Nice Post Mulling on Today's Digital Storytelling — A Guide | arcadesunshine

via arcadesunshine.wordpress.com

From a longer original post (read the whole thing!)

"I was looking for something like this everywhere, but couldn’t find one — so decided to put something together myself. I’d like this to be inclusive, so if I’m missing anything, please feel free to add a comment or email me.

With every new development in technology, the art of storytelling has changed… With the rise of mobile devices – that is, an interactive screen that is just as comfortable with text as it is with any other form of media, we can assume that new forms of storytelling will arise. In fact, at Arcade Sunshine, we’re sort of counting on it. The message is always shaped by the container – one reason why, for example, Emily Dickenson wrote such short, pithy poems was because she wrote them all on such small sheets of paper. But despite some seriously good efforts, we haven’t seen the kind of sea-change that accompanied the advent of the printing press or the written word. But maybe these things take time… I’ve heard that there are entire warehouses full of still-untranslated Assyrian clay tablets because for every Epic of Gilgamesh, there are around 10,000 receipts – and no one want to sit around all day translating receipts. Anyways – what are some of the more adventurous efforts out there, and do any of them show more promise than the hypertext novel?

Text Adventures / Interactive Fiction.

These have been around for a long time, but they may be making some type of comeback with the mobile device – as they’ve always been read rather than played. There’s a pretty active online group dedicated to creating and promoting new games, and I definitely recommend checking it out and playing one or two.

These have a history that goes back to the early 80s – I remember Zork, from when I was a kid and, even more fondly, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But I don’t remember finishing either one. I think the audience for these are going to remain pretty small – the problem is that, even when played on a mobile device, they aren’t immersive enough to fall into, the way you would a good book, and they aren’t fun enough to truly play. There’s also a documentary that I’ve been meaning to watch about the golden age of text adventures awesomely called Get Lamp...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales