For my final project I chose to do a blog style story inside of a Twine game. I tried to incorporate as many elements of Alexander’s five storytelling themes as possible. For the serial structure aspect of the game I decided to have two different main line endings that end on cliffhangers, thus providing the possibility to go back and make more endings or add on to the story in a completely different way. I incorporated personal presence in my story by allowing the players of the game to chose different options and interact with the main character through the formate of the Twine game. I also incorporated a few links to different websites as well as one to a Twitter I created for the character of Brad Stephenson and a search story in the middle. If players wanted to they could go to that Twitter and have a direct correspondence with the main character himself, and I would reply depending on what they asked. The combination of the Twitter and the Twine game along with the blog style format that I wrote the game in provide the theme of multiple proscenia, allowing players to visit different websites and interact with the game beyond just the base level. The Twitter aspect of the narrative also helps to incorporate the theme of social framework as players could interact and share the story of Brad Stephenson through that platform. The platform affordances that I used for the story were the formate of the Twine game as well as the Twitter profile for the main character. Through these I am able to lead the story in a way that I like, but at the same time allowing players of the game to have the freedom of making their own decisions within the game that might affect the outcome of the game or the story that they experience. Through using these storytelling themes I was hoping that the audience of the game would take away a fun and unique experience and a story that they may not have seen before.
This story is very loosely based and influenced on the Twitter profile I wrote about early in the semester, @TheSunVanished. @TheSunVanished was a narrative social media story that took place on Twitter and started in 2018 and continues to this day. The story takes place in the first person view of a character who is navigating his way through a post apocalyptic world where the sun has disappeared. This was originally shared by the author in hopes of becoming an interesting narrative to follow along with and by all accounts, with over 500,000 Twitter followers today it has certainly accomplished that. I am not sure if the author originally intended for his creation to go viral, but it certainly has. Although it may not seem like it I based some of the narrative for my story off of this one, partially through the fact that my story follows the plot of one main character in a first person point of view. I also created a Twitter profile for my character with hopes that it could grow into something bigger if people became interested in the story. Loosely with the story of @TheSunVanished I also wanted to make my story a mystery that people have to figure out as they go along. Although I based some of my project off of this there are some key differences between these two works. One of the main differences is the fact that @TheSunVanished takes place entirely on Twitter and my narrative takes place on Twine, YouTube, and Twitter. Another key difference is that the main plot of my story takes place in Twine and offers players a specific set of choices while the creator of @TheSunVanished uses Twitter which allowed audience members to retweet, comment, and participate in polls while my story only has the option of clicking one narrative pathway or another. The last difference is that my story is written in the format of a blogger and the background for the story is given in the first part of my Twine game. Meanwhile @TheSunVanished gives no background to the story and details of this are only revealed as the story goes along. In light of the similarities and differences between the two works I feel as if my story does a better job of incorporating the idea of multiple proscenia as I have used Twine, along with YouTube and Twitter to create the story and @TheSunVanished only uses Twitter.
Another work of digital network narrative that loosely influenced this project was one that we discussed in class and this is the story of Ted’s Caving Page. Ted’s Caving Page was a digital network narrative that came early on in the conception of such works and was created in 2001, as a way of telling a horror story through the internet. Although Ted’s Caving Page came very early along as far as the idea of digital networked narratives go, it was very influential in the way I set up my project. Ted’s story is also written in a blog like format, which I based my own story upon. The way that Ted’s story progresses is similar to mine in the way he provides links, much like I did. The horror and mystery aspects of both stories are similar, as well as the way I chose to write imitates Ted’s Caving Page quite a bit. However, some differences occur due to the fact that my story was created in Twine allowing me to have multiple storylines and endings while Ted’s Caving Page only has one. I was also able to do a lot more with my story in a technology sense, due to the fact that I created my story nearly twenty years after Ted’s Caving Page came out. In light of the similarities and difference between Ted’s Caving Page and my own story I feel as if my story does a better job of allowing users the idea of personal presence. With no disrespect to the creator of Ted’s Caving Page, it is simply that with being created in 2001 his technical affordances were limited.
Dalton Jones Blog 