Quite some while ago I highlighted a piece of interactive fiction, well more transmedia really, call Inanimate Alice. It is a narrative set in a technology saturated near future, telling the story of a young girl, merging text with animation, videos, music  and games to explore what it means to conduct your life online.

As Alice’s journey progresses, new storylines appear elsewhere providing more details and insights, enriching the tale through surprising developments. Students are encouraged to co-create developing episodes of their own, either filling in the gaps or developing new strands.

Today I picked up an elert telling me the latest edition of the new Inanimate Alice photo story adventures was now available outside of Australia. Download Snappy, the easy to use mash-up tool and this story’s digital assets, all available for free, to build your own version of what happens, (http://www.inanimatealice.edu.au).

What I also learnt today is that its available in a range of languages, bring it on for MFL. I must let Joe Dale and Alex Bellars know.

Two old skool moments for you. One connected to my passion for IF and CYOA and the old, plain old gaming memories.

For all you 30 and 40 somethings, Fighting Fantasy has come back from the dead, with the undead. To celerate the genr’es 30th anniversarty,  Ian Livingstone‘s has released a brand new title, Blood of the Zombies and Tin Man Games is bringing you the book to a mobile device near you.

Again combining old with new, Microsoft has partnered with Atari to bring the video game maker’s classic arcade games to the web in HTML 5 for free.

It is really quite something to learn that Pong debut in summer 1972, forty years ago.

Now get back to planning that first week back at work.

There have been some very positive reviews of the Games Britannia event held in Rotehrham this week and numerous tweets filtering through. For those of you that drop in here for your Text Adventure fix, read about Alex Warrens (Quest developer) workshops here. If you are either an ICT teacher, computing teacher or even a Digital ‘___________’ (fill in as appropriate) or Media or English teacher you really should look it up.

The Games Britannia – Press Launch video not only gives you a flavour of what Games Britannia is all about it offer some really good leverage and getting computing and design into and across the curriculum.

Games Britannia – Press Launch from Games Britannia on Vimeo.

Why should IF be considered by English Departments?

Many thanks to the delegates in the workshops at #CASWales12 for really exploring this question with me, it was a topic of debate in both sessions. The simple answer is that it really is just literature on steroids. The more complex answer… well I am hoping my English colleagues will help me with my initial reflections.

Linguistics

IF uses high level narrative variation, often requiring subtle language selection, to help promote greater fluency and engaging narrative. It is story telling like no other, thinking through and craft game choices and subsequent game results (I do recommend you streamline your first efforts) lead may in fact lead to the same scenario eventually. The very architecture of IF encourage the development of these skills, changing tense and aspect appropriately as you create variant temporal relationships. Learning, understanding and writing unilinear texts requires significantly more thought than in linear text. As my colleague reflected, “IF makes you think whereas reading is so more a passive experience. My son will love it.” Yet, as a consequence, the language to direct these interactions are simpler (not simple).

Simplification of language

Whilst there is a greater demand for complex planning skills, language demands are often simplified. The player is often restricted to what utterances the player needs, the setting refers only to objects they can “see or interact with,” indeed in Quest objects can be relegated to the status of ‘scenery.’   This not only increases the sense being situated in the game, it simplifies the language processing tasks required of both the game author and subsequently the player.

Sentence Structure

Narration is a fantastic arena in which to teach sentence structure. In narration, changing the order in which events are presented, or in a given temporal sequence, is important to the aesthetic.

• Rad released the manganese nodule into the circuit board and the robotic arm steered into life.
• The robotic arm steered into life when Rad released the manganese nodule into the circuit board.

This simple example demonstrates that one sentence is characterised by droll humour and causality with the other suggesting progressive causality. Indeed these subtle differences within a sentence can also be expanded and applied to more significant narrative events. Take Rad’s journey towards revealing the identity of the aggressor.

• Hero finds his movements are restricted
• Hero finds a way out of the main
• Hero finds clues / anomalies
• Hero assisted by a knowledgeable stranger
• Hero find grim clue
• Hero reveals more clues and the true motivations of the evil corporate Atomic8
• Hero finds clues that both support strangers advice and casts suspicion on the stranger?
• Hero meets finds reported villain (deceased)
• Hero meets real aggressor
• End Game

Or course, should too many clues be revealed by Rad, before the meeting with the knowledge stranger, the players response to the ‘big reveal’ would be quite different, as would the ‘end game.’

Focalisations

In addition to sequencing, narrative mood is another area worthy area of note and exploration in English. The perspective from which the story is told, also called the focalisation. In Timeline the story is told from the perspective of the Rad, a cast off, youthful but soon to be hero grunt worker. It would be very different if the story was being told by the vengeful and bitter aggressor (sorry I am being purposefully evasive). With Rad as the focaliser, we tap into his investigations, discoveries and thoughts; and we been playing as the aggressor, it would have been quite different. Of course, there is not reason why the focaliser can not be change, and that’s a little more than I am used to at this time.

