Things I Need to Do

Some things I need to finish between now and May 1st are:

1. Create media pages for my character (probably twitter and tumblr) 
2. Revise Twine and make sure it's up to date with the story since it was published
3. Keep posting to my character blog
4. Incorporate new media pages onto the group blog 

More About My Character

My character is named Madeline. To get a sense of who she is, you need to start with the Twine that is posted on her blog. It's a sort of flashback-type story that goes through the events that happened back in Las Vegas, which caused her move east to the city. Her Google Map postings also give a little information on this, and it shows how she travelled from her home to the city.

Her blog just details how she is getting settled into her new home. There are a few postings about encountering the other characters in the group, such as meeting Charlotte on the subway platform. Madeline also uses her blog to promote her business. She is working as a psychic in the city, not because she actually has any psychic abilities, but because she had a passing knowledge of it and it was the first thing that popped into her head when filling out immigration forms. Luckily it worked out for her, because the immigrations officer thought that was a really interesting career and cut her a break.

Madeline's story is about to take a turn for the worse. It is mentioned in the Twine that someone from Las Vegas wanted to blackmail her due to her ex-boyfriend being investigated for a series of murders. A threatening note was the reason why she chose to run away to the city. She posts a video commercial for her business on the blog, and it includes a photo of herself. Unfortunately, someone connected to her past in Las Vegas ends up seeing her video on the Internet, and now knows how to find her, and they are coming for her.

While this is going on, she is also assisting the members of the group in finding Blaire. She becomes friends with a few of the characters, and this is how she gets involved. She doesn't play a very large role in finding Blaire, but because of the riskiness of the finding mission, it makes it very dangerous for her as the person from her past tries to hunt her down.

All About Madeline

My fictional character's name is Madeline. She is a young woman (mid-20sish) who has just recently moved to the city. Her home is out west, near Las Vegas, which is not under the government control that the city is under. She lived very happily out there, until one morning when she discovered that her boyfriend was missing and being investigated in connection to recent murders. Obviously, this was very traumatizing, and even more so because soon after speaking with the police, she arrived home to find a threatening note blackmailing her. The note said that they knew the truth about what happened with the murders, and they were going to tell. This scared her, so she ran away from her home, abandoning her job, friends, and family.

She arrived in the city with only a modest amount in savings. She had only been a cocktail waitress in Vegas, so she had no idea what she was going to do for a job here. Upon arriving to the city, she had to fill out some immigration forms, and listing an occupation was required. Thinking fast, Madeline put down that she was a psychic, based on a passing interest in palm readings and a distant aunt who was into Tarot card readings. Luckily, this worked out really well for her, because the immigrations officer was very interested in this, and cut her a break in placing her in an apartment.

Soon after, she was put in contact with a man who owned a building where a psychic used to have a shop. She had recently passed away, so Madeline was in the right place at the right time to sort of "inherit" the lady's shop. Now, she's trying to settle down in the city and establish her business so that she doesn't run out of money and have to head back home.

Practice Zeega

McGonigal Chapters 7-8

I believe McGonigal's 3 main claims in her writings are:

1. Wholehearted Participation - McGonigal really stresses the importance of not just participation, but wholehearted participation. She defines this participation as, "to be self-motivated and self-directed, intensely interested, and genuinely enthusiastic," and that if you are not participating wholeheartedly in your own life, you're missing out on ways to be happy. I thought this was a really unique way to look at it. She uses the examples of Chore Wars, Quest for Learning, and SuperBetter to show how engaging in this "wholehearted participation" of the mundane aspects of your own everyday life can make a positive difference. She believes that ARGs can (should) help the players participate more fully in their own live, even if positive-impact isn't the ARGs main goal. Her comparison between ARGs being the "antiescapist" game, compared to traditional games being a way to escape from reality, also supports this claim. No one is playing Chore Wars to escape from the stress of their lives, but they are playing it because it's a fun way to participate wholeheartedly while trying to complete a mundane, everyday task. 

2. Meaningful Rewards When We Need Them Most - McGonigal opens Chapter 8 by recalling an experience she had at a conference, where she mentioned that it would be nice to have a "leveling up" system in real life, the way characters can level up in games. She inspired someone to create a site that does just that; emailing people to let them know someone has given them a "+1" in some trait you exhibit, especially if it comes at the hand of doing an unpleasant task. She also uses her own personal experience as being a nervous flyer to make a case for why earning rewards can make a dreaded task more pleasant. She notes that when quantitative benchmarks are available for marking progress, the instant positive feedback encourages players to work harder, or take on the next biggest challenge. Nike+ is a great example of this. It's not an ARG in the way you would typically consider the definition of the game, but yet it has so many common characteristics. It encourages people to participate wholeheartedly in their exercise (a task many people dread), it provides an instant way to see the progress you've made and how far you have to go until you meet the next benchmark, and there is a community of other members who use Nike+ and compete in challenges together all over the world.

