giving and taking agency
note: thesis idea
We must explore and establish the possible world as a place that exists to explore but not participate in. Then, break the fourth wall and speak to them directly. Then, intentionally give the player agency in the story. Then, see themselves in the story acting independently of the player. Then, make them fight each other. Then, take the agency away.
Always with the notation of the mechanics used to create and execute these possibilities - what databases, inputs, illustrative artifacts are we presenting to the player that communicates this immersion, agency, and identification as a part of or outside of the story world? How can a node-based artifact tell an entire story or narrative micro sequences (Barthes, 1977, p. 106) , like a single illustration/tableau which holds multiple bits of information that do environmental storytelling? What causes felt-experience, investment in the fate of the world and their own embodied characters fate? The fate of characters they cannot affect?
Are the digital components (to create actual, measurable changes in the story) more affective at creating a sense of agency than the real-world, tactile ones? (How to make the player CREATE something that moves the story forward - drawing a map, cracking a code, doing the paper folding thing - what can I make the player do with their own materials they can't do digitally? Can it have a single answer or multiple answers? Or infinite answers? Will I need to procedurally generate a system to interpret the results in multiple ways? Should I do it thrice, each time reducing the actual agency of the results? Does thos take the player out of the story?) (I wrote this as a gimmie to justify digital futures, but now I like it though I don't want it to take over. But it is also a good seed to follow something that might be original, if I can't find sources, rather than just writing love letters to the theories and concepts I am reading.)
I have always been fascinated that "this" single illustration can do world building all by itself. The stylization, the semiotics, the nouns and verbs all suggest a world outside of it that it exists in. A biology that results in this anatomy. The sculpture is evidence of an ancient race and their beliefs. These objects get into your mind and you become something ylnew. You handling them, changing them, changes you and your world. Can it change them and their world?
Do I need to make a puzzle box? Good to show an artifact that changes just you, and an artifact that you can change to change the world.
prototyping concerns
I intend to create a database game in the vein of Immortality (2022), expanding on its format of database exploration of video clips through creating artefacts that showcase a range of different modalities - video, photography, audio and chat logs, print material, and prototyped artifacts that use environmental storytelling to create a world of archeologist and archivists investigating a lost civilization. To create an experience that can be showcased at grad ex, the physical materials will be available in and installation as though the player has limited Access to an exclusive archive, and needs to take good written and photographed documentation of the archive materials, but will be given access to fictional databases that they can then access at home to finish exploring the narrative in a more private setting. (For this aspect I'll do a short print run of research society "notebooks" they are interning for, so the players can write in it at the show, tland will include links to the databases to access later.)
For this project I expect to fabricate or design approx 20 key narrative nodes, with about 6 of them being physical prototypes of small sculptural arefacts and documentation, the remainder being key evidence in the digital databases, with at least four story choke points to control the pacing of the different levels of agency available to the player. It will also require a lot of red herrings of things they could look up guessing at wrong keywords that are irrelevant but build out the world, I may use generated content and found objects for this material.