Beyond Linear NarrativeAugusto Baal Enters Norrath

Katie Whitlock

"Play is older than culture”• It is inherent in our nature. • Used to transcend reality, breaking from the mundane to experience the extraordinary. • Huizinga points to "dressing up" as the highest level of this, suggesting that the donning• of disguise or mask equals perfection of play – “becoming another being”.

• The culture of play remains strong within our society. • The manner of play is changing, adapting to the mediatized culture of the present. • For Rushkoff, video game is a "mediated dream space," which allows individuals to join

in fictional realities to play "dress up" and to pursue a hero's quest unavailable in modern society

• The video game player of today is a performer. He/she is actively engaged in an interactive state that is both physical and mental, playing a character. Narrative, however simplistic, houses this performance in a virtual world, a performance space that can allow an unlimited creative freedom.

Games versus Stories

• This is the essential difference between game designers and storytellers:

• The game designers see the universe - everything! - as a gigantic physical system that need only be simulated with sufficient fidelity to achieve any goal.

Gamification

• Early Industrial games use film structures: which ignores the dimension of interactivity available to gaming and the use of an emotionally evocative dramatic experience.

• Later games emerge that use Post-Aristotelian theater narratives: create interactive fantasy systems i.e. MMORPG, WOW.

• Rather than following Aristotelian rules of drama, these massive worlds parallel the writings of another, more modern, theatre theorist - Augusto Boal.

MMORPG

• Introduce social relationships in games: – Dungeon “like” Role playing games– online communities• MUDs (text based) • MMOs add AI in games

– Games became situational: a simulacrum of the real-world (or a fantastic version of)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUSTEiqVmvE&feature=related

Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre

Spect-actor

• A meld of audience and actor• An active participant in drama • Influencing the narrative• Altering the narrative to suit the individual's ideas.

• Theater becomes at the cross-road of narrative and action

• It becomes a place of revolution via democratic theater

Everquest- Boal’s theater

• Massive multiplayer games are unique in that they depend upon the community to survive, just as Boars Forum relies on society to thrive.

• The community is the reason to play the game as its presence and involvement alters the experience.

• The player becomes a part of the game and its virtual community, joining a social network that gives the player agency, a capacity for change in every action and choice.

• Player immersion• Hyper reality

For example

• As technology continues to improve and becomes further enmeshed in everyday life, the potential grows for gaming to extend its presence.

• This connection between real life and gaming will further Boal's concept of the Forum by providing a place for the exploration ideas and narratives.

• With the integration of computers and cell phones, virtual worlds hold the potential to become active theatrical forums in which individuals become characters in ever-changing narratives that are influenced and shaped by the people

Gaming Industry

Gaming layer to the world

Impact of games?

England 2011