The YouTube Collection

April 16, 2012 by 1 Comment

The first thing that I did on April Fool’s Day was to check all of my favorite websites for special features. YouTube was my first checkpoint and I was not disappointed. If you haven’t seen “The YouTube Collection” you should definitely check it out. It’s so well done and my blog won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen it.

YouTube Preview Image

As tongue-in-cheek as this video is, it directly relates to what we talked about in class today, that there are so many YouTube videos that no one person (or a group of lawyers) could ever hope to watch them all in a lifetime. In fact, as the video says, there is approximately an hour of video uploaded every second. This idea is mind-blowing because the worldwide connectivity of YouTube could not be possible without the technological advances of the internet, but the popularity of YouTube has actually surpassed human capability.

This concept can be expanded to include video games, hypertext poetry or even interactive fiction because these genres are always growing even as we view/play them. So our job as consumers of electronic literature and technology is to decide what we want to spend our time doing. Do we want to listen to every dubstep remix on YouTube or work our way through every interactive fiction that we can find? For me, it is important to sort through the mediocrity and find  the works of quality and luckily there are systems in place that make it easier to do so. I have a finely tuned subscription list on YouTube and I rely on those Youtubers to inform me about other vloggers or music videos that are worthwhile to watch. I think the IFComp is another great way to find the cream of the crop, if you will. But then again, if we rely on those systems that were greated by individuals with subjective tastes are we limiting ourselves? What if a YouTube video or a hypertext poem or an interactive fiction that could have changed our whole worldview doesn’t get recognized by “the powers that be?”

As far as YouTube’s contribution to electronic literature goes, I think there is definitely something to be said for the trend of vlogging or video blogging. Just like some blogs(or books for that matter) are literary and some are vapid, so are vlogs. In my opinion, some vlogs could be considered made-in-the-moment memoirs. I’m a big fan of the vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and I would argue that there is a level of cleverness, originality and story-telling in their work that would hold its own with published memoirs. Vlogging, however, has the benefit of being released at a specific moment in time, so that other people can experience it as a community and then respond back directly to the creators themselves. Plus, as cheesy as it sounds, some of the vlogbrothers’ vlogs have changed my way of thinking.

There’s a lot of good stuff out in the interwebs, just make sure you are using your limited life span to its full potential.

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A Comedy of Error Messages

March 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

To continue fueling my interactive fiction addiction, I played “A Comedy of Error Messages” which was posted on the IFComp link on our blog. It was written by Adam Le Doux and won two IF awards in 2011.

Play begins when you choose a character. You choose their gender, race (human, orc or elf) and sexuality, but the character that you have just created is not your character, you are playing as a computer and the character that you created is your human owner’s fictional character on a World of Warcraft type of game. This IF is a great example of the different player perspectives that we read about in Nick Montfort’s article Fretting the Player Character. You can only see the main character (the human) through the eyes of the player that you control (the computer), just like the second person shooter that Montfort discussed. This obviously posed a technical dillema from Le Doux which he solved by allowing the computer character to move through the electrical circuitry of a computer system as if it were a tangible space. It was a bit off-putting at first to have to more “north” into the email inbox or “up” to go into the blogosphere, but once I got the hang of it, I thought that it was quite an imaginative use of the limitations of IF coding. In this way, the computer character could enter the human character’s email, social network or gaming accounts, hack into her smart phone or even “be given eyes” by becoming part of the webcam.

The self-aware humor of this IF is what makes it really fresh in comparison to other IFs that we have played in class. One line says, “If you didn’t know better than to anthropomorphize inanimate objects, you’d say [my documents] looked kind of sick.” This coming from a computer that says it has “the soul of an English butler.” It is also chock full of up-to-date references like referring to a bird from Angry Birds as an “overly emotional bird” or saying that some ancient emails contain references to Netscape, which would only be useful to a “historic reenactor.” Honestly, one of the most appealing parts of “A Comedy of Error Messages” was the beauty of the prose. It’s hard to believe that IF code about technology could be so full of imagery, but it really was. One of my favorite examples was the way the author described going up into the blogsphere, where the blogsphere was a line of colorful hot air balloons tethered together and sending paper airplanes of knowledge down to the desktop computers below.

But aside from just being funny or nicely worded, “A Comedy of Error Messages” was quite insightful as well. When we are introduced to the computer character, it says that it knows Jane, the human character, better than a diary or another person ever could, because it can read all of her email messages and is privy to those “late night Google searches.” I think there’s a lot of truth to this statement, we as a society have started to invest more time with our computers than we do with other people. The whole concept of this story is that the computer is trying to prevent its owner from going on a date with someone that she “met” on the World of Warcraft-like game. This IF centralizes around the idea that technology is literally struggling to keep us from making real-life connections.

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Manor- Interactive Fiction

March 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The premise of my interactive fiction is that you are a kitchen maid working in a large British manor house at the turn of the 20th century. The objective of the game is in two parts: to find out the mystery of the house and to figure out your character’s desire and fulfill it.

Manor

The inspiration for my interactive fiction comes from the television show Downton Abbey, the second season of which just finished airing on PBS. As with most of the English department, I am completely obsessed with the show so I figured the 1910′s era British manor house would serve as a fantastic setting for my story. I wanted the game to be from the perspective of a low status person overwhelmed by the grandeur of a lofty house, so I chose a kitchen maid, similar to Daisy on the show. The plot of my game is not based off of Downton Abbey and I really enjoyed creating a plot around character development and their desires.

Inform 7 was a lot of fun for me especially because I liked the concept of manipulating the English language to serve as computer code. Understanding the specifics of wording the code was frustrating at first but it got much easier with practice (and a lot of Google searches).

My largest difficulty both technically and with story line was the fact that I wanted to write my story chronologically, but I had to write the code allowing the flexibility of the player. So I had to write the code with actions unlocking only after multiple other actions had already been performed or I had to make the same sentence make sense in multiple stages of game play. After having played Shade, I can see that there is a way to have a lot more control over the sequence of events and how items and commands reveal themselves, like the plant changing and the to do list developing new items. I hope to learn more about how the author of Shade accomplished this. I also liked how Shade only took place in one room (for a while at least) whereas my story had many different rooms which may have added unnecessary complication.

Some of the initial feedback that I got was very positive as far as understanding how to traverse through the room and understand the plot at the same time. Other players, however, seemed to be getting stuck in places that I wouldn’t have expected. I do know that other students who did interactive fiction created hints in their text as to how to move or what to pick up or look at. I didn’t do that very often because the text adventures that we have played in class did not do that very often.  It was wonderful to feel like I had developed a work of the electronic fiction that was intriguing to play and to know that process from start to finish. It definitely makes me appreciate the hard work that goes into the interactive fictions that we play in class.

Hope you enjoy!

Emily Brenton

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Deep Surface

February 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

Eerie isn’t it? That’s the whole point.

When I looked at the explanation of “Deep Surface,” I knew I was in for something profound. It explained itself by saying that it was based off of a simple metaphor, asking the questions, what if the pages of a book or webpage were made of water? It also said, “Deep Surface is not just a narrative in the sense that it has a similar structure and approach as a game, although you must enter the literary dimension to learn how to play, how to breathe, and therefore, to be able to keep reading.”

I read the suggestions for play (something that I usually skip over) expecting there to be more intrigue. I was not disappointed. It read like a wonderful string of prose with little gems like this, “At the bottom of it all, of course, there be monsters. What’s the point of reading without the risk of monstrous fictions, or inconvenient truths?” and this, “So dive in, go deep, and don’t forget to tip your mermaids when they sing.”

The game itself had a simple concept. The player clicks a spot on the screen, simulating diving into the water. Words appear on the page, if you click quickly the words change quickly and they are hard to read completely. If you remain in one place, however, the words slowly scroll across the screen allowing you time to read and ingest the meaning.  This method does have a downside though; on the right hand side of the screen is a “lifeline.” That measures your air. If you “stay underwater” too long, you will drown and be propelled to the surface. After drowning three times, a creepy, robotic woman’s voice tells you, “welcome to the world where all you have seen must abide” or “human voices wake us and we drown.” You are taken to a page with naked human backs and the message “dive over…swim again?” You can replay the game infinitely or I suppose until you are too sick of reading the same information again and again.

What the robotic voice is referring to is the text that has flashed before your eyes. Many seem to be press statements about the American government, usually accompanied with the phrase “The Defense Secretary was unable to be reached for commentary.” Other bits of text are headlines about the chaos in our modern world or snippets of bad prose. One of my favorite headlines said, “Sales of penile enlargement drugs are predicted to beat contact lenses in the third quarter.” What an odd world we live in.

There is a point system in this “game” that seems to be based on how long the reader can stay underwater and how much different text they can read. My interpretation of this work was that as much as we want to understand our world and what it happening in it, the overwhelming nature of reality would drown us.  Even the name Deep Surface suggests that even delving into the surface layer of the truth of our world is too deep for any of us to comprehend. A final headline that I caught said, “scientists prove that ignorance is in fact bliss.” I would think that this is the main message of Deep Surface.

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Don’t Panic.

February 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

I love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Well, to be more precise I love Douglas Adams. I love that the inspiration for Hitchhiker came to him while drunk in a field in Austria and despite this, his writing is witty and smart and accessible. So I was beyond thrilled that playing the text adventure version of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy counted as blogging for this class. Somewhere in the back of my brain I remembered that such a thing existed, because in the introduction to a book version that contains all five installments in the Hitchhiker series, Adams talks about the fact that so many different manifestations of Hitchhiker exists that they contradict each other. Yet somehow this only adds to the charm of the series.

