Lessons From Making E-Lit

March 15, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My Creative Project, UMW Odyssey, was nothing what I expected, but I am satisfied nonetheless that I created a game with a beginning and an end. Computer programming is not my skill in this life, so I’m impressed that I was able to do some of the things I did with the help of online guides for Inform 7. It definitely was not easy, though.

One huge challenge for me was scaling everything down to a more manageable size. I’m a pretty creative person, so I tend to come up with big, ridiculous ideas. Originally, I wanted to have the player go on a journey across campus to return their library book as well as fight horrible monsters from Greek mythology along the way. Unfortunately, once I realized that creating a battle system with Inform 7 was going to take an extremely long time just to figure out, I realized I had to scale this one down.

I decided keep the idea of returning a book on time, but instead focus more on the reality of our campus rather than hydras and furies. I still wanted to keep things interesting, though. I realized I really admired games where you have to solve problems as well and make moral choices, so I decided to focus on that area. In the game, you have the choice to use the RA’s keys to unlock other dorm rooms, which results in loss of points and eventual failure. However, I leave it up to the player themselves whether they want to pick up the keys or not. If I was going to improve on the game, I make it possible for the player to earn points by returning the keys.

As for problem solving, I decided to go for humor and utilize the many squirrels that inhabit our campus. A mutant squirrel beast that has escaped from Jepson blocks your way to the library until you find him something to eat. Once the player takes care of him, they can move on to the library and win.

I don’t feel like my game is as exciting as I wanted it to be, but I’m glad it works. Creating this piece of e-lit was definitely a huge challenge, but a fun one as well. The Internet seems like an even more resourceful place than it was before, and I hope it stays that way. I also feel that I now know a lot more about e-lit and what goes into it. I respect the authors of the pieces we read all the more, and I hope one day I can make something more on their level.

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My attempt to be ‘creative’ ended up looking like something for a third grader..but third graders need E-lit too right??

March 15, 2012 by Leave a Comment

So basically I could say my creative project came awful close to a complete failure. Of course I don’t know if Dr.Whalen agrees and if it was reflected in my grade, and of course I hope not, but it did not turn out anything like what I had imagined. Well it kinda turned out like I imagined but once I was done I started to think my idea was fairly elementary and silly. As a result of this fail, I am well aware of how much more difficult it is to make an original, creative work of electronic literature than I ever thought.

My intentions were to make a work that the way of going about reaching the final literary piece was creative on its own, probably more so than the work itself actually. After learning about the different platforms in class, I was most interested in working with Scratch. This may be because it was much more user friendly than other programs such like Inform 7,  or call me a little kid, but it just seemed more fun, with all the bright colors and fun sprites to chose from. Choosing the platform that seemed the simplest to operate was probably my first mistake, because the simpler to operate, the less complex the work would be.

My second mistake was probably not planning like Dr. Whalen had advised us to do. I didn’t procrastinate or anything so I coulda/shoulda/woulda planned but I just figured since it was supposed to be creative I would just start somewhere and go with it — bad idea. I just kinda went along adding cool features as I found them in the program, some pretty colors, cool ‘costumes’, yadda yadda. By the time I was finished I had a where the wild things are sprite and a bunch of polka dot sprites with some trees in the background. I didn’t even know where I was going with that and I doubt anyone else would be able to tell either (I felt bad for the people who had to peer review it and try not to tell me it was the dumbest thing they’d ever seen)

Though I didn’t actually lay out my idea on paper or anything to plan, I did kinda have a general idea to begin with of what I wanted. Mostly that was having a work pieced together by the user by typing letter keys which would reveal where in the work that letter was located and once all the letters were uncovered the user then was to unscramble the letters. All together I kind of had a video game mixed with good ole first grade English word scramblers. After doing all this and writing a children’s poem (I am not one of those deep emotional poem writing types, it’s just not in me, so I went for a more fun work) for the literary work to be unscrambled I wasn’t quite sure what I had. Like I said, a little bit of a couple differnt electronic literature genres. It may not have been one distinct form of e-lit but it was born digital so therefore..it was e-lit. No, it wasn’t exactly a literary masterpiece but if I were an elementary teacher trying to teach children to spell or read it would be genius! And I had to just be happy with that because it was due and I didn’t have time to make anything else.

After having this idea I thought could be really cool that turned out to be pretty lame, I realized just how difficult it actually is to create a work worth anyone’s time. It has made me respect the works we have looked at in class much more because just because you created a literary work on a computer, making it electronic literature, doesn’t mean you have created a work worth any acknowledgement. Who was the inventor who failed a bunchof times before he got something right? Edison I think? I don’t know, but maybe that’ll be me! Yea..right. But I’ll sure as heck keep trying!

 

Here is the final product if you want to have a good laugh, prepare yourself…

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/nnash2/2368390

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Ergon Logos: The physical vs. the logical

February 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

If you have not played (or maybe the better word is read) Ergon Logos, you really should.  Click here to check it out.  This is a hypertext and by definition, the player chooses what path they take to find something else about the main character.  The hypertext starts out with a black background with white writing.  First words of the story tell the player that the main character is a hero.  From that point on, it has the feeling that the main character is really a video game character.  He keeps on saying things like “an unquestionable authority controls me” and “freedom from a malevolent god,” which imply that he is not in control of himself.  This is an interesting observation from the character that is being controlled by the player itself.  The black background stays until you get to a few options.  There is one option where the main character finds the “damsel in distress” and instead of being drawn to her, he sees it more as an obligation rather than out of love for the girl.  Another is about an encounter that the main character has with a monster where he has very strong feelings for it.  There are also several endings where the main character falls off a jump or gets killed by the monster.  This sends the player into a new background.  The background turns white and the writing is black.  In this part of the hypertext, the character is much more philosophical, talking through the problems of his own mind.  I think it was an interesting choice that Paolo Pedercini made by naming this piece of art.  I looked up Ergon and found that it had to do with physical while Logos has to do with logic.  The black portion of the art is all about the physical actions of the main character while the white portion is about his thoughts and what he thinks about being controlled.

