Terri Windling on ShapeShifters

More research......

Have spent the last few days continuing with researching fairy tales. Just found this
which has proven most usefull. Have come up against a few more problems though. There are different versions written by all of the various writers. They too changed and subverted their own texts and therefore I have found two versions of Sun, Moon and Talia both written by Basile that are very different, not slightly but completly. People keep suggesting more and more writers and I am trying to explore as many as I can find, although I worry that I am getting to absorbed in the stories to be thinking about the structure. I have come up with some ideas for the structure as I mentioned previously and I will post the diagrams soon. Whether they could or would work I am not sure yet.

A few more links that have been of use
The Endicott Studio
Once upon a time

More thought......

Have just spent all afternoon trying to find a tie between one fairy tale to another. Decided on Sleeping Beauty for today. After an entire afternoon trying to find a link between Perrault, Glambattista and Grimm versions (And succeeding I discover it has already been done and written down so there was a wasted afternoon)

My idea is to create an interactive narrative, that uses all of the versions:
Sleeping Beauty and the enchanted wood
Sun, Moon and Thlia
The Glass Coffin
The Ninth Captains Tale
Little Briar Rose


My particular interest goes into the Perrault, Grimm and Glambattista versions, Sleeping Beauty etc, Little Briar Rose and Sun, Moon and Thlia. Glambattista (really not sure if I'm spelling this right....) being my main interest.

As things stand my idea is to create a multiple version, combining all the differences that these authors used. Thus the interaction will come about by leading you off into various versions and making you combine the versions to create your finished narrative. Also thinking of including hidden meanings and sub-texts ie Sleeping Beauty was supposable raped, the list of these things are endless.

Not sure if I'll use Sleeping Beauty for my final piece but needed to start looking into the how's and whys of making a fairy tale interactive.

Paula Rego

Paula Rego has been one of my favorite artists since I visited an exhibition of hers in 1998. Her paintings always carry an narrative with them, which is what led me to revisit her for this project. I have been thinking of illustration style for this project and I already know that I do not wish to carry with the fairy tale illustration conventions. For starters I have not attempted an etching for years and am not sure if I can remember how to do it, however more importantly I want to show a different side to fairy tales the darker, underbelly side of them.

"Her work often uses imagery from fairy tales with a sinister edge in which there
is a malicious domination, a subverting of natural order or exposes social
realities that are unpolite or polemic like abortion."

Links:
Tate Magazine 8

"Swallows the Poisoned Apple"

In Swallows The Poison Apple, Paula Rego revises the tale of Snow White to expose the fallible value of youth. Dressed in traditional Disney garb, this Snow White isnÂ’t a beautiful princess, but a middle-aged woman. And put so much better then I could:

"Pictured moments after eating the poison apple, she lays sprawled amidst
overturned furniture, suggesting painful and violent demise. Clutching her
skirts, she alludes to her sexual nature, as if clinging to something slipping
away. Her body lies between a blanket adorned with spring blossoms, and a
sinister backdrop of red and black. Rego illustrates the conflict of reality
encroaching on the socially imposed myths of female worth, construing aging as
both a physical and psychological violation"

"Snow White Playing with her Father's Trophies"

First recorded fairy tales

Il Pentameroneby Giambattista Basile

Il Pentamerone is essentially the first full collection of European literary fairy tales. Written by Giambattista Basile and published in 1634-6, the Italian tales predate Charles Perrault by at least 50 years and the Grimm Brothers by 200 years. The book is not as well known today since it was originally written in the difficult Neapolitan dialect and was not translated into English until 1847 by John Edward Taylor.

Developing Practice:- Project Proposal 1.


Learning Outcomes:

During this module you will apply your knowledge of research and pre-production developed in your previous modules to develop and realise a completed short project or prototype for an interactive artefact based on a negotiated topic, issue or text.


