actively assuming a character’s identity while making decisions in-game. I believe that the future of digital storytelling and interactive narrative lies in such hidden effects and subconscious relationships—players of games (myself included) do not enjoy being ‘railroaded’ or locked into one narrative path, but games are nonetheless still able to grant players a superficial level of agency whilst actually manipulating their behavior to fit a narrative where necessary.
References
Abraham, B. 2011, ‘Halo and Music’ in Cuddy, L. (ed.) Halo and Philosophy, Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, pp.61-70.
Domınguez, I.X., Cardona-Rivera, R.E., Vance, J.K. and Roberts, D.L., 2016. The Mimesis Effect: The Effect of Roles on Player Choice in Interactive Narrative Role-Playing Games.
Digital Literacies 