[1/2] Reflective Drawing
[2/2] Reflective Writing
My 10 points for my reflective synthesis were quite interesting to discover:- Writing non-linear stories was easier due to choices allowing for more storylines, but the non-linear stories required more work to organise,
- Comics were quick to make and quick to evaluate, and had all the bare minimum required in a story,
- Using interactive digital media required a lot of coding and software skill, which takes time to learn, luckily there are free online alternatives to most mediums,
- Writing non-linear stories allowed for more creative freedom in writing the story, but this might've made the story slightly too unpredicatable and convoluted,
- The AR comic combination is an efficient way to test both the physical interactive medium and the digital interactive medium,
- AR allowed for the implementation of more multimedia assets, which allowed me to explore more forms of interactivity,
- Visual novels are flexible enough to have a detailed narrative with moving visual assets, but also simple enough to make in limited time,
- Jason Shiga’s interactive comic technique presented the text-based choices of other interactive comics and literature in a visual way that was self-explanatory, which was key in this project since it was both cost-effective and quick.
- Keeping the prototype story and characters consistent helped put focus on the aspect of storytelling being examined - the interactive medium
- Morals and ethics made interesting story elements since different people would choose differently.
This project identified a few key differences in writing linear and non-linear stories; one of which is idea generation. Plot is easier to formulate in a non-linear format due to its multiple storylines, but this requires more organising, since the storyline mixes, backtracks and intermingles. Due to this planning-intensive medium, some stories won’t be as effectively expressed as they could be. An author’s creative freedom to present the reader with choices does, to some degree, make writing the story easier, but they run the risk of making the story too convoluted, with random, irrational narrative choices, as discovered in the making of the prototype comic - ‘Lost’. The creative freedom was almost too liberating, making the story slightly unpredictable.
The theory of the Three-Act Story Structure was also tested. Comics with blanks were given to a control group to fill. The subjects filled the comic as theorised, (in the Context, Goals, Conflict and Resolution format) even without consciously realising the Three-Act Story Structure. This practical aspect of this project also observed that the conflict panel of Three-Act Story was the most engaging. The control group produced conflict panels much quicker than any other panel, and verbally expressed their contentment in doing so. The mere act of filling the comic, and providing a complete narrative inadvertently made the storytelling experience more enjoyable than reading a linear 4-panel comic. Here the choice of what to fill the comic with made the reader experience more memorable in general. However, in terms of conveying a narrative to the reader, the fill-in the comic approach took a step back since it forfeited control over the narrative.
During this project, several types of interactive storytelling were experimented with. Comics were a prevalent form since they had a lot of potential to present the story as simply as possible. Jason Shiga’s interactive comic template was particularly convenient as it presented its choices in a far more visual way than most forms. To explore this, a prototype version, ‘Lost’ was created. The story premise and characters were kept consistent so as to test the effectiveness of the storytelling medium objectively. It can be concluded that visual novels and augmented reality are closer to being interactive than interactive comics. But these digital mediums require substantial coding and software skills, and so aren’t as accessible as its more traditional, physical counterparts. However, due to services like CloudNovel and Artivive, this project could delve into mediums like visual novels and augmented reality and create two final outcomes of the same story. For these mediums to be fully explored, a longer timescale and/or bigger budget would’ve been required.
Both these formats took assets from the comic, and repurposed them in different ways, which saved time and is a very cost-effective way to remodel stories into other forms. The augmented reality aspect literally used the comic as a base or placeholder, adding multimedia elements to an already existing story which made the story experience far more engaging than the comic. The story seemed to flow better, and was easier to understand and imagine. The only downsides were that they consume more time than its linear equivalent, meaning less time is focused on the content of the story. Also, it requires readers to not only have the Artivive app, but also read the comic in an environment where playing audio out loud is not a problem.
The theory of the Three-Act Story Structure was also tested. Comics with blanks were given to a control group to fill. The subjects filled the comic as theorised, (in the Context, Goals, Conflict and Resolution format) even without consciously realising the Three-Act Story Structure. This practical aspect of this project also observed that the conflict panel of Three-Act Story was the most engaging. The control group produced conflict panels much quicker than any other panel, and verbally expressed their contentment in doing so. The mere act of filling the comic, and providing a complete narrative inadvertently made the storytelling experience more enjoyable than reading a linear 4-panel comic. Here the choice of what to fill the comic with made the reader experience more memorable in general. However, in terms of conveying a narrative to the reader, the fill-in the comic approach took a step back since it forfeited control over the narrative.
During this project, several types of interactive storytelling were experimented with. Comics were a prevalent form since they had a lot of potential to present the story as simply as possible. Jason Shiga’s interactive comic template was particularly convenient as it presented its choices in a far more visual way than most forms. To explore this, a prototype version, ‘Lost’ was created. The story premise and characters were kept consistent so as to test the effectiveness of the storytelling medium objectively. It can be concluded that visual novels and augmented reality are closer to being interactive than interactive comics. But these digital mediums require substantial coding and software skills, and so aren’t as accessible as its more traditional, physical counterparts. However, due to services like CloudNovel and Artivive, this project could delve into mediums like visual novels and augmented reality and create two final outcomes of the same story. For these mediums to be fully explored, a longer timescale and/or bigger budget would’ve been required.
Both these formats took assets from the comic, and repurposed them in different ways, which saved time and is a very cost-effective way to remodel stories into other forms. The augmented reality aspect literally used the comic as a base or placeholder, adding multimedia elements to an already existing story which made the story experience far more engaging than the comic. The story seemed to flow better, and was easier to understand and imagine. The only downsides were that they consume more time than its linear equivalent, meaning less time is focused on the content of the story. Also, it requires readers to not only have the Artivive app, but also read the comic in an environment where playing audio out loud is not a problem.
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