My initial idea for this project is also what I plan to do for my final practical MA project. My interest lies in interactive narrative or modular narrative, the techniques needed to create an interactive story or novel. My first thoughts on this has of yet not been fully realised, and I am struggerling to come up with the right kind of narrative that would work on this genre. Comics, hypertext novels all try to achieve this, and personally I do not feel that any research I have done has satisfied me on how narrative can be broken up and retold successful in an interactive capacity. Comics obviously have been experimented with for a number of years; however I still feel that they have yet to be implemented on the web in such a way that you are not left feeling like you could have experienced that in book form, whilst lying on the sofa with a cup of tea- instead of been perched on an office chair bolt upright, blinking against the computer screen, and getting an increasingly bad headache. As of yet I don’t feel that interactive narrative on the web is successful and until someone figures out the correct formula for this type of story telling ( which I am in no way qualified to do) I think audiences will continue to be disappointed and left feeling like they don’t know what is going on and did they miss something important on that one hyperlink they failed to link to.

My first thoughts, combined with my research module, “To look at the effect of new media of the transmission of fairy tales.” Is something which has interested me for some time; however I am not sure that there is enough scope or really any point in creating an interactive fairytale? You could look at is there any point in creating anything interactive should I be thinking along those lines. However I feel that fairytales have been retold and retold, and although I would go back to the original source of fairytales, creating an interactive fairy tale might go against the premise and the point of them. That is the moral implications and the lessons that you are supposed to learn. Now that I am writing this down this might be perfect? Could the reader only get to the end of the fairy tale if they take on board the moral lessons that are supposed to be learned? This creates the problem of these tales been so well known that reader will know what they are supposed to be thinking and thus would navigate themselves through the piece with this in mind. One way to get around this would be to write a fairytale that follows the conventions and rules so to speak and not actually call it a fairytale. Thus the reader might get a feeling of the background to the text but would not know for sure.


Within this project I would like to combine narrative and illustration and perhaps a bit of animation to create a kind of hypertext novel/comic/romance. Romance being the 16th century preferred form of reading in which the novel was broken up into segments, in which the reader could choose which parts they read and which they missed. They were broken up in such a way that the reader could finish at any point and still feel a sense of closure, they were not copyrighted so should I go down this route the only problem is getting hold of a copy. Due to there excessive length apparently no body has ever finished reading one! This makes me think that these texts would be perfect for the internet. I do think studying the techniques used in this type of narrative would be a good starting point, whether I decide to look at fairy tales or some other form of narrative.

Here I’ve enclosed an extract from an essay completed for my BA in which I looked at the works of Madeleine De Scuderie:-

“Romance novels were very long made in volumes and could often extend to 10-12 volumes at a time. You could read them separately and still have a sense of closure at the end of each volume, this obviously was due to the modular structure, and relating back to today’s ‘Interactive narratives’ the use of a modular structure is needed so that you can end the experience at any time without missing the feeling of completing something. However if you read more than one, you realised that they did link together. They could be read in any order apart from the last one, which had to be at the end, which would conclude all the past volumes. As they were so long people didn’t finish them very often, they might read four of the volumes and then the concluding part, one such Romance by Madeleine De Scuderie, ‘The Map of the Kingdom of Tenderness’ is an allegory which distinguishes the different kinds of tenderness, which are reduced to esteem, gratitude and inclination. The map represents three rivers, which have these three names, and on which are situated three towns called Tenderness; Tenderness on Inclination; Tenderness on Gratitude, they are situated at Pleasing Attentions, or Petit Soins.


‘La Carte De Tendre’ or ‘The Kindom of Tenderness’ made its first debut in the first volume of ‘Clelie’, 1654. However it started its life off as a ‘Salon Game’ that was fast becoming all the rage in the 17th century, Parisian salon society. And is in my opinion the predecessor of many board games, and foreshadows certain contemporary computer games, and interactive narratives. The idea was that a group of people met and held these imaginary games. There was always a person in charge who read the narrative, and who usually had written the narrative. Romance novels were perfect for this as they didn’t have to be read in order, so one volume would be read, and on the instruction of the person playing the game would lead to another volume. ‘La Carte De Tendre’ was no exception to this. Each Pretendent, Male or Female began the journey to ‘Tendre’ at ‘New Friendship’, located at the Southern mid- point of the map and then follow one of three routes first travelling north towards ‘Tendre’. One might follow the route of ‘Inclination’, and arrive in ‘Tendre- Sur- Estime’ or the route of ‘Recognition’, and arrive at ‘Tendre-Sur-Reconnaissance’. A person might choose the wrong route, for example, and wonder into the lake of indifference, or into forgetfulness. On the opposite side of the map one might choose more wisely and wander through Submission, Obedience, Sensibility, or Constant friendship and might find oneself arriving in ‘Tendre’ more rapidly then expected. The author was always the one in charge of the narrative, the authorial voice, describing the route that had been followed, and making sure that the path they had chosen would lead to the correct part of the narrative.


