Week 9

The assignment for Week 9 was to download Unity and write a blog post on what interactivity is to you. Does it add or detract to artmaking/storytelling - or when doesn't and when does it? How did the interactivity in Gone Home contribute to or change the effect of the story? 

I used to think interactivity within the digital realm, at least, is just a form of digital experience where any user can engage with, in a more computationally dynamic sense. However, I like the definition from the first chapter of ‘The Art of Interactive Design’ as a cyclic process in which two actors take turns listening, thinking, and speaking. I also like the idea of treating interactivity as a continuous variable.

I think you have to be really intentional about how you want to incorporate storytelling with interactivity. I think back to my midterm project, which had a really effective storyboard and a storyline to start with. By the end of the project, we weren’t careful or intentional about how we wanted to present, and the interactivity weakened the story so that we couldn’t get the message out we wanted.