Storytelling in the round

[thanate]

Still avoiding tutorial building, which is bad of me.

However, after a brief discussion the other evening with grauwulf about alternate forms of storytelling in this no-longer-only-print age, and how, while I am currently opposed to adding to the collection of online novels due to my own technical considerations (ie, reading large amounts of text online has been known to put me out of commission for more or less anything involving vision for *days* at worst) I envision a day when laptop resolution increases to e-reader specs and I can re-invent my first novel with links, interactive index, and illustration... after this, as I say, jazzfish has brought Planetarium to my attention, and I am most intrigued. After flipping through their introductory chapter and scanning the FAQ, my old infocom & puzzle game training kicked in, and I've made my own chart of the answer key to tell me where to find the answers if I want to change any of them. I'm not sure if this is cheating or not.

At any rate, damurxac, if you happen to read this and haven't encountered the story/game previously, I strongly recommend that you wander over and take a look.

Comments

[zagzagael.livejournal.com]

I, too, am absolutely drawn to the idea of interactive novelization, to what the digital experience will do to the act of reading and writing....but like you, I just cannot use the computer in that way. It hurts. I'm very intrigued with the Kindle and eBook and the handheld computerizing of the iPhone....but they are still not comfortable. I do hope that someday this is no longer an issue because I do think we need to conserve the paper and digital files....are just so....perfect for that sort of environmental concern. There seems to be no limit to what the digital novel will be able to do at some point in the future....

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'm anticipating digital reader resolution being available in laptops (and you can already, I believe, get external monitors that good if you're up for paying for them...) sometime in the next decade. My main concern for my part is how much I'll miss out on before I get one, and what I'll be doing to my eyes in the mean time.

But, at least for me, interactive and digital fiction of whatever sort is never going to replace paper books. If an abundance of digital reader books makes it so that the paper books that are printed are designed to last a little better, though, that's all to the good.

[jazzfish]

I considered recommending that people do exactly that, but I figured anyone who didn't, after realising that the spots the answers appear on the answer chart doesn't correspond in the slighest to where you find the puzzles, deserved what they were going to get. (Technically it's not required, as long as you're sufficiently confident in all your answers.)

Have fun! As I recall I needed outright help on one of the puzzles, and a nudge on two or three others. They're tricksy, but fair. (Except for the one I needed help on. That one was just awful.) And the story makes me happy, too.