For this assignment, we will be joining with Dr. K.J. Surkan’s class on Technology and Culture at M.I.T., who are doing the same assignment, through FemTechNet ! We’ll share our completed games, play theirs, and share our comments.
In your last mini-project, you will use the free online interactive storytelling tool Twine to make a playable text game that responds to the “operating systems of a different order” we have been discussing throughout the semester.
We’ll discuss possible game topics in our November 11 class, then on November 18 we will all learn the tool together in class. You’ll complete your games, and write a blog post to accompany them, for Monday November 23.
Project requirements:
- Design. Your game will have to include all of these, though you can interpret them as creatively as you like:
• A concept (what’s it about?)
• A character (who is your player going to be?)
• A setting (where are things happening?)
• A goal (how do you win / what ways can the story end?)
• Possibilities and constraints (What possibilities, constraints, frustrations, and pleasures do you want the person playing your game to remember?)
• A connection to class material
I should be able to figure out what all of these are by playing your game, but you should use your blog post to explain what you were trying to get at.
- Practicalities
• Twine games work by having users move between “passages,” which are pieces of text (you can also include images) that link to one another. Your project must include at least 15 passages.
• To share your game, upload the file you create to http://philome.la and include the link in your blog post. You must also email me the Twine Archive file of your source code.
- Reflection
As with the remix video, your blog post should be primarily a reflection on process. Answer the following questions:
• What were you trying to achieve when you made this game? How well do you think you succeeded?
• What are the affordances of Twine as a creative tool? What was exciting, frustrating, intriguing about using it?
• In what ways did this experience connect to readings and/or discussions from class? Cite at least two examples, one of which should be a reading.
Write at least 600 words.
Post-assignment Collaboration
Over the Thanksgiving break, play the games from our collaborators at MIT (to be posted here at the blog) and leave at least two comments.