Narrative & Dynamic Systems '19

[elenands]

Assignment #10

React to this statement quote by author Madeline L’Engle, “when we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe . . .the only way we have to grope toward the infinite is through myth.”

In this piece specifically,  the author reacts to the story of King Midas and how it comes to give meaning to baptism and ritual purification through water. This is a great way to look at the L'Engle quote because of how it puts into perspective the author's (and many other people's) abilities to read into narrative and storytelling. Storytelling was originally used as a form of communicating lessons to young children, hoping that through narrative they would come to learn a powerful life lesson. Even if these myths aren't quite routed in reality, they are routed in a real sense of morality. Without this ability to allow narrative into our lives, we lose the ability to make sense of the world we live in, in some regards.

Name 5 rituals you practice and why you follow them

1. Sitting down to eat breakfast and drink tea, looking out the same window for a 10-15 minutes or so. I do this each morning to try and start my day without my phone, just observing the people out on the street. 2. Connect with my dog in some way or another. Each morning I also like to get down and either play, or snuggle with the dog. She's usually the first person I come into contact with in the morning and seeing her is a lovely way to start the day. 3. Using the same mug for tea. I'm not exactly sure why I do this, but I use the same mug for tea in the morning. It's a "Will & Grace" mug that somehow ended up in our apartment and I find it funny, so I like to use it every day. 4. Ritual order to my shower habits. Though this is on the border of ritual and habit, I've chosen an order for my shower activities and like to stick to it. There's something kind of satisfying and lovely about having a precise order, a definite beginning and end to my shower experience. Stretching. After my showers I like to stretch on my carpet before I get dressed. It feels great to stretch just after a warm shower, and it's something I look forward to most mornings.

[elenands]

Assignment #9

Permanence - In our particular set-up, we invite the audience to come and occupy chairs to sit around other actors in the scene. This will hopefully allow audience members to feel like they are not being spectated, but rather are actual participants in the scene.

Play Space Transformation - Because our scene takes place in a classroom, we've added a classroom background, and plan to play "Exam noises" aka pencil tapping, paper flipping, etc. We've also instructed our actors to behave like they were in an classroom to enhance the ambiance.

Spatial Layout - I mentioned this above but we've integrated audience seats within the actors seats in a "classroom" setting. This, we hope, will make audience members less nervous about participating because they aren't being watched.

Light and Sound - Whenever we have a a character speaking to the other audience members, we plan to preface it with a "PSST" and hopefully aim a spotlight at that character. We want to avoid breaking the fourth wall (because the audience is a part of the scene) but we have to try to establish rules for player/audience interaction.

Temperature - We haven't thought much about this! I'm not sure how we might control the temperature in our theater space.

Visual Management - I don't believe memory tax will be an issue because all audience members will be immersed within the scene.

The L Train Shutdown

-I chose the L train shut down because of the rapidly changing decisions being made about that particular line and how its effecting the lives of folks who live along those lines. While the residents of NYC are almost unanimously outraged, figures like Cuomo have different opinions, and even further, the MTA has another perspective. Also, I wanted to see how the opinions of other states or even countries might react to something as local as a NYC subway issue, thought ultimately I had a hard time finding outside NY commentary.

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/realestate/moving-for-the-l-train.html?searchResultPosition=27

- http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Improving-the-L-train-Shutdown.pdf

- https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-l-train-slow-down-20190111-story.html

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/L-Train-Shutdown-Repair-Project-Governor-Cuomo-Tours-Canarsie-Tunnel-502746952.html

Show review

My favorite show to date is Say Something Bunny. The audience are all assigned characters and sat around a table with a script in front of them. Even though audience members are assigned characters they aren't required to speak or perform, but rather, are gestured to when they speak their roles. Assigning these roles dramatically helped bring audience members closer into the story, in my experience. Talking to other audience members after the show, it seemed that we all felt particularly drawn to our character and invested in the story for that reason. The show was also so incredible because of the multi media used. Alison uses props, real voice recordings, and photos to further the narrative. She manages to make the story feel as if it’s a mystery to be solved with the audience, and she's presenting you with evidence along the way. An incredible show! I highly recommend it. 

[elenands]

Assignment #8

In order to generate ideas for our immersive theater piece we made a list of three columns: adjective, nouns, verbs. Using a random number generator we were able to come up with the following ideas:

Drunken Pet Summer Camp

Show in which participants act as animals/pets falling in love at summer camp

Characters go through all of classic elements of summer camp -- bunk beds, cafeteria gossip, love letters, canoeing, etc

Cooperative Shmooze Blind Date

Players must work together to navigate and shmooze their way through a cocktail party trying to set up one another

Each player is assigned another character and has to attempt to smoothly get them to meet/ like one another

Not all players will have unique pairs, players may have contradicting matches

Magical Cheat(ing) Junkyard

I have no idea what this might be but I like the name a lot

Intergalactic Murder Tea Party

Whodunnit that takes place at a tea party in space

Leaders of intergalactic nations organize a tea party to talk through crafting a peace treaty in the midst of an intergalactic war when a murder takes place