CGTS Chapters 17-23

My Top Ten List from CGTS Chapters 17-23 

1. Organization - One thing the book emphasized is that organization is key to the success of your story. It gave some really useful suggestions for organizational tools, such as creating a spreadsheet of character data, or a schedule of milestones you need to hit on the way to a deadline. These would be useful tools for our own group to use to keep our story organized.

2. Communication - I've learned firsthand already that communication is important when creating a transmedia narrative. When one member of the group doesn't participate, it makes it hard for the rest of the group and their story to progress. Communicating with my fellow group members is 100% necessary when working on our group projects, and contributing to the success of our story.

3. Realism in Web Design - I thought it was really interesting that the book suggested modeling your fictional websites from real ones. That was an idea I had never thought about before. I will definitely be taking a look at other psychic websites online, to get ideas for how my character's business website should look.

4. News Sections in Web Design - Our group story takes place in a sort of post apocalyptic world, and that setting is key to a number of important plot points. I think having a sort of news section would be a good world-building tool, so that readers can easily gain background information on the state of the world our characters live in. It's important to keep in mind the tips from the book, however, which say not to get bogged down by updating news and lose the plot of your story.

5. Using Twitter for Social Media - The book brings up a lot of points about how other social networks do not really approve of people making profiles for fictional characters. One social network it recommends to use is Twitter. I am already familiar with how this network works, and it would be very easy to create a realistic profile for my character. It's also an easily sharable way to communicate with the other characters through @ replies and retweets.

6. Sending Bulk Emails - One thing the book suggests is the sending of large batches of emails. It warns that there is a fine line between sending too many emails and not sending enough. Again, I think this would be cool to use within our story, but in combination with the Breaking News type section.

7. Physical Artifacts - The book suggests using physical objects to get people involved in your story. I think this is an awesome idea, and I agree that it helps people become connected to the story by having a tangible object. For our group story, one cool artifact we could easily create would be paper documents for someone who lives in the poor ghetto.

8. Quality Control - The book stresses the importance of quality control and double checking your work. I think this is extremely important, and often gets overlooked. Even the most interesting and fascinating plot will not attract readers if there are typos and other inconsistencies. Within our group, we will have to do quality control for each other to make sure our story meets our standards.

9. Automated Outbound Emails - The book talks about how automated outbound emails can be used to provide depth to your story, such as sending a code to someone who emails the correct password. I would really like to incorporate this into our story somehow because I think it's an interesting tool, but I am not sure how it would fit within our plot.

10. Video Production - The book also talked a lot about tips for video production, which I know we will be working on as a project for class. I thought it provided a lot of helpful information, such as making storyboards and taking framing into consideration. These will be things I keep in mind when we start to work on our character videos.

My Hometown Google Map: Winfield/Teays Valley, WV

Incorporating Storytelling from CGTS

I am really enjoying reading the Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling, and I’m finding a lot of interesting and relevant points to incorporate into my character’s story, and my group’s overarching story.

One of the first things the author, Andrea Phillips, discusses is the importance of worldbuilding, as she says on page 43, “…the most effective tool is to actually create a small piece of your world and give it to your audience to play with.” Because my group is telling a story set in a future time period, and in a world that functions a lot differently from our own, I think it would be really cool to create a physical artifact like Phillips suggests. In the universe of our story, people are sorted into social classes, and the very poor are used as physical labor for the rest of society, so perhaps some sort of government documentation papers would be an interesting, physical property for worldbuilding.

Another interesting point was how Phillips warns on page 48 that, “a common rookie mistake…is to place a character’s online presence in an unchanging state.” This is something I am really aiming to avoid with my character. Because she owns her own business, I am going to use her character blog as the website for “Mystical Madeline’s – Card & Palm Readings.” Her “psychic” abilities play a big role in the group story, so I want to be sure that I utilize her blog to emphasize her abilities and drive forward her interest in these activities.

The section on backstory and exposition was also very intriguing. My character actually has a very elaborate back-story, describing how she made it to the NYC-esque city where our group of characters finally meets. Madeline’s backstory helps create her personality, and how she reacts in certain situations, however her history never plays a huge role in the group story. It’s there to give Madeline more depth, and make her seem more real as a person.

Another thing that Phillips stresses is the importance of conflict in creating a story. Although our group plot has a clear state of conflict, I am not 100% certain on my character’s place in the conflict yet. I’m not sure what she has at stake, if anything at all. Phillips suggests thinking of something your character wants most in life, and then think of a situation in which they can’t have it. This is something I am going to keep in mind, as I continue to develop Madeline as a character and I try to find a balance between her backstory, her place in our group story, and her own personal conflict and resolution.

