Textual Media

I have to admit that i am not one for video games in the first place, let alone a video game that has no go carts or flying turtle shells.  I found Galatea to be a interesting piece of art though, its creator was in fact very creative.  I found one question that i asked her to be especially interesting.  When i asked her about her eyes she responded by saying that he [Cyprus] drilled into the corners of her face.  She always thought he was going to drill too deeply, but never did.  This struck me because it exposed Galatea as non-human, more so than she would like to admit.  She was not in fact Galatea until he had created her in her entirety.  Im not really what the point of this game is, it seems as if it is simply a tool for the bored.  I can understand it as a work of art, it envokes imagination, interest, and questions, but all of those dont outweight the sheer boredom i experience when i play them.

Galatea is tripppieeeeeeeeee…. ummm… it’s confusing, really: how should you construct your questions? what should you ask next? It’s all about word play, and the composition and structure of your phrase… like the work of a good detective, you must ask the right questions to get the desired response.

-lindsey

I am not patient enough to play Zork.  I started the game and found that I needed to think like the creators.  There is a specific thought process that the user needs to employ to get around the game area.  You also need to know the text code format to get the program to respond to your input text.  You could get stuck for hours trapped in one place in the program.  Most of all, you need good typing skills, missed spell words make the process ever harder.  One thing I did recognize is that playing the game relaxes you if you are concentrating on the quest.      

I enjoyed playing the Zork, I may have been at an advantage since I had played the "Return to Zork" when I was younger.  Though, it is quite different but with similar commands keeping to the origin of the game. The mazes were still significantly more difficult to navigate.  I suppose because they are randomly chosen everytime you enter, there seems to be no logical path to get back to somewhere I had been before I seemed to be forced to stumble upon it.  For some reason I could not save my games which sucks cause I had all sorts of useful stuff.  Also I grab possibly useless things for fear of needing them later.  I’ll figure that part out but interesting use of vocabulary, although the system can only understand certain words the descriptions were lovely.  I did not catch on to "Adventure" quite as well but see the connection.  I kept getting stuck in the cave with no direction and have not quite figured out how to navigate out yet.  This is why saving would be wonderful but for some reason it wouldn’t listen to my login pleas!  My map of the CYOA is at: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jparker6/hyper

Hopefully it still works!  I had a difficult time getting it to listen to me as well ;)

-Jen- 

I chose to create the mapping of my CYOA book using a software program called "CmapTools."  http://mason.gmu.edu/~bpierso2/houseofdanger.jpg is where it can be found.  You can see what Cmap is capable of doing by looking at the image.  The method I used to create this map was to start at page one and then go to where the pages told me to go.  As I did this, I mapped it.  When it came time to make a decision, I would map both possible pages I could go to and then pick one and keep on mapping the numbers.  I chose to just use each bubble as a page number with a line connecting each one.  The font I used was a standard size-12 font.  When it came to the end of stories, I chose to enlarge the text to 18 and make it bold.  It was easy to keep up with the forks in the roads while mapping this because as I go to the end of mapping one storyline, I would just go back up and find any Ys in the map that weren’t completed.  My book was fortunately very easy to map because none of the pages met up with any of the other pages.  I never had to use the same bubble more than once (never had to read the same page twice, basically)  This made it very easy for me to map and I was able to just go straight through the book without having to back track or figure out which bubbles linked to which others.  This is what a reader wouldn’t see without mapping it.  I didn’t think about the fact that they didn’t meet up again with any other pages and I don’t think the casual reader would notice this either without mapping it.   

The structure of interactive narrativity is difficult to come up with here because it is very straight forward and flowing.  I would say that it is more like a tree that branches out.  It isn’t exactly like the Marie-Laure Ryan’s example of "The Vector With Side Branches" though because there aren’t any side branches that this story ventures to.  It is strictly from one thing to the next.  I never had to go to the same page twice ever while mapping or reading the book.  It is similar to the Vector With Side Branches because that narrative is described as "chronological."  Because my story never hits back to any of the previous pages, you can argue that it also is chronological.  From a standard reading sense, however, you can’t say that any of these CYOA books are chronological; they jump around a lot.  I think what I’m trying to say is that my book basically shoots straight through a story and doesn’t go back.  I can picture in my head as an arrow that just keeps on going.  The page numbers don’t necessarily ascend in chronological order as you read, but it just seems that figuratively, you are going straight through since you will never see the same page twice while reading different story.  I would say that another narrative that this book is similar to is The Tree.  Ryan states that "once a branch has been taken, there is no possible return to the decision point." (Ryan - 248) This is pretty much what I’ve been saying about how each story keeps going, rather than goes back to other pages. 

If you’re stuck on your Choose Your Own Adventure map, here’s another one to look at. This is a map of The Cave of Time, the first and original book in the series. It’s big, so you have to scroll, but you get the idea. Notice how I used a color key to distinguish between the various endings.

I created the map using an freely available concept mapping software called CMapTools. There are versions of this development tool available for most platforms, so you may want to experiment with it. It definitely made the mapping experience easier for me. (The last one I did was with pen and paper and took much longer to plot out.)

On page 99 in Nick Montfort describe my feelings and thinkings after playing Zork.  He states "to get through the mazes, detailed mapmaking (or else extraordingary luck, or cheating) is required" which is pretty much true.  I felt that since this is my first time playing Zork that it is hard to guess where anything is located.  One does need to spend time in closely inspecting everything.  If I did not go online, I don’t think I would be able to find the little window for many days. The game is pretty much pointless if I can’t get into the house.  In addition, it is also true that for the most part, in exploring the game and learning its feature even with the initial game guide command, I still have to "guess the verb" when I am face with the object to see what command the game require me to use.  After reading Nick Montfort article the game Zork have so much more to it than I originally perceive.  There are many hidden inside jokes about MIT and humor in the game. 

I found playing Zork and Adventure interactive game very difficult.  There is no map or hint that I can discover. I spent hours trying to go around the forest, the house, the river and seem to just go around in endless circle.  At least in Zork I am able to gather leaves, eggs, and nest.  I cannot gather branches to make fire, nor can I climb down the canyon, even though the game says it is possible to climb down.  There is obviously more to this game or else people wouldn’t be so addicted to it, but it is very difficult to discover more of the surrounding when you are limited to a limited set of text commands.  The humorous thing about the game is when you started jumping repeatedly the narrator mocks you, that is about all that I discover. So maybe if there are more tips someone can offer me to make the game more interesting that will be great.

If you need help figuring how to play "interactive fiction" games like Adventure or Zork, see this beginner’s guide, which outlines how to interact with the game.

When you play Zork, I recommend setting up an account, so you can retrieve your saved games. You can play for a bit, save your game, then come back later and pick up where you left off.

To create an account, type "login" at the prompt and follow the directions. You’ll have to submit a username and password, then type "yes" to apply as a new user. After that, you can save and restore games. The command to save is "save" (w/o quotation marks) and to restore your game, type "restore" at the prompt. 

Also, here’s a PDF file of the old Zork manual, which might be useful.

There were some parts of the text I could understand it was the difference examples of how media is perceived.  Marie-Laure Ryan used metaphors as: Computers as Theatre. The idea of the computer is as if it is a representative of a visual world or system.  It cast the screen as a stage.  The run of the text is seen as a performer and the user as the director as summons the actors.  She said that reading was a treasure hunt that did not build on other knowledge.  So, when we write for cyber media all we need is to understand the textual flow and build upon the text so that it  go in ant direction to complete a story.