Although they neither could change, nor interfere in the main narrative, participants would choose their fate and where they would lead. Participants were encouraged to enter into the realm, to explore the countryside, to dream the authors dreams with them, but the author never let them enter into her dreams. As you can see, the resemblance to interactive narrative is there for all to see. A narrative made to be broken up, yet leading to different points or different endings, memory required to remember the places you have been and the consequences of your actions. All this seems to have the same rules and strategies of interactive narratives. When Scuderie first brought out the book ‘The Kingdom of Tenderness’, there was much debate on the structure of these narratives. Critics disliked this new novel, and like we are doing today discussed whether this was narrative, however they proved to be bestsellers. One does wonder at why they stopped, or that until quite recently this style has only just been adopted again. One suggestion is that people found them exciting and new, but fundamentally a bit of a gimmick, they soon bored of them.


In De Saudrys case, they allowed her to describe her feelings about fellow players without insulting them. Rather then saying that they simply bored her, she could say that they had fallen into the lake of indifference or forgetfulness. This seems to suggest that she did move around narrative to suit her own prerogatives. She was the game master and ultimately the goal was her “friendship”, I put this in inverted commas, however this was actually the prize. Many of her friends were ‘test driven’ through the salon games, if they completed in a way in which Madeline De Saudry thought honourable she made them a personal friend. The game was there to give a lesson of how to treat women, and how to give tenderness without physical interaction. This seems to give the impression that these salon games’ narrative was more interactive than ‘interactive narratives’ are now. She could change the plot when she wanted, to lead her participants where she wanted them to go, she taught them a lesson and if they did not take the hint they were led away from Tendre. Like interactive narratives today you are given a kind of route, your helped along in the direction that would be best, if you wander off this then you come into trouble, or discovered red herrings, or find the really interesting stuff! Like ‘Interactive narratives’ someone was, and is in control however much the word interactive tries to persuade us other wise. There is a structure and if there is a structure then there must be a narrative.”


My thoughts for the next few weeks is to get to grips with the type of narrative I am going to use, and the best way in which to make it interactive. As this project is a lead up to our final project, the mistakes I make and the lessons to be learned will be implemented on the final project when hopefully I will have a better understanding of what makes narrative successful on the web and interactive. My choice of program will probably be Flash using HTML for a database.

Assignment One for Research Module

New Semester, new project.


Assignment One

“Prepare a ten minute presentation of your practice in which you identify the key themes and interests evident in the practice, the nature of the practice and practitioners whose work has been of influence.”


My practice is interactive media.oierngoerngoerngoerngoerngojgnjrenognstuff here.......

Think I should start by looking at the practitioners whose work essentially led me to my interest in interactive media. I enjoy the work of various artists all of which has helped me in my development however not all of them are in anyway connected to New Media. The nature of New Media and the internet means that there are no definitions of what is expected or considered the work of this practice. This means that you can push the boundaries and can branch out into various fields while still considering youself a New Media artist.

One of my key interests is what happens to texts when they are put on the internet and “The effect of new media on the transmission of various narrative forms.” For example Fairy Tales, Comics, and ghost stories the list is endless. And this is going to be my basis for this research module, which I will later develop. Within narrative the internet represents a return to the manuscript style (or even oral) culture where the reader is expected to interact rather then just be a passive recipient. The examples I gave previously are all forms of storytelling that require a certain level of interactivity, for example comics you navigate your way through them, by an almost intuitive way. Fairy Tales and Goust Storys started as an oral form of storytelling and weren’t infact recorded until the late 18th century where obviously there style and therefore meaning were changed and subverted. New Media and the ability to interact with the piece in front of you has again changed meaning and context, and imposes questions on whether these ‘new’ versions have dramatically changed these examples as well as questions on the best way in which to demonstrate and transcribe these narrative and illustrated texts.

