Post on 24-Feb-2016
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Beyond Linear NarrativeAugusto Baal Enters Norrath
Katie Whitlock
"Play is older than culture”• It is inherent in our nature. • Used to transcend reality, breaking from the mundane to experience the extraordinary. • Huizinga points to "dressing up" as the highest level of this, suggesting that the donning• of disguise or mask equals perfection of play – “becoming another being”.
• The culture of play remains strong within our society. • The manner of play is changing, adapting to the mediatized culture of the present. • For Rushkoff, video game is a "mediated dream space," which allows individuals to join
in fictional realities to play "dress up" and to pursue a hero's quest unavailable in modern society
• The video game player of today is a performer. He/she is actively engaged in an interactive state that is both physical and mental, playing a character. Narrative, however simplistic, houses this performance in a virtual world, a performance space that can allow an unlimited creative freedom.
Games versus Stories
• This is the essential difference between game designers and storytellers:
• The game designers see the universe - everything! - as a gigantic physical system that need only be simulated with sufficient fidelity to achieve any goal.
• Early Industrial games use film structures: which ignores the dimension of interactivity available to gaming and the use of an emotionally evocative dramatic experience.
• Later games emerge that use Post-Aristotelian theater narratives: create interactive fantasy systems i.e. MMORPG, WOW.
• Rather than following Aristotelian rules of drama, these massive worlds parallel the writings of another, more modern, theatre theorist - Augusto Boal.
MMORPG
• Introduce social relationships in games: – Dungeon “like” Role playing games– online communities• MUDs (text based) • MMOs add AI in games
– Games became situational: a simulacrum of the real-world (or a fantastic version of)
Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre
Spect-actor
• A meld of audience and actor• An active participant in drama • Influencing the narrative• Altering the narrative to suit the individual's ideas.
• Theater becomes at the cross-road of narrative and action
• It becomes a place of revolution via democratic theater
Everquest- Boal’s theater
• Massive multiplayer games are unique in that they depend upon the community to survive, just as Boars Forum relies on society to thrive.
• The community is the reason to play the game as its presence and involvement alters the experience.
• The player becomes a part of the game and its virtual community, joining a social network that gives the player agency, a capacity for change in every action and choice.
• Player immersion• Hyper reality
• As technology continues to improve and becomes further enmeshed in everyday life, the potential grows for gaming to extend its presence.
• This connection between real life and gaming will further Boal's concept of the Forum by providing a place for the exploration ideas and narratives.
• With the integration of computers and cell phones, virtual worlds hold the potential to become active theatrical forums in which individuals become characters in ever-changing narratives that are influenced and shaped by the people