The games Dan gave us to play this week were pretty different from any games I’ve played before. The main difference I noticed between them and standard video games was that there wasn’t a clear mission or direction in the games. I sort of wandered around the online games, clicking on different links with no real clue what I was doing. Because of this I felt like I couldn’t connect, my level of agency was pretty low. There was no real room for character development, and there was only a certain point you could go before you became disinterested. I felt like I was going around in circles; there was no ending – this made me restless because I felt like I needed to click on every link, to find every possible outcome despite not being very interested in the content.

The narrative wasn’t as strong in them because you’re too focused on where you’re going; it’s spread too thin through the different links. For some the level of agency could be quite high because you are in control however, I found that it was harder for the character to develop when the character is you.

I think that the way you would plan one of these stories is to plan a typical linear story, the introduction, problem, and conclusion; and then develop it from there. I would probably create a flow chart, putting a new box where there would be a new link.

For my own story, if I were to create an interactive game I would like to format it similarly to the Kiss game however I would make it much more concise, I would use much less links, so the audience didn’t feel overwhelmed and lose interest.