CS 148/248
MIDTERM
Winter 2010
The midterm is due on Tuesday, February 16, 2010. Please email your midterm to Ben
Samuel (benamin.m.samuel@gmail.com). You can either hand out a hard copy in class or
submit it via email before midnight.
Name:
1. For the various parts of question 1, download the demo of The Witches Yarn, available
at: http://www.mousechief.com/witchs_yarn/index.html. The demo gives you an hour of
free play, which will be enough to answer these questions.
A. Which of these four modes of interactivity, external/exploratory, internal/exploratory,
external/ontological, or internal/ontological is evidenced by The Witches Yarn. Argue for
your answer, providing concrete examples of interaction to make your point.
B. Describe the Listen  Think  Speak loop for the The Witches Yarn (i.e. what are
each of these stages composed of in this work)?
C. Based on your interaction with The Witches Yarn, what are the procedural and
instantial elements of the work?
D. Keeping the same interaction mechanics (same interface, same basic way of
interacting), imagine two variant versions of The Witches Yarn: the most radically
procedural version you can imagine (everything done in code – the smallest amount of
data you can get away with) and the most radically instantial version you can imagine
(everything done in data that is directly presented (played) to the user – the smallest
amount of code you can get away with). Describe each of these imaginary versions (how
they work), what kind of authoring an author would have to do in each version, and how
much work it would be to author each version.
2. Imagine that someone sent you an email with this link saying “Check out this great
interactive narrative”: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/. You find yourself
asking “Is this an interactive narrative?” To answer the parts below, first play to the end
(it won’t take long); you may want to play a couple of times.
A. Describe how Gravitation relates to each of Ryan’s 8 narrative dimensions (the
Spatial, Temporal, Mental and Formal/Pragmatic dimensions).
B. Describe Gravitation in terms of Frasca's three layers: narrative (representation), paida
(manipulation rules) and ludus (goal rules).
C. Analyze the agency in Gravitation in terms of material and formal affordances. First
describe the material and formal affordances, Then, if you’re arguing that Gravitation has
low agency, argue how the material and formal affordances are out of balance (and in
which direction they are out of balance). If arguing that Gravitation has high agency, then
argue how the material and formal affordances are in balance.
D. Comparing The Witches Yarn and Gravitation, which is more procedural? When
comparing the procedurality of two games, you want to ask yourself, in Frasca's
terminology, how much of the player experience is created by the rules (vs. the
representational layer).
E. Analyze the protagonist of Gravitation in terms of McKee’s requirements for a good
protagonist, in terms of McKee’s analysis of the types of conflict, and in terms of the gap
(and progression of gaps). By the requirements for a protagonist in Aristotelian drama, is
the protagonist in Gravitation an effective protagonist?
3. The following parts refer to Photopia.
A. For each of Jenkin’s four spatial narrative strategies, argue how Photopia does or
doesn’t make use of the strategy. Use concrete examples from Photopia when making
your arguments.
B. Comparing Photopia and The Witches Yarn, which is more procedural? Defend your
answer with concrete examples. Describe how the difference in procedurality affects the
listen/think/speak loop (the depth and speed of the loop).
C. One of the distinctions in narratology is story vs. discourse. Describe how the first
scene (Rob and passenger in car), second scene (Wendy on Mars), seventh scene (Sam
Dawson talking with Alley about space), eighth scene (Wendy in crystal labyrinth), tenth
scene (Jim and Alley driving down Bartlet Road), fourteenth scene (Wendy and Alley in
bedroom) and fifteenth scene (Sam and Mary Dawson above Alley's crib) relate to the
story. To do this, order the scenes in terms of the story (you may not be able to do a
perfect ordering, but you can do a partial ordering), describe how each scene is framed in
the story (are there any embedded stories?), and who is focalizing each scene (the point
of view from which that bit of story is turned into discourse). Describe the overall flow of
the story in a few sentences.
D. Which of Ryan’s four modes of interaction (external/exploratory, internal/exploratory,
external/ontological, or internal/ontological) best characterizes the interactivity of
Photopia? When describing the exploratory/ontological distinction, talk about it at two
different levels: detailed enactment and the level of major story events. Argue for your
answer, providing concrete examples of interaction to make your point.
E. In comparing Photopia and Gravitation, describe how the manipulation and goal rules
for each game influence the amount of ontological interaction. Does one game offer more
ontological interaction than the other, or are they the same? Defend your answer with
concrete examples.
4. This question is a brief Inform 7 programming exercise. I’ve borrowed a premise from
one of the speed IF competitions (IF competitions in which competitors have 2 hours to
write an IF). You are of course free to take less or more than two hours if you’d like. I’m
not going to grade you on the aesthetics of your IF world, but on whether you wrote code
that works and included the required code features.
Premise: Write an IF in the form of a medieval morality play. The protagonist is
attempting to transport something from one location to another, and his or her efforts are
stymied by one or several of the following: Sloth, Pride, Avarice, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony,
Envy. Your deadly sin(s) don’t have to appear in person.
Code requirements: There must be two rooms, a door, an NPC you can (minimally) talk
to, a container, at least one thing it makes sense to put in the container, the use of an
Instead rule or Before rule, something that lets you know when you’ve succeeded (the
experience ends, it says “you’ve won”, something), and an Understand rule. Include your
code in your answer. To grade it, I’ll copy the code into Inform 7, hit the run button, and
play it.