All of that explanation aside, I think that this is a great addition to electronic literature.  Not only is it challenging to normal thought but it is unique.  I liked the set up.  The words were very quickly moving across the screen which made it difficult to internalize what the author wanted us to understand.  However, it made it more like a video game feel which is engaging.  Like in The Colossal Cave Adventure, the reader has to imagine what they are reading.  Pedercini forces the player to think about the choices they are making because they are playing a character who is in complete understanding that he is being controlled by you.  He also subverts normal romantic roles by making his character more attracted to the monster than to the beautiful damsel in distress.  Over all, this game is fun, interactive, and intellectual.

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If You Die in Ana Somnia You Die in Real Life

February 9, 2012 by 3 Comments

(Commentary assumes Ana Somnia player had webacam enabled.)

 

In approaching Ana Somnia by Kim Köster, I had to pick up haul myself through the “is this e-lit?” dance.

Said dance involves furtively going through your class notes, then the class’ class notes, then some articles on the web before honing in on the most convenient definition that enables you to do whatever the hell you want.  In this case we’re rolling with the “digital born” set of parameters of clarification for what qualifies as e-lit.
Still, that did not cover everything.
Ana Somnia is not a hypertext, it is not quite a game, and it could maybe barely be considered interactive fiction. Where I would prefer to dub it digital poetry and move on, there are almost no words at all:  A title card to tell you what you are looking at and a tired Ana informing you, “no sleepy, it’s too bright.”

With that unsettled, we are quickly thrown into a minor crisis of personal agency.
When you swing your cursor by and a butterfly takes off, or the teddy turns its head, you are secure. You have a place in the world of Ana Somnia.  Of course, a moment or two later you realize you only have superficial agency, bearing no real direction overall.  Maybe.
There’s more randomly generated output than the dovetailing effects of your seemingly inconsequential interactions.
In what passes for narrative, there are no real choices.  Knocking over that jar won’t change a thing, though you can do it if you like. You have only one real move, the extent of your agency in Ana Somnia is in making that move or not.
The dreams hurtle along without consideration for your actions or influence, no stopping for anything unless you want to start at the beginning.
On another level it’s even more interactive than any of those texts.  It could care less what you do to your keypad, and is ambivalent about your cursor, but it really really cares about light bulbs.

When the lights go off the dreams creep in and they will be there, in the dark, as long as you are.  With you until you turn on the lights.

Despite its seeming indifference to user interaction, Ana Somnia manages to break (or appears to break) the fourth wall more thoroughly than any work limited to point and click, the interaction bound to the interface.* It’s not you that affects little Ana’s dream, but the environment.  She can’t sleep with the lights on, all you can do is turn them off for her and watch the dreams climb out.

*Yes okay webcam is as much interface as a mouse or track pad but what I’m getting at is it’s different, it’s causing the user to mentally link the artificial digital environment of Ana’s room and dream with the physical environment of wherever they actually are in meatspace when interacting with the world of Ana Somnia.**

**Your light effectively becomes the light in Ana’s room thereby making her room an extension of your space, how neat is that?***

***It’s pretty neat.

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Colossal Cave Adventure: The Experience

January 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I chose to take this course because I was very interested in actually discovering what electronic literature actually was. After some intense Google searching, I came to realize that electronic literature was really any literary work that was created on a computer or electronic devise to be enjoyed on a computer or electronic devise. Having this information at the forefront of my mind, I came into this course with the assumption that I would probably be reading various texts on the computer. Much to my surprise, after the first class when Professor Whalen explained all that the course actually entailed, I happened to hear the word games mentioned in the course description. i thought to myself surely I misheard the professor no way would we be allowed to play games in an upper level English course like this. Just at the moment I happened to look at the syllabus and I read the words clearly GAMES. I could not believe it was true. This was going to be the best Literature class I had ever taken. I was sure of it.

When we were assigned our first game, Colossal Cave Adventure, I was so excited to be playing a game for homework that I began to fantasize about how the game would go. Later on that night I went online to read up on Colossal Cave Adventure before diving into the actual game. After reading several, not so stellar reviews, I was nervous and decided, maybe it was time that I check it out for myself instead of simply taking the opinions of several unknown others.

When I began the game, at first, I was confused about exactly how to phrase commands. I started the game a few different times and it seemed like each time I got a bit further and a bit further. Eventually I got so far that I was actually in the cave. I found that once inside the cave however, I seemed to be caught in some sort of loop involving me, an angry dwarf, and an axe. After about an hour of continuous play I decided to end the game. When I came back later on with renewed confidence, I fell prey to the vicious loop yet again. Though I was pleased with how far I had gotten I wanted to see how far others had gotten as well. I decided to turn to my trusty advisor, GOOGLE. While searching, I stumbled upon the video below. I thought it would be a great idea to add it to this post so that everyone could see it.

YouTube Preview Image

 

Now that you know my experience with Colossal Cave Adventure, I would like to hear about yours. What was the Colossal Cave Adventure experience  like for you?

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