The Marie-Laure Ryan reading this week was all about interactivity in narratives in the DIGITAL world.

Overall, it was really interesting and I found the reading engaging enough to gather several takeaway ideas.

The key word in this area seems to be IMMERSIVE.

Game designer Chris Crawford says digital narratives “mandate choice for the user”.

• No choice= no interactivity
• “This is an absolute, uncompromising principle “

SO, interactivity seems to be the BIGGEST difference between “old” and “new” media.

But there are a few problems with working out how to be interactive in a narrative as Ryan says because narratives rely on linearity and unidirectionality of time, logic and causality. But interactivity is all about a nonlinear structure!

The key is to give users a “sense of freedom” while disguising the narrative design as an “emergent story”.

It all sounds pretty complicated, but the results definitely seem worthwhile!

It includes:

– Literary hypertext fiction

– Text based adventure games

– Interactive drama

– Single-user video games

– Multiple user online role playing games