Characters play as the murder but get to choose who they murder, changing the narrative of the story

Romantic Holiday Party: Slice-Up

A budding romance at the holiday party turns gruesome when a crazed serial killer is revealed amongst the party-goers

Can players stop the serial killer? It's up to the audience to guide all players out of harm's way

Awaken to Extravagant Treasure: Audience participation, person wakes up to extravagant treasure. (May or may not be actually extravagant). You wake up and there’s money under your mattress (or it’s gone)

Intergalactic Model Pizza Rat: Extremely rude, Devil Wears Prada-style head of an intergalactic modeling competition or agency. Pizza Rat is the most advanced lifeform in the entire known galaxy

Romantic Exam (Awaken): Classroom setting, teacher moderating while students try to cheat on test or pass notes to each other. Throwing stuff to audience? Musical chairs aspect? Person with the romantic note has to read it in front of anyone

Old-Fashioned Elevator Hypnosis: Little Bottles of tonic, optical illusion of people standing behind table (can’t see legs). Old fashioned hypnosis technique. Why elevator? Tight space, calustrophobia, people trapped in elevator and freaking out. Use the keypad to punch in the right code to get to where youre going. You think you’re going to an interactive theater experience but the elevator is the experience. Use the buttons as a timer? Hypnosis is really just a way to get people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Multiple elevators? For a collaborative competition?

Voices of Deceit (Blank): Spy game? Unreliable narrator. Voice is coming from somewhere, disembodied voice? Devil vs. Angel on your shoulder

Mixed Up Ballroom Cook: Cook-off? Two competing teams have to cook a meal WHILE ballroom dancing. Someone is holding the cutting board and someone is cutting. Waitress gestures like holding tray and balancing. Teams have competing goals?

The cook is mixed up, trying to make a soup, the audience has to try to avert disaster and complete the recipe, all while ballroom dancing(?)

We chose to focus on the Romantic Exam (Awaken) prompt:

Characters

Nerd

Jock

Teacher’s Pet

Teacher

Class Clown

Orientation: High school, 10th grade, History, Mrs. C

Mrs. C hands back grades

Nerd - A

Teacher’s Pet - A

Jock - C

Class Clown - F

Teacher’s Pet has a crush on the Jock

Asks if Jock needs help

Talks to the audience - freeze frame

PSST - signal to audience that we are talking to them

Crisis: Exam begins

Teachers pet passes the answer to whoever

Nerd receives

Doesn’t need it

Jock receives

He replies, “yes, what’s the answer to #3”

Class clown receives

He asks for answer #1 - #5

Escalation: LOVE

Love bonds are formed

Discovery

The audience determines who actually ends up together

Change

The actors have to react within the new setting

[elenands]

Assignment #7

What are the ethical implication of sharing election predictions?

In the case of the 2016 election, the prediction were obviously grossly misleading. A chunk of the population rooting for a democratic win was shocked and horrified that Trump had won. These predictions are now based on a slew of data ranging from precise numbers to imprecise "feeling" on social media, which we now know was being manipulated. Sharing election predictions without acknowledging the sources of the data used to generate the prediction led to a complete let down for many Americans and I think has contributed to a distrust of predictions in general.

How necessary is polling to the election process? What function does it serve?

Polling is generally done for the sake of publicity. Candidates can use these numbers to promote how the "general public" might be feeling about them. Of course, Media organizations also use these numbers to assess where candidates stand against one another at different times in the race. Polling isn't necessary per se, but it's become such an essential part of our governmental system. In a time where everything is predicted and predictable, it seems that the lack of polling might cause chaos of some sort. Not knowing is simply something people don't do any more. I think, in part, this is why the 2016 election was such a big shock to so many. The polling was inaccurate in this case, and people have grown to rely on accurate polling, causing a whiplash of sorts in the trust that we hold in polling data.

[elenands]

Assignment #6

What happens in the following stages of predictive modeling: collect data, clean data, identify patterns, make predictions?

Collecting Data

IoT collects the most data

 Increased specificity

 Intimate Data

Assumptions are made based upon collective data

Real-time sharing of data

Ship / Weather data

Connecting all data to create highly complex algorithms

Clean Data

Cleaning to create a highly specific algorithm

A lot of types of unstructured data, cleaning involves structuring

More data needs interpretive systems

Identifying Patterns

Distill into something that can translate across data points

Make Predictions

Predictions can only be as strong as your data

Weak data can’t be manipulated to be stronger, additional data points need to be added

To what degree are accurate, real-time predictive analytics possible?

With the increasing usage of IoT devices, real-time data is constantly being crunched. The article mentions Waze in particular, where users can contribute real-time traffic accidents, police, etc, and the app can change a user's route based upon this information. On a larger scale, much of transportation, especially by sea relies on real-time predictive analytics. A company with a large fleet of ships that transport goods, for example, needs to be able to anticipate the weather, delays, and other information relevant to efficient, safe and fast travel from destination to destination. Given that this has become the norm, I can only imagine a world in which the majority of large-scale future events are predicted.

How do votes work in PageRank?

