Beyond Linear Narrative Augusto Baal Enters Norrath

1. Beyond Linear NarrativeAugusto Baal Enters Norrath Katie Whitlock

2. "Play is older than culture” • It is inherent in our nature. • Used to transcend reality, breaking from the mundane to experience the extraordinary. • Huizinga points to "dressing up" as the highest level of this, suggesting that the donning • of disguise or mask equals perfection of play – “becoming another being”. • The culture of play remains strong within our society. • The manner of play is changing, adapting to the mediatized culture of the present. • For Rushkoff, video game is a "mediated dream space," which allows individuals to join in fictional realities to play "dress up" and to pursue a hero's quest unavailable in modern society • The video game player of today is a performer. He/she is actively engaged in an interactive state that is both physical and mental, playing a character. Narrative, however simplistic, houses this performance in a virtual world, a performance space that can allow an unlimited creative freedom.

3. Games versus Stories • This is the essential difference between game designers and storytellers: • The game designers see the universe - everything! - as a gigantic physical system that need only be simulated with sufficient fidelity to achieve any goal.

4. Gamification

5. Early Industrial games use film structures: which ignores the dimension of interactivity available to gaming and the use of an emotionally evocative dramatic experience. • Later games emerge that use Post-Aristotelian theater narratives: create interactive fantasy systems i.e. MMORPG, WOW. • Rather than following Aristotelian rules of drama, these massive worlds parallel thewritings of another, more modern, theatre theorist - Augusto Boal.

6. MMORPG • Introduce social relationships in games: • Dungeon “like” Role playing games • online communities • MUDs (text based) • MMOs add AI in games • Games became situational: a simulacrum of the real-world (or a fantastic version of)

8. Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre

9. Spect-actor • A meld of audience and actor • An active participant in drama • Influencing the narrative • Altering the narrative to suit the individual's ideas. • Theater becomes at the cross-road of narrative and action • It becomes a place of revolution via democratic theater

11. Everquest- Boal’s theater

12. Massive multiplayer games are unique in that they depend upon the community to survive, just as Boars Forum relies on society to thrive. • Thecommunity is the reason to play the game as its presence and involvement alters the experience. • The player becomes a part of the game and its virtual community, joining a social network that gives the player agency, a capacity for change in every action and choice. • Player immersion • Hyper reality

13. For example

14. As technology continues to improve and becomes further enmeshed in everyday life, the potential grows for gaming to extend its presence. • This connection between real life and gaming will further Boal's concept of the Forum by providing a place for the exploration ideas and narratives. • With the integration of computers and cell phones, virtual worlds hold the potential to become active theatrical forums in which individuals become characters in ever-changing narratives that are influenced and shaped by the people

15. Gaming Industry

16. Gaming layer to the world

17. Impact of games?

18. England 2011