What is interactive narrative?
Post-modern theories of narrative seem to have changed the relationship between author and reader, bringing to the foreground the importance of the reader in the process of constructing meaning in text. Many post-modern texts are designed to take advantage of the reader’s active role in making the work meaningful. Interactive narratives follow a non linear structure, the readers have to navigate and put story elements in various orders themselves. When the writer includes multiply possibilities in the development of the plot, the reader plays an active role in shaping their own paths through the story. Rather than creating finished works, the interactive artist creates relationships. My interest in interactive narrative originated from seeing Schott Mclouds interactive comics. Which shows the possibilities of narrative forms (not just in this genre) been made interactive as well as combining illustration, which is another of my key interests.

Although I previously mentioned that the reader is important in shaping the path of where they go, this is not neccisarily always the point. If a type of narrative is put on the web, even if its just written down in exactly the same way as it would be in a book, it still changes the meaning and the context. In particular my interst in fairy tales is not just how I could make the viewer shape there path through it but also the effect of just having it on the internet.


Links for Assignment One:-

What is interactive media?

Its very hard to define, and answer the question what is interactive media. Have found one definition which works for some aspects but not all.

“Interactivity is the relation constituted by a symbolic interface between its referential objective, functionality and the subject.”

http://nml.ru.ac.za/maher/?p=7

and from wikipedia, there is this definition:-

"Interactive media refers to media of communication that allow for active participation by the recipient, hence interactivity. Traditional information theory would describe interactive media as those media that establish two-way communication. In media theory, interactive media are discussed along their cultural implications. The field of Human Computer Interaction deals with aspects of interactivity and design of in digital media. Other areas that deal with interactive media are new media art and video game production.
While some traditional (non-digital) mass media would qualify for interactive media the term is usually only applied to digital media. The significant increase in possibilities for interactivity (especially over vast distances) brought by the internet boosted the availability of digital interactive media. Still, e.g. language in face-to-face communication would formally belong to the interactive media.
Interactive media are often designed by information designers. As all media they rely on communication. In the case of e.g. computer games this is visual, acoustic, and haptic communication between the user (player) and the game. In Mobile telephony, the communication happens between two people and is purely acoustic at the first glance. Yet, according to media theory the cultural implications of the medium have to be taken into account. Thus, aspects like constant availability, customisation of the mobile phone and Short Message Service are also part of the interactive medium called Mobile telephony. Media restrain from being translated to technological entities. Wikipedia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_media

Links of interest

http://www.fadresearch.com/about.html
http://dag.idi.ntnu.no/interactivity.pdf

Comics Research

As I previously mentioned it was the transmission of comic books that led me to this particular field of interest. Although there are many online comics, and apart from a few examples, they often follow a similar approach to that of the printed version. It appears as of yet there is little progress in how online comics could make use of the internet and how hyperlinks and other various tools could be incorperated, to create a new experience that differs from the print, yet is just as viable"

http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/24hr/dare/dare.html

Examples of online Comics
http://castlezzt.net/24hourcomic.cfm
http://members.aol.com/opheliab/24hour1.html
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/caseysorrow/feral/series.php?view=single&ID=1918

Fairy Tales Research

At this point, fairy tales will be my specific field of interest. Although fairy tales are on the web, they are not interactive its just th text. Can you make fairy tales interactive? Or will that completly rid of the moral and truth messages that fairy tales excist to tell?

