#10 Façade

For my last blog post I decided to write about Façade, because it caught my interest in class. I had a picture from Façade in my last post as an example of interactive fiction. Façade is an artificial intelligence-based interactive story, and you, the player plays as good old friend of a married couple named Grace and Trip. It is an interactive drama game, you must use the mouse and keyboard to move around in their apartment and to interact with the couple. So how you play this game is mainly by talking to the Grace and Trip, the player types in sentences to “speak” with the couple, so you can choose to support them in their troubles, driving them further apart, or you can end up being thrown out of the apartment. Façade forces the player to play through and think about social issues and having to deal with them as the game goes on, it is all very dramatic with a lot of dilemmas.

The games make good use of it’s AI, it uses voice acting and a natural language processing, which all together makes up awkward situation who the player can recognize from real life.  The AI in this game works almost flawless, if you stay on topic and keep the conversation going, the AI will generate a dramatically appropriate response almost every time, and if it doesn’t the AI will make the characters look strangely on the player before going back to the previous topic. It can be really satisfying to have an ongoing conversation with a bot who can come up with good response and reaction.

#Elit

So we just changed from gaming to electronic literature, I haven’t done much electronic literature reading so I am very new to the topic. Electronic literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computer, tablets and mobile phones. Electronic literature is a good mix of technology and text, it is multimodal, it combines different elements to tell a story and capture the audience while doing it. Some electronic literature can even be formed as a video game.

Different genres of Electronic literature

• Hypertext fiction

Characterized using hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and by doing this it creates a story from a deeper pool of potential stories.

• Interactive Fiction                                            

  Interactive fiction is real-time storytelling format reacting to input from players.  It can be distinguished from hypertext fiction in terms of the game elements.  It allows readers to choose their preference

• Kinetic Poetry

An interactive form of  creating poetry, words on a screen drift around and are drawn to each other, gradually sticking end to end, and accumulating into phrases. These phrases arrange themselves into successive lines of abstract poetry.

• Generative Fiction

  The production of continuously changing literary texts by means of some set of rules and/or the use of algorithms.

 

#8

In this post I want to talk about one of the games that Mia recommended us to try, and a little bit of game aesthetics. The subjects in this post might not follow the given blog-plan, but I haven’t written about this yet so…

I might not remember correct, but I think it was the last weak with games as a subject where we had no lecture, so we got a few recommended games to try out instead of lectures. I picked “Her story”, and I’m very glad I did, because this was a unique gaming experience for me, I have never played a game like this one. You watch videos on an old police computer, and the videos are from an interrogation of a women whose husband got murdered, and you have to look for clues as you look at more tapes from the interrogation to understand what really happened. What I found so interesting about this game is how its made, it’s nothing complicated but still very cleverly done, using a real woman in the videos instead of some poor animation was a good choice.
It’s just like being a detective, you have access to everything from the beginning, but you don’t know what’s important to focus on or take note of, before after watching the videos.
I have always been a fan of crime book so that’s possibly one of the reason I enjoyed this game so much.

Music is a big part of my day to day life, I spend most of my day with music in my ear. I play music to put myself in a certain mood depending on what I’m doing, and some songs or a melody can wake up memories. Take the music from Mario bros for example, everyone who have played Mario bros will immediately associate the music with memories of playing the game when they were younger. So the music, or audio in a game plays a big part, it can be used to capture the player and put him into the action in a different way than what the game alone can manage. Music helps enhance how the game feels to a player, it can be used to illustrate when danger is close for example, or it can sett the mood when the player is walking through a forest by using different sound effects like wind or animal noises.

Empathy games

So this late posted blog-post, is going to be about empathy games, which I personally don’t have a lot of experience with, but I am very intrigued by this genre of games. So typical subjects in empathy games can be depression, suicide, bullying or war just to name a few. So the empathy games makes the player see things in a different perspective, the purpose is to putt the player in a situation where he or she experiences how it’s like for other people who might struggle with some of the subjects I mentioned above. This can serve as a new way to create awareness around topics that might be hard to talk about, and even harder to understand for people who are not in these kinds of situations.

