Comments on: Artifactual eWriting meets Embodied Agents http://grandtextauto.org/2004/05/11/artifactual-ewriting-meets-embodied-agents/ A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: nick http://grandtextauto.org/2004/05/11/artifactual-ewriting-meets-embodied-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-1286 nick Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=326#comment-1286 The idea that your computer is part of the fictional world is a bit different, and a bit more elaborate of a conceit, than is the artifactual idea seen in <i>Uncle Buddy</i> and <i>The Electronic Chronicles.</i> The artifactual idea offers you a heap of documents or relics; what <i>Lifeline</i> does is to position the interface to bridge between your world and the fictional world - something I was fascinated with, but found little to say about, in my undergrad thesis; Jill's dissertation treats some aspects of this topic much more thoroughly. To give credit where credit is due, the first elaborate works I know of that use this technique were both published by Activision: <i>Hacker</i> (1985) and <i>Portal</i> (1986). Both are written by Rob Swigart. The idea that your computer is part of the fictional world is a bit different, and a bit more elaborate of a conceit, than is the artifactual idea seen in Uncle Buddy and The Electronic Chronicles. The artifactual idea offers you a heap of documents or relics; what Lifeline does is to position the interface to bridge between your world and the fictional world – something I was fascinated with, but found little to say about, in my undergrad thesis; Jill’s dissertation treats some aspects of this topic much more thoroughly.

To give credit where credit is due, the first elaborate works I know of that use this technique were both published by Activision: Hacker (1985) and Portal (1986). Both are written by Rob Swigart.

]]> By: andrew http://grandtextauto.org/2004/05/11/artifactual-ewriting-meets-embodied-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-1287 andrew Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=326#comment-1287 Another early elaborate example of using the interface in this way is <i>Night Trap</i>, originally developed for Hasbro in ~1988 by Rob Fulop and others on his team. Later released as Sega CD game and ultimately generating <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/fulop.html">some controversy</a>, in <i>Night Trap</i> the player's television becomes a security camera monitor, in which you can switch among different channels to observe various views of a house. The game involves carefully monitoring the villians' (vampires) activity, and remotely triggering traps to capture them. (And trying to avoid letting the scantily clad women get threatened by power drills and such.) As I <a href="http://grandtextauto.org/archives/000186.html#601">mentioned in that past thread</a> about fusing reality and fiction, a few years later Rob (with my help) developed <i>Max Magic</i>, which also foregrounded the interface in an explicit way, but differently from <i>Night Trap</i>. Another early elaborate example of using the interface in this way is Night Trap, originally developed for Hasbro in ~1988 by Rob Fulop and others on his team. Later released as Sega CD game and ultimately generating some controversy, in Night Trap the player’s television becomes a security camera monitor, in which you can switch among different channels to observe various views of a house. The game involves carefully monitoring the villians’ (vampires) activity, and remotely triggering traps to capture them. (And trying to avoid letting the scantily clad women get threatened by power drills and such.)

As I mentioned in that past thread about fusing reality and fiction, a few years later Rob (with my help) developed Max Magic, which also foregrounded the interface in an explicit way, but differently from Night Trap.

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