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/index.html

http://www.word-power.co.uk/catalogue/0748617701

Sarah Bonner, Manchester University writes:
Her thesis examines the recent resurgence in the use of themes and tropes from fairy tales in contemporary visual culture in Europe and America. She argues that this resurgence is linked to an interest in rethinking gendered identity.
Re-Inventing / Re-Claiming Red Riding Hood
Approaching the question ‘In what ways have texts and images responded to one another?’ this paper proposes an investigation into the visual responses to the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Taking this as a starting point, I will discuss how the vital and repetitive use of symbols has settled, through extensive textual and visual dissemination, into the collective consciousness of the Western world. In addition, the recent visual revisions that are challenging the established fairy tale tradition will also be explored.
Visual illustrations of fairy tales have served to reinforce the tales’ moralistic message, and have captured the main thrust of the texts through carefully selected and repeated images. More recently, there has been a shift in visual responses to the Grimm’s fairy tales from a tendency to comply with the basic parameters of the myths to an attitude of parody or critique. Increasingly fairy tales are being visually appropriated in order to subvert the nineteenth-century cultural values expounded in the Grimm’s tales, reflecting a shift in cultural attitude. The visual responses to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ explore the relationship between girl and beast interrogating the implicated behaviour patterns presented by the symbols of traditional texts.
In the case of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, it is the red cape and the wolf that instantly identify the tale to the reader/viewer. Artists such as Paula Rego and Kiki Smith have responded to the text as well as to recent cultural pressures, commenting on gender roles through visual subversions of the traditional fairy tale. These artists’ responses to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ create a dialogue of identity and discrimination, engaging the Grimm’s concept that appearances aren’t always what they seem.

"Bitch- A feminist response to pop culture"

Notes on the article "Beyond the valley of the geeks", and the website "Women Gamers".

Gender and gaming:
Its a stereotype, but its based on truth: Despite increasing numbers of female players and women working in game development, electronic games are still largely made for men, by men. Of the 145 million people that play video games, 43 percent are female. When it comes to console games, which dominate industry sales, only a quarter of the players are women. Women do however, make up 60 percent of the 6.3 million purchasers of games played on mobile phones.

US gaming companies are reluctant to disclose their percentage of female employees. But we do know that merely 10-15 percent of members of the international Game development Association are women. In the UK, just 17 percent of electronic gaming workers are female, and only 23 percent of those women have jobs that include designing or having creative input.

The reason this interests me from a designing point of view is that as we are designing an educational tool, it cannot be gender specific. One of the main aims is to create a game which not only educates, but also enjoyed from a purely non-educational way. I've realised that this might be hard. Girls in this case, might not be as interested to play as the boys. Research has shown that girls tend to choose games with short play and quick rewards, rather then Byzantine universes that require months to learn to navigate. One game to look at though which has been successful with women is The Sims created by a 60 percent female team and played by an audience that is 50 percent female. This seems to suggest that as women we are simple creatures purely wanting quick gratification and a pat on the back every five minutes.....

I think the way forward will be in the characters and also what platform the game should be played on. Could have a sims type character (obviously not to be made by me..) and a reward scheme. On her blog, Frag Doll team member (Female game team) Jinx writes:

"Within certain boundaries of reason, I think no one can argue that attractive game characters are awesome. Outside those bounds, well I often find myself cocking my head and wondering how physics engines can support the paradoxes of some female models... Usually there's an inverse relationship between the size of a character's breasts and her character development.... Developers, I'm trying to help you. If you're going to put a female character in the game, put her in for a reason... Being buxom is not a reason, it is an excuse."


As the characters in my game will be the character in the film that they are looking at I do not feel that it is important to look to closely at character assassination! However, the importance of female characters' physical appearance to female gamers is not well understood by male game developers. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that identifying with game characters is less important to many male gamers? Male gamers see that most male characters are portrayed as unrealistic, muscle-bound Rambo-types, but they simply are not that affected by this. Many female gamers, on the other hand, are irritated when they can not identify with their female character. Additionally, males seem to miss the significance of the fact that female characters are not simply portrayed in a physically unrealistic manner, but are overly sexualised as well. As Sheri Graner Ray of Sirenia Software pointed out, male characters' sexual organs are not exaggerated in the same way as female characters' sexual characteristics are exaggerated-we do not see male game characters with huge penises, for example.




