"Interactive Storytelling" Brainstorming Interactivity

            On interactivity, one of the things I wanted to center my brainstorming on was an idea that could be easily applicable to many different media and forms of stories. Since Joseph Campbell had been mentioned earlier in the readings I decided to riff a little on elements of his “Monomyth” or “The Hero’s Journey”; this can also play off of the idea that every hero is essentially going through motions of a quest that make up a great story. The thing about the myth that makes it so universal is that it is mirrored in so many different stories, especially stories that have more depth than the average prose. If I were to take the points offered in the 17 stages of the hero and apply them to say: The Hobbit, or to Star Wars, they would fit fairly neatly inside the lines that Campbell has created.

            But what if we start shifting these lines and points? Taking the choices a hero makes on a journey could the same outcome come out if not all the stages are met or if some are interacted with differently by a player/author etc.? Take the “call to adventure and refusal of the call” steps for instance. The idea is that a hero is called on for a specific adventure and that often he will refuse to go initially or go reluctantly (think Bilbo not wanting to leave Bag End in the Hobbit). If a character was created with an adventure in mind, but goes without a second glance, will he find himself somehow unprepared for the coming challenges than if he’d waited? Or perhaps he refuses entirely to follow his “destiny” as it were, do the original supernatural forces guiding him towards the destiny become antagonists, or perhaps force the adventure upon him at a different point and make him a reactionary hero instead of a voluntary one? This could even play into the key elements of life-based plot lines by introducing emergencies to the character. Imagine if Bilbo refused to be a burglar and the dwarves decided to burn down his house and hunt him across all of Middle-Earth, with Gandalf helping or hindering in different ways.

            I find that taking these elements of choice is a very interesting key to a good interactive experience. The idea of choice has been completely rethought and reworked with games like Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, and the idea of using social media to influence what content is created. I also think that works like the Monomyth will become more important as backgrounds to more interactive works. So in conclusion, a type of story that can make different permutations of the Monomyth and turn it into a visual story for a player, not necessarily a game (maybe a visual novel of some type that could be more colorful but have an amount of choice at a level with Galatea), could be a successful idea in the future.