[Text] A Summer Story

So, I had the confusing task of reading/playing this game/story and it was very different than any other story/game I’ve ever encountered.  I felt like I kept getting kicked out but actually, the story has different endings depending on your choices. I felt like something was amiss but then I would end up on the train back home and it was over. To me it felt more like an interactive story than a game.

It took me about 5 tries to pick the right answers to find out who the person on the other end of the phone was. One literary element that was used was point of view, we are reading about this story through the narrators view point. Point of view is how you are being told a story, or who is telling the story and the mode the writer uses to let the reader hear or see what is going on in the story.  I don’t think the game play enhances the story in this example, for me it was frustrating because I kept feeling like I was doing it wrong. I have played Plants v Zombies

that Bryan Alexander references in chapter 6 and I found that example very addictive and entertaining.   This example is just too short to get me vested in or in the right frame of mind for a ghost story. As soon and I did get a little engaged in the story line, I picked the wrong option and it was over. I liked how Alexander referenced Mark Wolf saying, “at their most effective, they help, ‘“create the feeling that the player is participating instead of merely interacting.””  I think that is a very precise way to explain visual novels or interactive stories. I think visual novels are a fun and interesting way to tell a story.

 Mark Wolf, “Narrative in the Video Game,” The Medium of the Video Game, ed. Mark Wolf (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001) 101

 Alexander, Bryan. The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media. Prager, 2017. https://startingover0720.blogspot.com/2019/02/text-asummer-story-so-i-had-confusing.html