Agency

• “power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices”

• Participation in narrative is fairly rare• Participatory music relies on cueing and formulaic

behavior– Square dancing vs.

ballroom dancing

• Not just interactions per minute in games

Navigation• Moving through a geographic or abstract space can be enjoyable• Maze as challenge to find solution in space

– Physical and/or mental challenges– Must find the exit

• Rhizome rejects a single path, single solution, or single meaning– System design can get in way

of agency– If done right, the reader need

not worry about the loss of the plot

• “Dear Dad – this game will never end. William.”

Between Maze and Rhizome

• Neither overdetermined nor underdetermined– Generating anxiety

• Violence hub as model– A dramatic event– Many perspectives

• How different and how same from existing games and hypertexts?

The Journey Story

• Pleasure of uniting problem solving with navigation– Fitting problem solving

into world– Zork 2 vs. The Seventh

Guest

• Games into stories– Offer opposing satisfactions?– Need for a happy ending?– Many reasons to play a game

Games as Symbolic Dramas

• Protagonists and plots– Enacting relationships to

the world• More abstract interpretations– Social meaning in Monopoly– Drama in Tetris

• The Contest Story– Opponent (Pong)– Requires little imaginative effort as agency is direct

• There is a difference between drama and narrative

Constructivism

• MUDs as a model– Can play existing stories or

create new ones– Can be individual or social

• Problems with shared authorship

• Live-Action Role Playing– Separation of GM and players– Works because of persistent relations between players

• Agency vs. Authorship– Creating activity vs. creating opportunities– Procedural authorship