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.

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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.