Narrative Mechanics

Narrative Mechanics PDF Author: Beat Suter
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839453453
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
What do stories in games have in common with political narratives? This book identifies narrative strategies as mechanisms for meaning and manipulation in games and real life. It shows that the narrative mechanics so clearly identifiable in games are increasingly used (and abused) in politics and social life. They have »many faces«, displays and interfaces. They occur as texts, recipes, stories, dramas in three acts, movies, videos, tweets, journeys of heroes, but also as rewarding stories in games and as narratives in society – such as a career from rags to riches, the concept of modernity or market economy. Below their surface, however, narrative mechanics are a particular type of motivational design – of game mechanics.

Narrative Mechanics

Narrative Mechanics PDF Author: Beat Suter
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839453453
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
What do stories in games have in common with political narratives? This book identifies narrative strategies as mechanisms for meaning and manipulation in games and real life. It shows that the narrative mechanics so clearly identifiable in games are increasingly used (and abused) in politics and social life. They have »many faces«, displays and interfaces. They occur as texts, recipes, stories, dramas in three acts, movies, videos, tweets, journeys of heroes, but also as rewarding stories in games and as narratives in society – such as a career from rags to riches, the concept of modernity or market economy. Below their surface, however, narrative mechanics are a particular type of motivational design – of game mechanics.

Time Travel

Time Travel PDF Author: David Wittenberg
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823273334
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
This “stimulating contribution to literary theory” reveals the deeply philosophical concerns and developments behind popular time travel sci-fi (London Review of Books). In Time Travel, literary theorist David Wittenberg argues that time travel fiction is not mere escapism, but a narrative “laboratory” where theoretical questions about storytelling—and, by extension, about the philosophy of temporality, history, and subjectivity—are presented in story form. Drawing on physics, philosophy, narrative theory, psychoanalysis, and film theory, Wittenberg links innovations in time travel fiction to specific shifts in the popularization of science, from nineteenth-century evolutionary biology to twentieth-century quantum physics and more recent “multiverse” cosmologies. Wittenberg shows how popular awareness of new science led to surprising innovations in the literary “time machine,” which evolved from a vehicle used for sociopolitical commentary into a psychological device capable of exploring the temporal structure and significance of subjects, viewpoints, and historical events. Time Travel draws on classic works of science fiction by H. G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, Robert Heinlein, Samuel Delany, and Harlan Ellison, television shows such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek,” and other popular entertainments. These are read alongside theoretical work ranging from Einstein, Schrödinger, Stephen Hawking to Gérard Genette, David Lewis, and Gilles Deleuze. Wittenberg argues that even the most mainstream audiences of popular time travel fiction and cinema are vigorously engaged with many of the same questions about temporality, identity, and history that concern literary theorists, media and film scholars, and philosophers.

Storycraft, Second Edition

Storycraft, Second Edition PDF Author: Jack Hart
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022673708X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Jack Hart, master writing coach and former managing editor of the Oregonian, has guided several Pulitzer Prize–winning narratives to publication. Since its publication in 2011, his book Storycraft has become the definitive guide to crafting narrative nonfiction. This is the book to read to learn the art of storytelling as embodied in the work of writers such as David Grann, Mary Roach, Tracy Kidder, and John McPhee. In this new edition, Hart has expanded the book’s range to delve into podcasting and has incorporated new insights from recent research into storytelling and the brain. He has also added dozens of new examples that illustrate effective narrative nonfiction. This edition of Storycraft is also paired with Wordcraft, a new incarnation of Hart’s earlier book A Writer’s Coach, now also available from Chicago.

Exploring Movie Construction and Production

Exploring Movie Construction and Production PDF Author: John Reich
Publisher: Open SUNY Textbooks
ISBN: 9781942341475
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students¿ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Narrative Tactics for Mobile and Social Games

Narrative Tactics for Mobile and Social Games PDF Author: Toiya Kristen Finley
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351651250
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Despite its significant growth over the past five years, the mobile and social videogame industry is still maturing at a rapid rate. Due to various storage and visual and sound asset restrictions, mobile and social gaming must have innovative storytelling techniques. Narrative Tactics grants readers practical advice for improving narrative design and game writing for mobile and social games, and helps them rise to the challenge of mobile game storytelling. The first half of the book covers general storytelling techniques, including worldbuilding, character design, dialogue, and quests. In the second half, leading experts in the field explore various genres and types of mobile and social games, including educational games, licensed IP, games for specific demographics, branding games, and free to play (F2P). Key Features The only book dedicated to narrative design and game writing in social and mobile games, an explosive market overtaking the console gaming market. Provides tips for narrative design and writing tailored specifically for mobile and social game markets. Guides readers along with conclusions that include questions to help the reader in narrative design and/or writing. Explores real games to illustrate theory and best practices with analyses of game case studies per chapter, covering indie, social/mobile, and AAA games. Includes checklists to help readers critique their own narrative design/writing.

The Advanced Game Narrative Toolbox

The Advanced Game Narrative Toolbox PDF Author: Tobias Heussner
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351014382
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The Advanced Game Narrative Toolbox continues where the Game Narrative Toolbox ended. While the later covered the basics of writing for games, the Advanced Game Narrative Toolbox will cover techniques for the intermediate and professional writer. The book will cover topics such as how to adapt a novel to a game, how to revive IPs and how to construct transmedia worlds. Each chapter will be written by a professional with exceptional experience in the field of the chapter. Key Features Learn from industry experts how to tackle today’s challenges in storytelling for games. A learn by example and exercise approach, which was praised in the Game Narrative Toolbox. An in depth view on advanced storytelling techniques and topics as they are currently discussed and used in the gaming industry. Expand your knowledge in game writing as you learn and try yourself to design quests, write romances and build worlds as you would as a writer in a game studio. Improve your own stories by learning and trying the techniques used by the professionals of game writing.

Inventing the Medium

Inventing the Medium PDF Author: Janet H. Murray
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262302802
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
A foundational text offering a unified design vocabulary and a common methodology for maximizing the expressive power of digital artifacts. Digital artifacts from iPads to databases pervade our lives, and the design decisions that shape them affect how we think, act, communicate, and understand the world. But the pace of change has been so rapid that technical innovation is outstripping design. Interactors are often mystified and frustrated by their enticing but confusing new devices; meanwhile, product design teams struggle to articulate shared and enduring design goals. With Inventing the Medium, Janet Murray provides a unified vocabulary and a common methodology for the design of digital objects and environments. It will be an essential guide for both students and practitioners in this evolving field. Murray explains that innovative interaction designers should think of all objects made with bits—whether games or Web pages, robots or the latest killer apps—as belonging to a single new medium: the digital medium. Designers can speed the process of useful and lasting innovation by focusing on the collective cultural task of inventing this new medium. Exploring strategies for maximizing the expressive power of digital artifacts, Murray identifies and examines four representational affordances of digital environments that provide the core palette for designers across applications: computational procedures, user participation, navigable space, and encyclopedic capacity. Each chapter includes a set of Design Explorations—creative exercises for students and thought experiments for practitioners—that allow readers to apply the ideas in the chapter to particular design problems. Inventing the Medium also provides more than 200 illustrations of specific design strategies drawn from multiple genres and platforms and a glossary of design concepts.

Warlock

Warlock PDF Author: Edwin McRae
Publisher: Fiction Engine
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Swords, Spells, Stats and Slaughter! Mark wakes up in a burning town inside a Full Immersion Virtual Reality RPG called Reign of Blood. He flees from the reiver slavers who are abducting the village’s NPCs, only to have an agonizing encounter with the wrong end of a ranger’s arrow. After trying and failing to log out of this painfully realistic game, Mark decides to take up his sword, embrace his new Warlock character class, and help the ranger rescue her people. The warlock and his hard-nosed ranger companion are soon joined by a macabre healer, an earth-shaking druid and a talking fortress. But as Mark takes the fight to the reivers, he uncovers an even deadlier threat. Dark magic is spreading into Garland from a long dead city, and the reiver leader has found a way to harness some of that corrupted power for himself. Level by level, spell by spell, Mark must become the warlock that Garland needs before it falls to the corrupted ambitions of a rising tyrant. Includes FREE bonus short story! Bloody Minded Follow our sharp-tongued ranger, Dayna of Elmtree, as she and a party of fellow rangers search the Barrens for their missing comrade. You’ll learn how Dayna came by Wayfarer’s diary and why she was the only ranger to make it back to Garland alive.

Gamification at Work

Gamification at Work PDF Author: Janaki Mythily Kumar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788792964076
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Gamification is becoming a common buzzword in business these days. In its November 2012 press release, Gartner predicts that "by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 organizations will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations." In the same report, they also predict that "by 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives, primarily due to poor design." What is gamification? Does it belong in the workplace? Are there design best practices that can increase the efficacy of enterprise gamification efforts? Janaki Kumar and Mario Herger answer these questions and more in this book Gamification @ Work. They caution against taking a "chocolate covered broccoli" approach of simply adding points and badges to business applications and calling them gamified. They outline a methodology called Player Centered Design which is a practical guide for user experience designers, product managers and developers to incorporate the principles of gamification into their business software. Player Centered Design involves the following five steps: 1. Know your player 2. Identify the mission 3. Understand human motivation 4. Apply mechanics 5. Manage, monitor and measure Kumar and Herger provide examples of enterprise gamification, introduce legal and ethical considerations, and provide pointers to other resources to continue your journey in designing gamification that works! Keywords: Gamification, Enterprise Gamification, Gamification of business software, enterprise software, business software, User experience design, UX, Design, Engagement, Motivation.

Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera

Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera PDF Author: Yayoi Uno Everett
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253018056
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Yayoi Uno Everett focuses on four operas that helped shape the careers of the composers Osvaldo Golijov, Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, and Tan Dun, which represent a unique encounter of music and production through what Everett calls "multimodal narrative." Aspects of production design, the mechanics of stagecraft, and their interaction with music and sung texts contribute significantly to the semiotics of operatic storytelling. Everett's study draws on Northrop Frye's theories of myth, Lacanian psychoanalysis via Slavoj Žižek, Linda and Michael Hutcheon's notion of production, and musical semiotics found in Robert Hatten's concept of troping in order to provide original interpretive models for conceptualizing new operatic narratives.