Thesis Final8

REFRAMING INTERACTIVE DIGITAL NARRATIVE: TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE OPEN-ENDED ITERATIVE PROCESS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE A Dissertation Presented to The Academic Faculty By Hartmut Koenitz In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Digital Media Georgia Institute of Technology August, 2010 Copyright © Hartmut Andreas Koenitz 2010 Reframing Interactive Digital Narrative: Toward An Inclusive Open-Ended Iterative Process For Research And Practice Approved by: Dr. Janet Murray, Advisor Dr. Kenneth Knoespel School of Literature, Communication Ivan Allen College and Culture Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Mads Haahr Dr. Jay Bolter Department of Computer Science School of Literature, Communication Trinity College Dublin and Culture Georgia Institute of Technology Date Approved: June 30, 2010 Dr. Celia Pearce School of Literature, Communication and Culture Georgia Institute of Technology It is a waste of energy and resources to make applications that merely imitate media that exist in other forms, such as print, television, and film. Pamela Jennings, 1996 To my Parents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I want to acknowledge the help, dedication and commitment of my advisor Janet Murray. Her relentless criticism and simultaneous encouragement sharpened both my wit and the focus of my arguments. Jay Bolter gave me the courage to start this project and provided not only lucid intellectual advice, but also a shoulder to lean on and a voice of sanity in the darkest hours of this thesis. Celia Pearce gave me a new appreciation of games and encouraged me to include installation pieces I would have otherwise overlooked. Kenneth Knoespel always took my mind to exciting and unforeseen places and made me think outside the box. Mads Haahr provided a critical perspective that helped me better understand the magnitude of my undertaking and how to proceed even before he became a formal committee member. His support, dedication and concrete advice for revising an earlier draft of this thesis was outstanding. Outside my committee, I want to thank Jane Prophet for early feedback and encouragement regarding my ASAPS software system. Even more so, I want to thank all the members of the Advanced Stories Group over the years, for their invaluable input and the time they put into the project. Amongst them I want to single out Katie Fletcher - without her dedication, criticism, and beautiful designs, ASAPS would never have become what it is. I also like to acknowledge my friends on both sides of the ocean, who stuck with me during tough times and helped me go the distance. Last, but not least, I want to thank my parents, who never lost their belief in me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................V LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................VIII LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................IX SUMMARY..................................................................................................................XI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................1 1.1 A Multitude of Traditions ....................................................................................2 1.2 Disappointment and Discontinuity .......................................................................6 1.3 New Narrative Possibilities – the Case for IDN....................................................9 1.4 Fragmentation/Positioning.................................................................................12 1.5 Interactivisation .................................................................................................13 1.6 Obsolescence.....................................................................................................16 1.7 Research/Practice Divide ...................................................................................17 1.8 Missing structure for future research..................................................................18 1.9 First: A Change of Perspective...........................................................................19 1.10 Contributions ...................................................................................................19 1.11 Thesis Roadmap...............................................................................................21 CHAPTER 2: TRADITIONS IN IDN ...........................................................................23 2.1 An Unintentional Beginning ..............................................................................23 2.2 Interactive Fiction..............................................................................................27 2.3 Hyper Fiction (HF) ............................................................................................33 2.4 Interactive Cinema.............................................................................................43 2.5 Full Motion Video Games..................................................................................48 2.6 Interactive Movies .............................................................................................53 2.7 Interactive Video Installations............................................................................61 2.8 Virtual Reality Narratives ..................................................................................68 2.9 Interactive Drama ..............................................................................................73 2.10 Narrative Games ..............................................................................................81 2.11 Works extending across IDN traditions ............................................................93 2.12 Summary: Design Strategies in IDN Space.......................................................94 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF IDN......................................................96 3.1 An Initial Approach towards IDN ......................................................................98 3.2 Earlier Approaches ..........................................................................................102 3.3 Towards a Theory of IDN................................................................................121 3.4 The Object of IDN...........................................................................................137 3.5 Kaleidoscopic Narrative Design Replaces the Narrator Function......................140 3.6 Legacy Narrative and IDN - A Relationship of Influence and Translation........142 vi 3.7 Summary: A Theoretical Framework for IDN..................................................149 CHAPTER 4: PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF IDN.........................................................151 4.1 Technology And Art: a Complex Relationship.................................................151 4.2 The Importance of Authoring Tools For IDN...................................................152 4.3 An Intricate Relationship: Artifacts And Tools ................................................153 4.4 Requirements For an Open and Integrative Approach ......................................172 4.5 A Better Model: The World Wide Web............................................................173 4.6 An Experimental Implementation: Advanced Stories Authoring And Presentation System (ASAPS).....................................................................................................177 4.7 Preliminary Evaluation of ASAPS ...................................................................196 4.8 Summary: Continued Development .................................................................199 CHAPTER 5: PARTS TO A PROCESS......................................................................201 5.1 Fragmentation/Positioning...............................................................................201 5.2 Interactivisation ...............................................................................................202 5.3 Obsolescence...................................................................................................204 5.4 Research/Practice Divide .................................................................................206 5.5 An Inclusive Open-Ended Iterative Process for IDN ........................................208 5.6 Where to go from here.....................................................................................211 APPENDIX A: ASAPS USER GUIDE .......................................................................213 APPENDIX B: ASML STORY FILE: RED’S PATH THROUGH THE WOODS ......276 REFERENCES............................................................................................................315 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Comparison of legacy narrative and IDN .......................................................141 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Feelies from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy .......................................31 Figure 2. A graphical version of Adventure ...................................................................33 Figure 3. Structural view in Storyspace..........................................................................38 Figure 4. Interface of the Aspen Moviemap...................................................................45 Figure 5. Dragon’s

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