The next task I am going to link to is going to be Grant’s Twine Task.
The comment I made on Grant’s task was:
“What a great Twine, Grant! It was perfect. It made me feel like I was down by the water. The sound effects allowed me to feel as if the experience was real. It made me feel calm and happy. My dog was even intrigued when he heard the seagulls. I like how you made it simple and fun to play along with. The pictures allowed me to visualize everything on this adventure, from being on the water, to going fishing, and then having my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Best of all, I succeeded in this narrative game with one try!”
His story and mine are on completely different ends of the spectrum. His reflects that of a day on the water filled with whatever you choose. Mine, however, is a spooky, suspenseful thriller where you die with almost any choice.
Grant’s twine story is simple and easier to understand and navigate. Mine, on the other hand, is more complex and leads you down many paths. Throughout his twine story, Grant uses mainly two options for readers to choose from which makes the narrative game straightforward and effortless. As well, to me, the choices seemed to be made for readers to use their common sense to figure out which was the better path to take. I was able to go through this game once without having to try again because I made smart decisions along the way. If we reflect back to the twine game I created, mine is presented in a way that is more complex. For the most part, I provided three paths for readers to choose from which, I find, increased the anxiety of the reader since there were more uncertain paths to choose. My twine game was more so luck of the draw as there were many choices that ended poorly for the player.
In Grant’s twine story, he added sound effects which allows readers to pretend that they are actually on this adventure in real life, whereas mine did not as it would have taken me way too long. According to Bell (2020), when sound effects are used in twine, the mood is set through the ambience. As well, Wharton and Collins (2011) describe that sound is able to influence the enjoyment and interpretation of the narrative game. This is absolutely true as the sound effects in Grant’s story allowed me to enjoy the game in a calming way. Bell (2020) also states that the sound and music throughout the twine allows readers to feel either less or more anxious and their heart rate is affected. Again, with Grant’s story, I was able to feel less anxious about the choices I was making and my heart rate was slow and steady. If I were to add sound effects into the game I created, I feel like there would be many emotions going through the players, their anxiety would be through the roof, and their heart rate would be elevated. I know that if I had more time, I would have been able to allow players to experience the game in a more realistic way that would affect their mind and body.
References
Bell, K. (2020). Training perceptions through play: A case for building interactive autoethnographic experiences through Twine. In Silva, Adriana de Souza e, & R. Glover-Rijkse (Eds.), (1st ed., pp 47-64). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855055-5
Wharton, A., & Collins, K. (2011). Subjective measures of the influence of music customization on the video game play experience: A Pilot study. Game Studies, 11(2). Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/wharton_collins.