Twine Narrative

I am using Twine to tell the story of how my character, Madeline Rodgers, went from being a cocktail waitress in a Las Vegas casino to living on the run as a psychic fortune-teller. The actual Twine itself goes through the day she discovered that her long-time boyfriend was a criminal, and she learns that she has to leave town.

________________________________________________________________________________

It was 4 AM when Madeline awoke from a deep sleep. She hadn’t been dreaming, but she knew immediately that something didn’t feel right. She grabbed her cell phone off of the night stand. She knew that her boyfriend Ryan needed to be awake at 6:30 for work, so she didn’t want to call and risk waking him. She sent a quick text asking him to call when he woke up. Madeline still didn’t feel relaxed. She decided to call her mother and check in, knowing that there was no time of day when her mother didn’t mind answering a phone call.

Still laying in bed, Madeline dialed the number to her childhood home. A few rings, and her mother’s tired voice answered. “Madeline? Is something wrong?”

“No Mom, I’m fine. I just woke up and had a terrible feeling something was wrong. I just wanted to call and make sure you were OK.” Sharing her fears aloud made them seem more absurd.

“Me and your dad are just fine, sweetie. Try to go back to sleep, you need some rest.”

Feeling slightly relieved by her mother’s reassuring voice, Madeline quickly drifted off back to sleep.

When she woke up at 9 AM, and there was still no call or text from Ryan, she began to worry again. She called his office, knowing he was always there by 8:45. His secretary said he wasn’t in yet. Hearing this, Madeline decided to stop by his apartment on the other side of town. At best, he was sick or he overslept. At worst, however, she didn’t even want to think about.

She rushed out of her house toward her car, but before she opened the driver’s side door, she noticed something was wrong. One of her tires had been slashed. Her stomach sank in fear. There was no time to investigate, however, as she ran to the bus stop to get to Ryan’s as fast as possible.

Madeline became frantic when she met a policeman blocking the door to Ryan’s apartment. After multiple attempts to go in, and requests to see Ryan or speak to him, the policeman told her that he needed to take her to the station for some questions.

At the station, Madeline’s world came crashing down. In the span of just a few minutes, she learned that her loving, caring boyfriend was missing, and he was the lead suspect in 6 ongoing murder investigations in the Las Vegas area, and could she provide any information on his whereabouts.  She told the policeman what she knew about his past, which wasn’t much. He had grown up in Phoenix, his parents were divorced but his father passed away last year. He went to Arizona State for his undergrad, and if she had any more news she’d call.

She rushed home from the police station as soon as possible. She needed time alone to think about what had just happened to her life.

When she arrived home, she noticed an envelope stuck underneath of her welcome mat. It had her named printed on the front. She grabbed it and carried it inside with her, tearing into the envelope. Her blood ran cold as she read the message.

“I know the truth about RF, seek the future uncertainty and find me. Or don’t, and I’ll make sure that you’re just as guilty as he is. – 26505”

What on Earth could that mean? She plugged the numbers into Google. The first result that popped up was a zipcode listing for Morgantown, WV.

“I wonder what’s there for me,” she said to herself. “I guess I really don’t have much to lose at this point…”

Institute Review

I'm going to break my review for The Institute down into a list of "The Good" and "The Bad":

The Good

• It's a really interesting narrative they created. The story of the cult, and Eva, and trying to figure out the mystery is one that appealed to a lot of people. It naturally appeals to people's curiosity, and I believe this is one of the huge factors in how they got so many enthusiastic participants. 

• The beginning of the film was really attention-grabbing. I wasn't sure what I was watching at first, if it was real or fake. It was hard to pick out where the ARG began and the film about it ended.   

• In terms of the game itself, I think people were drawn to it because of how physical and tactile it was. More than any other examples we've seen in class, this one placed the most emphasis on the player actually holding and acquiring items, and actually physically doing things with their bodies. Even the movie itself is like an object of the ARG, because it continues the narrative that the game began.          

 The Bad

• The bright, flashy, "down the rabbit hole" graphics and color scheme of the movie was very distracting and difficult to watch in some places. I was too preoccupied with the things on the screen rather than what was being said. 

• I wish they would have discussed more of the logistics of the game. What I really wanted to know the whole time was how they managed to plan such a large scale event, including how they got the physical properties ready and available for the players. For instance, I would like to know how many of the keys with a map they made and how they made them.                

• While the way the movie worked as part of the transmedia storytelling narrative of the Jejune Institute, I think that as a movie, it would have been more successful with a straightforward and traditional documentary approach. By immersing the movie within the world of the ARG, it makes it alienating to people who don't have any previous knowledge of the game or how those games work in general.

Overall, I liked the movie because I thought the content was interesting. If I was not familiar with the concept of ARGs before watching it, however, I doubt I would have liked it at all. It really requires a familiarity with context to totally understand, especially from the beginning as you are shown the Induction Room and video from the perspective a player. 

