Thursday, April 30, 2009

Relections of a Depressed Man

Jared Thomas, Jay Makki
Neil Fastabend, Melanie Erickson
DTC 375
April 29, 2009
Dr. Farman
WC 867
Reflections of a Depressed Man

E-literature (E-lit) and games have integrated in everyone’s lives, since the 70’s. They either interact with them or they have been integrated into their lives or careers. E-lit and gaming has advanced over the years. The first interactive game came out to the public in 1976. Because of the memory and the technology at this time, computers were the limitation. “During the 70s, games had to be small enough to fit on a single 5½ floppy, the only way a computer could tell a complex, engaging story was through text-based interactive fiction” (Jerz). Gaming and E-lit has grown dramatically since 2001-2003, witch at this time Broadband came out. Broadband made a big impact on online gaming and E-lit.
E-lit is a innovated spinoff from the Tree Fiction novel. Tree Fiction novel is choose your own adventure book. The book will ask the reader a question like do you want to stay in the house (go to page 5) or do you want to go into the woods (go to page 15). Our project is a Hyperlink extension to this, that uses advanced technology such as Photoshop and flash, to create an on line adventure. The variety of options gives our reader an in sight of what is going on in the depressed, morbid character’s mind. Instead of turning to page five the reader may click on the link to what they are interested in. The interaction with the body and mind gives them more of a perception of being the person sitting at the table. By being, and thinking that they are the protagonist it gives a sense of owner ship to the story. They are able to go back and reread it or move on to something else. As they continue on with the journey they get a better understanding of character’s thoughts and the state of mind.
The main focus for our E-lit project is to interject the audience with a sense of mystique and perhaps the sensation of uneasiness. The viewer should get a dramatic sense of hopelessness from the unknown narrator. Most of the slides are darkly foreshadowed and carry with them a bleak, macabre aura laced with cynical commentary. The idea is not to disgust the viewer but to draw them into a generic, yet intriguing inner monologue of a depressed man.
Our project “undoes the teleological effect” (Barth’s); there is no beginning and end. The reader has control of the story. The reader is able to click on what ever he wants; when ever he wants. A disconnection from the author appears because the reader has control of the story. The reader has a sense of authority that is not offered in paper books, because paper books are linear and they are reminded that the author sets the path. The audience in our e-lit will have spacial control. With our project they are able to select on an image and read the macabre aura laced with cynical commentaries. The home page consists of a picture of a table. On the table there is; a scrapbook, a pill basket, an address book, a bottle of whiskey and a bullet. Each item has several sub-items that they are able to select. This gives the audience many different variations of how the story may go. They also have the choice not to continue in the story as well. This could conclude to be a dilemma, whether or not they will be interested in going through all the steps to get through the whole sight. This is why we made our story short and to the point. We did not want to bore our audience and make them walk away. We decided sweet and simple gets our message across, and still leave the audience with a since of understanding.
With our project we are able to use pictures as well as text; because we are not as concern about memory space or dinosaur technology like they did in 1976. This gives our audience the chance to visually see what is going on in the story as well as read the uneasy and bleak thoughts of the character. The audience can choose what path they wish to travel. Our limitations are not as strict as the 70’s or 80’s; however, we still have limitations. We will need to consider reasonable sized files so it down loads with out a lot of time. If something takes a long time to up load the audience will get impatient. When people get impatient it is so easy to leave the sight before they even have a chance to find out what it is about.
We encourage you to go on a journey in to a personal transformation and get in side the head of a depressed man. You may explore all the possibilities and relate to his pain and suffering as if it were your own. Most of all have fun with it.

Reflections of a Depressed Man. Group Project:
http://www.thomasbros1.com/dpman/













Work Cited


Jerz, Dennis. “Interactive Fiction How is it Different”. Retrieved April 30, 2009. January 27, 2000. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/differs_from.htm

Mateas, Michael; A Preliminary Poetics for interactive Drama and Games. Retrieved April 30, 2009. http://www.jasonfarman.com/dtc375_sp09/Mateas.pdf

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