“The Syrian conflict has torn the country apart, leaving thousands dead and driving millions to flee their homes. Many seek refuge in neighbouring countries but others pay traffickers to take them to Europe – risking death, capture and deportation.”

“Syrian Journey” is a great example of these kind of games. “Syrian Journey” is about the Syrian conflict and it is created by BBC, with the intent to create awareness around the problem. The game takes the player to the refugee crisis in Syria, and it putts the player in real life dilemmas and situations that the refugees is facing during their journey to safety, the game is based of real.

I am a big fan of video games being used for other purposes than just entertainment, games as a platform to share information about a crisis like the “Syrian Journey” and using the platform to create more awareness is a great idea and it’s strange that it haven’t been a done earlier.

 

 

More than a game

So, this week has been fun, we had a look at coding in Basic in lab on Monday, which was a fun way to start the week, it was cool to see how the old programs worked. The peer game presentations this week was really good too, I especially liked the ones about Dark Souls and Senua’s Sacrifice. I haven’t played ether of the games, and I haven’t even heard about Senua’s Sacrifice, and it’s always entertaining to hear and learn about new and well-made games. I have heard about Dark Souls, but I have never tried it out, mostly because of the things that I have seen and heard about the game, and that it is supposedly a very difficult game, so I just didn’t bother to buy or try the game out. I believe that it is probably a very good game if you take your time to learn it, so I might try it out one day.

Senua’s Sacrifice sounded like a genuinely good game, who focuses on a lot more than just entertaining the player, and this game caught my attention mainly because of that reason. So the main character seems to struggle with voices in her head that keeps feeding her with negative thoughts and comments, the main character believes this to be a curse. This game looks to be filled with emotions and seems very powerful, it most definitely has a deeper meaning and tells a powerful story, it seems like a lot more than a regular Viking action game.

So this blog came of a little short, I don’t have any DDAs to share ether, mainly because I haven’t done any in a while, which I have to start doing, so that will be all for now.

Per out.

Title number 5

First week after the winter break is now over, and it felt good getting back in routine after a week off. This is the week we start with the subject Video Games, something that I have been looking forward to, I think this can be a fun couple of weeks with a lot of interesting lectures. I guess I would classify myself as a social-gamer, I play games on a regular basis, and it is something that I have been doing for a couple of years, its always been a hobby which I have enjoyed very much. I remember one of the first gaming consoles that I owned, and it was the PS2, and at the time I lived in Spain, so I bought FIFA 2002 with Spanish audio. I didn’t fully understand Spanish, but I played the game so much that I just knew what to press.

I am also looking forward to the peer game presentations, I think it’s an interesting and cool way to do lectures, making the students talk about what they want the rest of us to learn about. I think I know a little bit about all the games that will be presented, but I am looking forward to learning some more.

We also had the Arduino workshop this week, since it got canceled before winter break. And I didn’t know anything about Arduino, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was quite fun, I have done something similar in high school but that was long forgotten, so all in all it was better than I thought it would be.

#SELFIEUNSELFIE

So, this is supposed to be the selfie-unselfie blog post, even though it is posted 2 weeks late or so.. I am not really a fan of selfies, I don’t have a problem with selfies shared on social media from other people, but I don’t like taking up my phone and snapping a photo of my self and share it online. I haven’t created much of a personality online for others to see who I am as a person, since I don’t post personal opinions or share personal news or updates on Facebook, and I don’t use twitter for anything else than this course. The only social media platform where you can find anything about me is on Instagram, where I have posted a few pictures but not a lot, the pictures posted on my profile are usually taken by another person, there is actually only one picture that I would classify as somewhat kind of selfie I guess. I guess I’m just not that comfortable pointing the camera at myself, I enjoy taking pictures and all that, but not just selfies.

