This week, Sam and I pitched our interactive narrative, Type 1 Error, before the panel.  The process of constructing the pitch was a great exercise in distilling the core of the project and its fundamental appeals.

I was pleased that we were able to very clearly convey the user-experience of the narrative, by presenting our pitch through the program that we are using to construct the main narrative – Twine.

While our project may be less transmedia than others pitched by students, I also feel that the clarity and linearity of the main narrative allowed us to very clearly portray our intention, whereas I felt some of the other groups found it a challenge to clearly convey the user-experience for their projects.  At times, I found it hard to grasp what the essential story of some of the projects was; nevertheless, I was impressed by their scope and originality.

Given that Twine is a text-based, hyperlinked platform, bringing to life what largely amounts to words on a page will be a central challenge for Sam & I.  Things like differentiating screen backgrounds and adding music (if possible) will help to make the experience more immersive for users.  Providing innovative links to other media are also critical.

I had also begun to instinctively push the tone of the story towards noir/hard-boiled detective, because I felt this would best suit the story’s core elements of mystery, investigation, intrigue, conspiracy, and so on.  I was a little bit surprised that the panel encouraged Sam & I to push the project further into genre territory, however I think ultimately presenting the incredibly complex area of metadata in a recognisable and digestible genre form is a fairly safe bet in terms of ensuring user captivation.