This next part is not really in contrast to my own problem or concerns as far as "Mr Benn for a modern world" goes but is rather interesting! In "Strong=Sexy," an essay published by WomenGamers.com, game critic Damon Brown muses on what male gamers get out of manipulating virtual vixens. His argument seems to vaguely state that this sexing up of women is about power differentials and has something to do with men's "phobias, desires and repression". He then goes on to say that male lead characters- Rambo, Bond, etc,- offer the player the chance to experience power by killing. Then he tries to establish a parallel by attempting to figure out what kind of power female leads proffer to male game players.......: "Man will never be able to stop his fascination of the womb, the place from where he came.... Women have this power. He does not." By this power I presume he means the ability to give birth. He reasons that male characters allow players to have power over others by killing them, and female characters allow players to have power over others by..... having babies??? He does slightly redeam himself by going down the path of : There's a difference between what male and female characters, as currently constructed, offer players, and it does have to do with power. What these female characters offer to the largest market share of game players- heterosexual men- is the chance to be aroused while going about the business of destroying bad guys or stealing cars. What more could a man want.....?

It has been suggested and I'm not utterly convinced, however that it is the "male geeks" who create them, that makes the medium prone to characterising women as sexual objects. " Many of the heterosexual geek boys in this industry have a deep resentment of women because they haven't had as much access to women as they would like." Therefore they can skip asking a women to go on a date and just create a character instead.... I dread to think what these people have created in their bedrooms....

For my head:- the objects

Objects??????
Am having problems with the objects. You reach an object and at the moment to indicate that the object is active it spins. I can make the object then follow the character however I am unable for the character to then let go of an object should the user change their mind. One possable way out of this is when the character reaches an object the description comes up and you then have the choice of sending the object to the mirror. Should the viewer send more then one object to the mirror they then have the choice of which object to pick up and walk through with. Could have a shelf with them all lined up on. But how do you take one with you????

As the whole point of this game is that your choice of object indicates where you go in the next level, so to speak then this is really quite important.......

Useful site on game theory;

?????????????

Well, I somehow need to make my room have some resembulance to this----->
Now there are loads of free 3D models out there you can get anything..... even down to a used condom. But blood soaked medical instruments, torturous looking devices, and severed limbs isn't so easy. And the electrical thingy which made the monster come to life is proving most difficult. Thats what today is for to finish the room, and try and figure out how to make the viewer be able to pick up objects.

Navigation (red is now Tuesday!)

Have been thinking through the navigation system and use of cameras today, while constructing my room. Very difficult finding 3D objects that would work in Frankensteins Room......

So.......
Have decided that the camera will be mostly just behind the head. Could have certain points where the camera moves, however as this is supposed to be a kind of exploration for the viewer I want to keep the view point quite restricted. When you pick up an object the camera will change to a P.O.V shot ie first person. When you reach the mirror I want the camera to be inside the mirror looking back at the character. Will apply some sort of translucent material infront of the camera to appear like your looking through glass. When the character moves forward it will be once again a P.O.V shot.

Objects needed:-

• Bookshelf
• Desk/chair
• Curtains
• Lamp
• Bed- or wooden bench?
• Couch
• Pictures
• Bottles/jars/things with body parts in
• A spade
• Mirror
• Chair
• Bench for objects
• Books/pens etc

Need to find out which objects are going to be used to transport the viewer into another genre. The idea at the moment is that for example you pick up the spade, a seperate window will appear giving the viewer a choice of four spades each "looking" like they belong to a different genre, you then choose which one. Not sure how I'm going to keep an object with the character it might have to just spin around the character, find this annoying in computer games however the character won't be able to keep hold of it and reach for different objects at the same time. Need to think this through. more tommorow.

PD stuff

Here is Martins introduction to PD

So I can find them again

Just found these, and I'm writing them here so I don't forget.
Charmin' Cleary
Him
Dispossesion
Sand Loves

all these and more can be found here

A link that might not work!

Here

is my final, very badly written php script.
The narrative was the least of my problems.
I will make it look pretty tommorow.
Will post the report here when it is written.....................................

Green is for Thursday

"To create a short interactive program
using PHP and HTML to construct an interactive program that explores the issue
of authorship. The piece therefore should allow users to create or participate
in the creation of an interactive text the content or structure of which PHP
allows users participation. It should also employ PHP to allow users to
comminicate with a central server using the a web browser."

