The Evolution of Digital Storytelling
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The Evolution of Digital Storytelling

November 19, 2023No Comments

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On this article, sport designer Sande Chen stories on Sam Barlow’s presentation at PLAY NYC, wherein he describes how the digital world is reworking the artwork of storytelling.

Talking at PLAY NYC on August 11, 2020, Sam Barlow, the mastermind behind the award-winning video games Her Story and Telling Lies, defined the sweeping adjustments which have occurred in storytelling in his presentation, “The Demise of the Container: What TV and Films Ought to Study from Video Video games.”

The road between tv and films is blurring, he mentioned, with the rising number of new program codecs. Content material creators can now not package deal neatly wrapped story content material, i.e. a container, on this digital world. With good TVs and entry to streaming, shoppers do not tune in at a sure time to look at applications. As an alternative of Should See TV, the operative phrase is now “binging,” wherein viewers watch by means of a number of episodes without delay. That is so much like placing within the hours on a sport. Personalization, which was restricted by style classes in a video retailer, is commonplace. NetFlix even personalizes thumbnails for you primarily based on algorithms. 

However tv and movie are nonetheless restricted in selections. The viewer selection boils all the way down to: Do I proceed watching or do I cease?

Video video games are identified for participant selections in addition to self-expression and exploration. “Tales,” mentioned Barlow, “are data with emotion. Can we discover them?” Just like the digital newspaper that assumes its readers will not learn web page by web page, online game tales are unbounded, permitting gamers to replay, rearrange, and watch once more whereas on the lookout for new context. Video video games purposefully acknowledge participant participation. Gamers are allowed to discover with curiosity, often in an open world, and really feel immersed. Furthermore, gamers are the primary driver of the story. Gamers create a wealthy, full story of their heads and it isn’t solely as a result of order wherein they stumbled on the story.

Barlow cautioned content material creators to not get too enthusiastic about branching narrative and widespread story selection apps, which he mentioned solely provides an phantasm of a system with trigger and impact. He finds that gamers need to go deeper, not broader, which is to say that the Why is far more necessary than the What If. To him, emotion comes from particular emotional moments, which requires an understanding of the story, and never from exploring completely different story branches.

In abstract, Barlow supplied up this analogy. The viewers is saturated with storytelling. They’ve eaten plenty of pie. We should not supply them mini pies and suppose that is particular. A wise chef would supply a deconstructed pie. Equally, he mentioned, “To cater to the knowledge overload era, we should deconstruct tales for them to allow them to expertise them totally once more.”

Sande Chen is a NYC-based author and sport designer whose work has spanned 10 years within the business. Her credit embrace 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Yr The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is likely one of the founding members of the IGDA Sport Design SIG.

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