Archive for March 2008
3 Articles
In avoiding my studying that I need to do for comps, I chose to read a few research articles on alternative reality games (ARGs). The following are my comments/thoughts on the articles and/or good or interesting ideas which I pulled from them
I am also considering making the book Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic my main text. I don’t know, though, because I haven’t read the book, but the authors of one of the articles I read seem quite intelligent and on top of things. So… we’ll see.
In the mean time…
Williams, Mark. “Jane McGonigal, 28.” Technology Review. Sep. 2006. Vol. 109. Issue 4. p. 50.
This article focuses on Jane McGonigal an intellectual/game developer. She discusses the idea that ARGs use network technologies such as electronic mail, web sites, Internet chat rooms, text messages, and phone calls to construct new types of communities whose collective intelligence lets them solve problems no member can solve alone.
Question: Can my final project be an “alone” adventure? Or does the notion of creating an ARG automatically negate any form of “aloneness”? Ideas?
Herold, Charles. “A Sick Killer Has Pac-Man Fever.” The New York Times. July 22, 2004. p. 8.
This article compares and contrasts the following ARGs: Missing: Since January, Aware, Aura: Fate of the Ages, Psi-Ops: Mindgate Conspiracy.
Note to self: Do not assume that those who like intellectual searching also like methodical searching.
Stewart: “We were placing a bet that we could put an ad in a newspaper in Uzbekistan, and some kind in Iowa will be analyzing it that afternoon. That’s what the Internet means.”
Ilovebees was created in early 2001.
Jordan Weisman got a call and came up with the question, “What if that was the game calling you?”
Question: Again, can I allow my players to do this alone? The idea of the “collective detective” seems to be an important reality in ARGs and I want to be true to that. Further, a continuous thread of conversation within class has spoken to that idea. Is it fair to not think ‘community centric’ when I start creating this. But, HOW? I don’t have enough resources, I don’t think to make this a community centric game. Hmm… plotting, plotting.
4 comments March 31, 2008
The Last Battle
Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
The Last Battle
The amazingly powerful last book of the series describes the final battle of Narnia from the time the ape, Shift, takes over the dwarves and changes Aslan’s name to Tashlan, which eventually becomes just Tash. Meanwhile, a donkey, Puzzle is tricked into impersonating Aslan. As King Tirian and Jill and Eustace work to save Narnia, the battle is fought. Good verses evil triumphs, however, as Aslan returns all true Narnians to their home. Ultimately, The Last Battle is a tightly woven, plot driven text which appropriately ends the series with hopeful words, “Your father and mother and all you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning” (228).
Add comment March 31, 2008
Creative Brief for Wicked Awesome Project
This is a creative brief that I created when I was working on my initial webpage (http://www.uwm.edu/~sjfreese). I have updated it to compliment the project that we are working on for 709. I am excited to see where my ideas will go, and am especially excited to research the current alternative reality games that I have found. Some of my favorite websites include: author Sean Stewart (also, he is the creator of Fourth Wall Studios and their home page reads: “Your life is the movie screen we make the stories that play on it. The fourth wall is the imaginary barrier between the audience and the stage. We create compelling worlds that live on the wrong side of that wall. These are stories you can visit with your browser, hear on your cell phone or see out your window. This isn’t about watching adventures on TV. This is about living them. Beyond the fourth wall… beyond book covers / beyond the frame of your television set / beyond the boundaries of your video game console / …is where the stories of the 21st century want to live.”) and game designer, researcher, and future forecaster Jane McGonigal’s The Lost Ring whose game really makes me a bit jealous that I am a board (note: earlier I had ‘bored’ because I was writing this quickly, and I thought the irony in there was a bit intriguing!) gamer and not a video gamer. Although, I guess I am about to try my hand at these ARG games, huh?
Exciting stuff, yes?
2 comments March 27, 2008
The Wicked Awesome Project for 709
Alrighty all…
Here are my thoughts/plans for this final project:
At this point, I am planning on playing with the idea of “choice(s)” within Internet clicking/surfing–how each click represents a choice (thanks, Marla!), and more specifically how each choices represents a ‘conscious moral purpose’ (thanks, Henry James!), and even more specifically how YA (young adult) readers engage in reading fiction in an online environment when they are presented with a series of choices (thanks, Anne!). So, I am thinking something sort of like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book or an alternate reality game.
Thoughts/comments are, of course, welcome.
Write a creative brief for my plans/action steps (March 27)
Site Map/Diagram (April 2nd)
2-4 Potential Interfaces (April 4th)
Final website (May 2nd)
I also want to read 15-20 articles in order to center myself in some form of dialogue about where I am.