Institute Organization

The game was definitely planned. I think that the creators first thought of what they wanted the players to do, and then the job was to find a way to relate these actions to an overall narrative. For example, from the beginning of the Institute, the creators would think, "Wouldn't it be interesting to give players a map with instructions on how to leave a place by evading security. It would give the game a hook by making it have a spy mission sort of feel," and then they would figure out where in the overreaching plot narrative it would make sense to place this step.

The first chapter of the Institute I would consider a type of prologue, where the signs were posted to lead the players to the induction room. I call this a prologue because it happens before people know they are part of an ARG. The real first chapter begins the moment players step foot within the induction room. Watching the video on the Jejune Institute serves as exposition, the beginning of the their journey into the ARG. People are naturally very curious, so this video on the history of a supposed cult would strike the interest of many who made it this far. The props used in this chapter are the most important, because they set expectations for what the rest of the game will be like. The use of the map and encouragement to blindly follow directions lets players know what will be expected of them in order to get the most out of the game. It was also important that the actors in this section of the game, such as the receptionist who gives the key with the map, are 100% in character. The game would fail if the facade was already crumbling before the game even started.

Things I Noticed About The Institute

Three things that I noticed after watching The Institute, these were the things I thought were the most striking and really stuck with me after viewing:

• It took place in a very urban setting, and because of the emphasis on street art and the original ads posted around the city, it needed this setting to function. It would not have worked as a well in a suburban or rural town. 
• The video was very bright and flashy, lots of trippy looking graphics and photos were used through the movie, especially in the beginning. It is very disorienting. 
• It really tries to emphasize the blurring of real and fiction through the story it is telling. It is set up so that the viewer really isn't even sure if this was a game or if it was really happening, especially with the use of real people interviews talking about their experiences. 

Fictional Character Outline

My fictional character's name is Madeline. She is a psychic/medium who owns a business in Morgantown, where she does seances, palm readings, and Tarot card readings. She is very secretive about her personal life outside of her work; even though she has many loyal customers who come to see her at least once a week, many of them don't even know her last name.

I haven't decided on her back story yet. I'm not sure how she ended up in Morgantown, but this is definitely not her hometown. I'm trying to think of an interesting twist for her history, like maybe she is on the run from someone. There's definitely a reason behind her secretiveness and her affinity for the paranormal. I want to tell the story of her past, with some event setting it into motion so her entire life in Morgantown crumbles because the truth has come to light. I'm hoping I can find a way to work her psychic/medium skills into it as well, so that her business isn't just a hobby but a part of her identity.

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2nd Halting State Response

I really enjoyed reading this section of Halting State. It was interesting figuring out how Sue, Elaine, and Jack all fit together in working to solve the crime. I have become a lot more comfortable with the 2nd person perspective now, at this point in the book I barely even notice it.

In some sections of dialogue, I feel like I have no clue what is going on because it goes way overboard on the technology descriptions. I think the book has to walk a fine line between conveying the super high tech futuristic world  the story is set in, while still keeping the reader interested and not totally overwhelmed by unfamiliar jargon. Personally, I would get lost in some descriptions of the technology processes and immediately start skimming the page for the end of the dialogue.

Also in this section, I had to get used to shifting back and forth between the characters in the real world, and also their actions as avatars in game space. It reminded me of the movie Inception, with the action taking place in different levels of reality.

I really like this book so far. It's interesting  because I feel like the plot isn't entirely too far-fetched, and could actually take place in the not so distant future. I'm looking forward to reading the conclusion of the book, and figuring out the mystery of the robbery and Nigel MacDonald.

Halting State - First Response

Only 32 pages into this book, and it is already one of the most interesting (and slightly confusing!) things I have ever read!

This book is very unique in the fact that the chapters switch viewpoints between different characters. You have to pay very close attention to the heading at the beginning of the chapter to know whose viewpoint you are experiencing. Also, the book is unique because it is written in the 2nd person -- meaning the main pronoun used is "you." It was slightly difficult to adapt to this idea, for example, in the first chapter the reader is in Sue's shoes, and is experiencing everything from her point of view, with "you" meaning yourself being Sue. It's a really interesting aspect, and definitely a hook to get people to pick up the book.

So far, Sue's story is the only one that I really have a grasp on. I'm not quite sure yet on how Elaine and Jack fit into the story, because the information given in their chapters doesn't really relate at all to the summary on the back of the book which only talks about the story we are given in Sue's chapter. I'm looking forward to figuring out how all these puzzle pieces fit together!

Hello!

Hi everyone!

I'm Ashley Wentz, and this is my blog for my English 303 Multimedia Writing course. I'll be using this blog to respond to different topics from our class as part of our assignments. I'm looking forward to making a lot of posts here through the semester!