Obviousness

There is plenty of debate regarding puzzles, problems and therefore solutions in the IF community. A skill to be developed in young writers is puzzle crafting, (many of them have only ever experienced finding solutions) and accompanying that skills the ability to manipulate ‘obvious.’ Is the find key, unlock lock, a puzzle? For young writers it is the most common. How about these two Year 7 writer example, the swimming pool ladder missing a rung and a rung or the safari guide and carry a rifle with a lion lying in waiting outside. Writing puzzles and recognising that something unusual can be ‘the key,’ is as creative and abstract as say, learning how to write metaphors? Coding the puzzle, well that is a different matter, or provided parts of a puzzle across a game is akin to connected essay.

Curriculum knowledge

The game title I have been designing and writing (yes, they are two different activities) is a Science themed game, set in the year 2037, on the abyssal plain. Like you, possibly, I did not know what or where the ‘abyssal’ plane was at the start of this endeavour, nor how it would look in 2037. That is the attractiveness of IF, it encourages you to go places you have never been before, possibly will never go. Through IF, my teleport passport has been stamped and I am given license to travel and learn with real purpose. Researching and writing in to the game KS3 Science themes (gravity, conductivity and dilution), the science of the ocean floor, of mineral mining and production.

Now, I know, you know, that I know, that IF has considerable educational potential but unless I leave my job and pursue the research full time I am going to find it tough get beyond the anecdotal evidence which I could bleat on about all day long. We have some time sampling data that shows specific students engage / read the game titles for longer than they do their normal reading titles and I have some loose progress data to show that the one or two students that have pursued an interest in IF have benefited. That said, it is a research endeavour one needs to pursue.

What I will say is, that in the 20 months I have been exploring IF for literacy, I now have a more clearer understanding of how and where IF can contribute to literacy development and computational thinking. I have a much clearer separation of reading/playing and designing/writing and whilst the first experience is rather easier to define and describe than the second, I am more passionate about the narratology design/writing phases than ever before. More importantly that I can confidently support that statement having invested a conservative 80 hours toil, sweat and reloads, writing my first serious game title, one that should be complete with a further ten, fifteen hours. And still, I stumble into conversations with colleagues who I meet who have depth of knowledge of IF that astounds me, Dr Mike Reddy and Dr Silva for example.

WHY? Why learn about IF and its community? Why write a game, a modest game at that? And why try to promote IF to the ‘hard to convince’ audience of English educationalists?

• The very first question is simple. IF will reach some learners, more traditional literature misses.
• The second question is a little more difficult to answer apart from the fact I enjoy learning, it is about credibility and integrity. I am often impressed by the depth of knowledge / passion my colleagues have for their subject, I feel that I need that credibility even more so when trying to win over this audience. I do not read doctoral projects and journal papers on the topic of interactive fiction for the pure enjoyment of it.
• Writing a game is as much about the personal learning journey as about the future teaching journey. It has been intensely challenging and rewarding in equal measure (here I must thank Alex Warren for his technical support and apologises to my students whom I regularly ask to test sections of the game). How can one really be an excellent teacher without having experienced exactly the frustrations you are about to put onto your students? And finally, because I really do believe that IF has significant and substantial application to one of my current professional focus, being an outstanding English teacher.
• The last question is answered by the first question.  

With that in mind, I have tended to focus my thinking and learning on narratology and tended to put to one side the programming / computational advantages. The final question therefore is why should English Departments take up and wrestle with IF ? IF has to offer something more something considerable more than the curriculum they are currently delivering, given the effort they may perceive is required to lead on IF. The value for me is in the process. IF playing, design and writing demands a level of thinking and planning that is significantly more computational. A learning environment where failure is fertiliser, and where winning/success is motivational, and yet not more task complicated, than linear reading/writing. As a result, the writing outcomes are more sophisticated and students achieve beyond their linear reading/writing abilities. Now I know I need to expand upon that rather bold conclusion and I will…. as soon as I have them peer reviewed by some of the fantastic English teachers that have supported me this far.

IF

If you can keep on reading when all about you
Are losing lives and blaming it on their VDU;
If you can thrust yourself onward when foes attack you,
Make defences for their onlaughts too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Press the z key, sit and wait, ignore the lies,
Or being slated don’t give way to slating,
You’ll complete the level, you look real wise;

If you use command verbs wisely and keep your virtue,
Explore the dark deep cavern, with brass lantern torch,
Maintain health, and monstrous foes don’t hurt you,
If all men guild with you, but none too much:
If you solve the problem in under sixty minutes
With gold coins tallied, achievements won,
Yours is the Leaderboard and everyone that’s on it,
And—which is more—you’ll win the game, my son!

I am not looking to upset the poetry circle or upset the IF community, just having fun with language.