The intro to the game says,”It therefore stands to reason that any game which combined a really good programmer with a really good writer was likely to do well. So when Steve Meretzky of Infocom got together with Douglas Adams to create a game based around the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the result was never going to be less than interesting and more than likely insane. So it proved – the Hitchhiker’s Guide adventure game was one of the best-selling games of its era, selling some 350,000 copies. In 1984.” It is fantastic that literature and computer programming can come together in such a seamless way and the result was very satisfying.

Being familiar with the book and the movie definitely gave clues to navigating through the game, but the game play had some distinct differences and was definitely limited by the commands allowed. To be fair though, command limitations are a frustration that I have had with all text adventures that we have explored so far. Having control over something so familiar was absolutely thrilling. Those of you familiar with the books will be pleased to know that entering “don’t panic” returns the message “Very clever. It looks like there’s a lot you should be panicking about.”

There were all sorts of other Douglas Adam-y type features to the game such as being scolded for having poor sentence structure in a command and losing 30 points each time you drink the “Advanced Tea Substitute.” Another cool feature was that the character changed a few times in the story line from Arthur to Ford to Trillian and back again. This allows the player to interact with their future or past selves, this is helpful when sharing objects between multiple characters, but does cause a lot of confusion. My only criticism was that I couldn’t scroll up on the text box, like I was able to in Colossal Cave Adventure, so I often found myself stuck or forgetting what I was going to do next.

From what I have found about the game online, this is an incredibly complex and tedious game but to me playing it was a bit like suddenly finding a treasure map left to you by a beloved uncle.

An uncle you leaves you wonderful tidbits like this:

Hitchhiker Text Adventure Game

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Fitting the Pattern

January 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

For my first blog post, I chose Fitting the Pattern by Christine Wilks out of the E-Lit directory. The main reason that I chose it was because it didn’t look scary or complicated and had something to do with clothes. It did not disappoint; it ended up being a hypertext memoir about the relationship between the dress-maker mother and her two daughters told through the interactive setting of a sewing tools.

The text itself was aesthetically pleasing and simply enough on the eyes. It even made very realistic noises, which I found incredibly satisfying. Here’s an example of what the text looks like:

The manipulation of the text was easy enough (especially nice for a beginner like me).  The user chooses a seam ripper, scissors, pins or a sewing machine foot and manipulates the clothing on the screen causes the poetry to appear. The text will tell you when to pick another tool. After you have read the text for each four tools, they reload with new tasks and new words. Because you can choose any of the four tools in any order, it brings a fluidity similar to “Penetration” and “Dispossession.” I’m starting to find non-linear patterns very freeing. The interaction with the text kept my interest (in a way that clicking the next link wouldn’t have) but didn’t distract from the story. I especially liked the pattern icon in the bottom right corner because it let me know how far into the story I was and gave me a sense of completion when I was finished.

That’s definitely something that English majors like, as we have learned so far in this class. Even though I could have chosen multiple endings, the one that I did chose felt like the right one. There was a definite sense of closure.

I think that setting the story on top of a visual representation of the narrator’s mother’s profession was a very good choice. A lot of conflict within families comes from what the parents do for a living. If a parent works too hard, the child might feel neglected. If a parent doesn’t make enough money, the child might be resentful of the position that the lack of income places them in society. The narrator seems to have experienced a mixture of these two things as well as the fact that her mother made her clothes and therefore expected her to always dress nicely and be the size and shape that the mother wanted her to be.

The story resonated very strongly with me because a close friend of mine has a mother who sounds very similar to the mother of the narrator. Both mothers expect their children to fit a certain mold that they have created for them, but are so consumed by their jobs that parenting takes a backseat. One way that I think the text succeeded in making me draw this parallel is that because the reader chooses the order of the story, it is not in chronological order. When my friend talks to me about her mother and the struggles that they have had, she obviously doesn’t sit me down and list her grievances in order starting at her birth. With any person, you learn about them in bits and pieces out of order and I think this text captures that very well.

 

Here is the link if you want to check it out : http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/wilks_fittingthepattern.html

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Memex

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

My dad worked for a Scottish computer software company called Memex and he would try to explain to me the brilliance of Vannevar Bush and his odd, but influential concept of the memex. Today is the first day that I actually understood what a memex was! It’s very cool to learn the history of computer software and to see how much concepts built off of one another, eventually  influencing the creation of the technology that we take for granted today. Now that technology is even changing our definitions of literature! I guess now I will have so much more appreciation for the box of Memex-stamped stress balls in our hall closet.

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