. Spinning .

Well, surprisingly enough with my horrible sense of direction, I’ve managed to get to four out of five servers and rebooted them successfully–my original task.  But I have not as yet stumbled upon the final server which is somewhere in the center of the city I would think, since I’ve walked the perimeter.  However, in taking the direction I took, I notice that the servers I came upon were in the sequence originally given to me in the instructions.  And, the server I’ve not come across yet is smack dab in the middle.  Methinks it is time to backtrack, losing precious time because I probably did not stop and look around fully.

Another thing, out of many of the people that I’ve run into, there is no conversation–although I overheard one taking place and likely should have checked that out further to find the people involved.  It sounded like a revelation of deeper plot beyond my specified task, and it may have been either crucial to the story, to my success, or to open up further possibilities of adventure.

There was also the time I did get curious enough to stop and press a button, but was left holding Ben Franklin’s stick.  I took it along with me.

I’m curious now about the title of this piece, Book and Volume, and wonder how it figures into the story.  Nothing I’ve come across so far has struck me as a relative clue, and I suspect I’m missing a lot on my first go-round this game.

One of the things that is helpful in mixing media forms and exploring them simultaneously is that it focuses on the means and method and necessarily questions the purpose.

What then, is the lure of the story in text only form?  I don’t think I’ve ever described a book as exciting, but rather interesting or well-written or as appealing toan emotion of feeling or causing deeper thinking in reaction.

Do I care about my character in Silent Hill 2?  Enough to not want him (me as player) to get killed–but even that is in relation to the goal.  If he gets killed–and it’s happened many times–I don’t feel bad, I feel frustrated and go back to the saved portion of the game while he was still alive and replay it to avoid his getting killed.  Because if he dies, the story is over.

Just random thoughts here, but just as I am learning about new media methods, I think I need to focus on what I take for granted about the old.  While adventure stories are certainly the focus of story in book form, we tend to relate to the characters in what they’re going through to make it a more meaningful experience in reading. 

I also need to really get into Barthes’ S/Z to consider his thoughts and the reasoning behind reader interactivity that has helped spawn new media.  Maybe sometimes we’d rather just sit back and read a master storyteller craft story.

I’ve mentioned this before, but after working a bit more in the IF piece, Book and Volume, it appears that we’re on the right track towards seeking drama through relationship rather than action alone if we are indeed seeking to enhance and expand new media to emulate the pull of narrative story.

In IF, while the interactive portion is based on dialogue between the player and the game by typing in text directives and receiving information–similar in some ways to instant messaging, the story itself is action.  We must walk (or run) and complete some tasks to achieve a goal, with impediments placed in our path that must be overcome.  Same thing with the majority of video gaming.  There is none to very little relating to the "people" we meet along the way above discovering if they are there to help or to hinder the player in his goals.  Storytron, may or may not be a different approach, in that the action is supposedly based on definitive action/reaction of the players.

I also can’t help thinking about the way that life imitates art in this new means of story.  Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother (although this certainly is based more on relationships), and the new Treasure Hunt, are part of the phenomenon of "reality" TV, which has people scampering about collecting clues and competing to reach a final winning spot and maybe a million dollars.  It is sort of contradictory to me to call them "reality" shows however, when in reality, most people just don’t do any of these things.  The "reality" part is merely in replacing actors with non-actors who are not prescripted nor directed in the action.  And drama is still based on action, near constant action.  Unless they’re eating a bug of some sort, there is no interest in showing much dinner conversation.

There’s still a long way to go on entertainment via story.  Movies and TV enhanced book format with audio/visuals, allowing the stories that held our attention to be brought to a different form and fill in the imagery by providing it.  I think here that it is actually this complete form of control, beyond the book form that allowed us to picture the characters and settings with just a bit of help from the author, has had more to do with the intense interest in readerly story and interactive need than books themselves. 

But the writing of these stories, the reading of them to include interactive use in new media methods such as Storytron, the tools and the end results, still have a long way to go.