Anyway here is the selfie-unselfie challenge, first one a very uncomfortable selfie, and then my somewhat clean workplace.

Is this art?

So I want to write a quick segment in this post about some street art, which I enjoy very much. Always been a fan of good graffiti in the streets, I feel like its sprinkles on a cake, giving the street and city just a little more flavor and charm. When I lived in Buenos Aires I saw some incredible street art, unfortunately my phone where I had all my pictures broke. So, I won’t be able to share some of the street art which I got to enjoy, but I managed to find two pictures. The first one is what looks like a hippo of some sort on a bicycle, and the details and size of this image is just incredibly well done, in my opinion. I got to walk past this beautiful piece of art almost every day and I would always look up on it.

This second picture is from La Boca, it is actually a quite famous tourist attraction, so you might have heard of it. It is an area where all the houses are painted in different bright colors, which I guess is some sort of street art right? La Boca being a tourist attraction is also kind of strange, since it is one of the poorest areas in Buenos Aires, and has a very high crime rate, but it is a very pretty area with some good-looking houses.

Lectures this week. We had a flash close reading using twitter to share our thought, and answer questions about this video we saw. The video was Sky Magic Drone Ballet, which was drones equipped with flashing lights dancing in front of mount Fuji, flying around to form some mesmerizing formations with lights flashing to music, which was a mix between old and new. I find this usage of drones very cool and fascinating, drones being used mainly to capture beautiful scenery, but this was new, for me at least. Flashing lights with music isn’t new though, but it’s always enjoyable to watch.

And using twitter as a platform for students to share thought and comment live in class was also a new experience for me, kind of strange but I like the idea, and the future is now right?

Blog Numero Dos

Another week another blog post. I am still not quite fond of being so interactive online, with twitter and the blog, but I have tweeted my first tweet and completed my first daily digital alchemy, so I’m getting there slow and steady. But to be honest, I do not like twitter as a social media platform, I don’t find It entertaining or enjoyable to use. I can understand why people like it, because it is a good platform where it’s very easy to spread and share stories, news or just a quick daily update, but I just feel very awkward when I am using twitter, so it will be interesting to see if I will be active and used to twitter after this semester, or not.

Since there were no lab on friday, we got a simple task of making a gif. Making a gif is rather easy, you can download the GIPHY-app on your phone or visit the website, putt in a short video, some clicks later and you’re done, it’s not rocket science. But finding the correct videoclip to use in the gif was worse, so I scrolled down my photo album on my phone and found this video of myself, just long enough and the footage could easily fit almost any context. So, this is the gif that I decided to make for class, enjoy. And don’t ask about the afro please.

 

 

 

First blog

My name is Per Kristian, I am 22 years old from Vinstra, Gudbrandsdalen, but I am currently studying Digital Culture at the university in Bergen. My blog will be used to tell my Dikult 103 story, mostly what I learn and create during this semester, but it will also be about my thoughts around the subject and the things we learn.

Dikult 103 will be a challenging subject for me since I am not much of a social media type of person, I have not posted or shared anything on Facebook, I have never had a Twitter account before I started with Dikult 103. Soo posting on a blog regularly will be a challenge for me, but it is a challenge I am looking forward to because it will be a brand-new experience. This Dikult course is also done in a very different way than what I am used to, and honestly not what I prefer, it is a lot more interactive than anything I have ever been a part of, but in the end, I might end up liking it, who knows. Soo all in all I have mixed feelings about this course, but I am open to new things and experiences.

I have always been interested in digital art, so I am looking forward to some aspects of the course, but I have never been much of a creator or artist, I mostly browse websites like reddit or imgur to enjoy other people’s work. I have used tools like photoshop before during some other courses, but it was just the basic stuff, nothing extraordinary. I also have some experience with coding, which I enjoy when it works, I took some courses during high school and then some more coursed when I lived in Trondheim, but again it was nothing huge or special.

This blog post might come in short, but frankly I am not sure what more to write about in my first post, so I will wrap this up now.