That’s all for now 
Add comment March 27, 2008
Meta-Space
I just have to say that I wanted to scoop up this title before Jay got it. So, Jay, I don’t want to hear anything about meta-ing in your post, because I am all over this like white on rice or black on an Oreo.
I find Chun’s discussion freedom and the Internet quite interesting. Of all the discussions of freedom we have had so far, even though Chun’s is probably one of the most difficult ones with which to wrestle, I find her rhetorical stance quite interesting. Mostly, I feel the least manipulated by what she has to say about the Internet, porn, etc. Possibly, because Chun is a woman, I was comfortable with her writing and encouraged that she was willing to explore, academically, porn and the Internet and what exactly that looks like in the context of digitization. I felt ’safe’ within what she had to say, and encouraged in what she was offering. That said, half the time I was shaking my head saying ‘huh’? Chun definitely has a way to cross and intermingle words, phrases, and ideas that make you wonder just what her point is. And I think that is part of her point. That, in discussing this idea of digitization and it’s negative and positive effects of freedom and control, etc., there must be some confusion. Something to wrestle with. Something that doesn’t make sense.
So, then, this got me thinking about the whole idea of space about space, meta-space, especially considering the quote on page 43, “is a free space in which to space out about space and place, fact and fiction.” And I started thinking about that in terms of my own project and plans and details–I really want to focus on young adult creative writing within my project, and how YA’s read and interact with texts, specifically fiction. And I think that this idea of talking about the space of the Internet as a space in which to explore both fact and fiction and the choices that are made in regards to both of those is quite important.
I am interested in continuing this discussion in class where, again, Jay is not allowed to use the word meta.
Add comment March 27, 2008
I could be a librarian in Second Life!
And yet, I can’t figure out why I would want to be a librarian there… when I am already paying a lot more than $150 to be a librarian in my First Life. Hmm…
Add comment March 25, 2008
My First “Real” Publication
Although, I still claim the fridge counts.
http://www.prickofthespindle.com/fiction/2.1/freese/genesis.htm
3 comments March 24, 2008
Benkler and Some Other Things
First, to my lovely classmates and Anne, I am so sorry for not posting on this blog recently. Can I use the excuse that life got crazy? Or maybe the dog ate my laptop? I am not sure… All I know is that I have been trying to “take it all in” and have felt like I really don’t understand a lot of things, and that makes me become stubborn and dig my heals in, and just not do anything (Similar, I think, to when I was younger and didn’t want to go to bed, and so I would hold my breath. Because if I passed out, I wouldn’t have to go to bed, right?) Or maybe not similar to that at all, but do know that I am reading what all of you have to say on your blogs and figuring out so hard how I might be able to apply the reading and writing to my future scholarship, that all I do is figure and I never actually produce. Which actually brings me to an excellent place of discussion on Binkler–
I agree with what everyone has stated about style and tone, in that he does write a lot like Weinberger (trying to “sell” something), and yet not so hurried. Also, I would have a hard time classifying this text as academic, albeit more so than Weinberger.
Ultimately, I find the idea of “collaboration” really a “writing community” or even a “reading community” or “both” (felt the need to put both in quotes since everything else was, as well) to be quite engaging. Personally, I have had first-hand experience in collaborating with other writers both in person and in other locales. And it is that, the other locales part, that always geeks me out. I become so excited that there are other writers and academians who care about what I have to say and who value my opinions and where I am coming from that I entrench myself in their world, which is excellent for the project or paper that we happen to be working on. I have, at the same time, found this to be quite detrimental to my engagement with writers and academia who are in a physical community, in that I tend to shut them down. And because I try so hard not to do that, I do things like choose to not post on my blog. Don’t get me wrong–I love you all, I love this class, I really would have loved that A… but, I also know that communicating face-to-face tends to be a bit more where I am at right now.
And don’t get me wrong–this is part of my research! Especially, in what I am working on through the School of Information Studies (Loss and Language–online grieving communities, and D2L and visually impaired students/the effects/interactions–that one doesn’t have a title just yet!), it’s all about online collaboration. Also, as stated earlier, online collaboration geeks me out–I love doing it! I love being able to keep up with my high school sister’s latest crush by chatting to her in between reading Nakamura and brushing my teeth. It really helps me to multi-task quite effectively.
And, yet, when it comes right down to it, online textual communication is not my learning style. I retain NOTHING. In order to actually have something to talk about in class, I have to study the blogs, not just read or skim. And so, again, instead of actually choosing to do that, I hold my breath.
So, Benkler, yeah, he’s great.
Online collaboration rocks my socks off.
Now, tell me how I can access people face-to-face and engage in community over coffee instead of in an online chatroom or in a blog. Then, I will have something intelligent for you and will probably utilize the word “trichotomy” just to sound smart.
Add comment March 10, 2008
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