I think this means create a simple interactive text based along a narrative. Giving the users options in which way they go using PHP and HTML??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Have decided to base the narrative around various places; a mountine, a wood, a river, and a town. With the user haveing a list of options along the lines of "Continue along the path or take the boat downstream towards the town". Also have to include some sort of object that the user will have to have with them to get into the concluding part of the narrative.

More tommorow.

Php Crib Sheet

Just in a case I lose yet another bit of paper.

Model:-

• User requests a page with a URL
• If that request was sent by a form, variable data may be sent to the server along with the request.
• Web server receives request for object located at the URL
• If that object (e.g. index.php) is a php file, the php code segment gets executed and replaced with the result of the code
• Server sends the new, freshhly available file to the browser

Things to check:-

• Am I accessing the right URL?
• Did I upload the lastest version to the live server?
• Did I type everything correctly? (Everything is case sensitive, spaces are not allowed in URLs or filenames)
• Do I have a code segment starting with
• Does every line of php code end with a semi-colon (;)?
• Do I have an ending bracket for every open bracket? ( "(", "[", "{")
• Did I mistakenly type letter '1' instead of digit '1'?
• Did I mistakenly type letter 'o' instead of digit '0'?
• Did I remember that variable names start with '$'?
• Did I remember that arrays start with index 0, not index 1?
• If I get a message saying "error parsing line 101", did I check that line 100 is correct? Does it end with a semi-colon (;)?
• Did I try debugging by using "echo $variable" in critical places in the php code?

Alice through the looking glass.

Mirrors: The navigation is going to rely on mirrors. Every time the viewer moves from one space to another it will be through a mirror. The viewer will take an object with them which will determine which room they end up in. They can take characteristics with them, so for example they can keep the lighting or music and see how this effects the experience in another Genre.

continued

Mr. Benn for a Modern Day- an Educational Tool
(Work in Progress)

INT. HALL OF MIRRORS. DAY OR NIGHT

The user finds themselves in front of a carnival-type hall of mirrors room. Above each mirror is a MOVIE GENRE. In this instance only HORROR and ??? genres work.

Below Horror are the words ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ and ‘MONSTER’; the user chooses which mirror to walk through. Both MIRRORS lead into the same scene.

As FRANKENSTEIN
The user is teleported into Frankenstein’s Laboratory.
The design is of a typical 1930’s expressionistic film set with an accompanying, relevant, Non Diegetic SOUND TRACK which continues in some way shape of form throughout this episode.
The camera shot is initially of an Establishing Shot type until the user moves the character; when this happens the shot is Over the Shoulder.
The LIGHTING is typical 1930’s HORROR.
On a table directly in front of him is his MONSTER.
On the walls of the laboratory are bottles of body parts in formaldehyde; ONE is lit. Inside is a (human?) heart. By clicking on the bottle the heart pumps, with diegetic sound, and the user may explore the bottle. An explanation of the heart in terms of creating a life form and its relevance to the genre is given by way of a Voice Over by Dr. Frankenstein (in character). The user clicks to return to the laboratory.
Near the Monster’s table is a box with electric current dials on it connected to the monster. By clicking on this the user is given an explanation by Dr. Frankenstein of the importance of the electricity and its magic (in story telling the monster has to be awoken by magic).


Returning to the Point of Entry the user is given the option to either return to the HALL OF MIRRORS or to see the scene with
· Different lighting
· Sound
· Costume
· Make Up
· Camera Work
· Or specific Genre

When the user makes his choice he is teleported back into the environment with the appropriate changes
OR he might choose to see the scene in a particular genre, as a reconstruction of, for example, the laboratory in ‘The Man with Two Brains’ or ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’

A link to the full text of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein.

PHP game idea

For this first PHP project we have to think of a simple game in
which to make.................................................
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Am thinking hang-man, snap, chess, ludo, connect-4, these types of games seem to be a easy way to look at this brief. Would like to make a simple interactive text in which the viewer simple uses hyperlinks to reach the next part of the story. However, am not yet sure that this is what they wanted for this brief.