PageRank seems to work through an algorithm, as words and search terms crunch through the algorithm a sort of relevancy output is spit out which determines how a page ranks. The "votes" that a page gets are also partially determined by the number of "links" to a page. As explained in the article, if a highly voted page links out to another website, that site is also transferred some of the "votes" of the origin page.

To what degree does captured user data influence search results?

The article discusses that the propensity for users to click away from a page may impact ranking. By using Chrome, for example, Google is able to store the results from their browser users and reference them later. Though this may be helpful in the name of efficiency, the ability to manipulate the way we find references based upon how users interact with pages could lead to a burying of resources that are for whatever reason deemed irrelevant.

[elenands]

Mx. Beaurevoir

Mx. Beaurevoir is a divination robot that I built, but I have found to practice Technomancy, a form of technological divination. Through their divination process they are able to connect with alternate dimensions and higher powers that can provide inside into our lives. 

In order to summon Mx. Beaurevoir to look into a Querent’s Truth, one must first hold a mirror up to their face. After studying one’s face, the Querent is instructed to draw a small cross that marks their nose. Using this cross as a guide, the Querent is asked to divide the mirror into quadrants (see below). Querents are then asked to place Mx. Beaurevoir with their pen touching the cross drawn earlier. The divination remote is then introduced, which the Querent is instructed to press each time they’d like Mx. Beaurevoir to receive a thought they think might be important for the divination. Each time the remote is pressed Mx. Beaurevoir will start to draw a few lines of a pattern for a couple of seconds, and continue to draw each time a new button is pressed. Querents are also asked to pay attention to the button they choose when they’d like to transmit as thought as each button must “feel right” before being pressed. Querents are asked to transmit up to 10 thoughts. 

At the end of the Mx. Beaurevoir’s transmission, Querents are asked to hold the mirror up to their face and look at the pattern draw. 

Querents then work with the Reader to decipher the patterns on the mirror using a set of rune-like stones that ascribe meaning to various patterns found in the drawing. Below is the guide to Beaurevoir’s runes, in addition to the runes placed on the mirror. Because the Reader (me) is still new to the rune symbology, they often work with the Querent to pick out identifiable patterns and weave together a narrative that makes sense to the Querent. 

The first video below is of an early prototype (that doesn’t work)! Originally I wanted to have the robot draw on paper in order to generate a keepsake for the Querent, but settled on a mirrored surface for both the aesthetic and to make the ability to do multiple readings easier. Overall, it seemed like the feedback I received was positive, and Querents felt that the experience felt very uniform, which aided in the system as a whole. If I were to make future changes I would like to further enhance the reading portion, and put a little more power in the hands of the Querent to decipher what the pattern drawn by Mx. Beaurevoir might mean to them. Check out the second video for a working final prototype. 

[elenands]

Assignment #5

What are your thoughts regarding synchronicity, quantum mechanics and divination?

Thinking of Tarot as a set of questions, almost, that help one to probe your own thoughts about the "answers" to questions one might have is pretty compelling compared to Tarot cards doing the answer-giving. I imagine that as a thought-exercise, Tarot cards could help users achieve some interesting insight into their own minds, if they're open to the idea of digging. To me, this almost feels like a form of therapy, where the therapist is in the tarot cards, guiding their client, patient, etc to look into their own mind in different ways. In regards to synchronicity, I don't exactly believe that coincidences are "signs" plain and simple, but again, the idea that a person's interpretation, their pre-existing life and background play a role in interpreting and predicting events is also compelling to me.

What is the role of intuition? For the reader? For the person being read?

It seems that intuition is very important for the person both reading and being read. While there seem to be instances of "non-believers" being read in a way that feels accurate to them, I imagine that believing or at least a willingness to believe and search within one's self is necessary. It's interesting to hear that tarot is even thought to be something that can be internalized after practice. The reader also to has to act as a therapist in order to guide the person being read to a place that feels right to them. Much like a psychologist or therapist, the reader, imagine must allow the cards they have turned over to flow along the path that the person being read has already set out for them.

What are your thoughts on digital vs. analog versions of tarot?

I did some research into a woman who read tarot online, but usually did readings via email. She claimed that, though she wasn't able to experience any transfer of energy in person, accessing someone's realm of possibilities through their email was enough. This, to her, proved synchronicity is perceived even over distances. What might be interesting to tap into digitally with tarot, is the mysteriousness that the anonymity of the internet brings. Though this "mysterious internet" feel has dissipated as the internet has been built out, it was something that felt very alive to me as a kid on the internet. To me, this feels like something that might be tapped into again via digital tarot. I think that in comparison though, the analog nature of traditional tarot bring about intimacy that digital tarot probably has a hard time conjuring. The nature of social connection alone must strengthen the experience. 

Divination System Ideas

Divination System 1

Prediction of life path, fortunes and pitfalls that await you.

The user will turn "on" the divination robot with a question in mind, or said aloud. The robot will run for 15 full seconds and then be turned off. The robot will draw lines to and from various symbols on a map. The reader will interpret the symbols  

Introspection is prompted in the traditional sense of tarot, the reader will interpret the lines and connections drawn to and from various elements on the "map".

Divination System 2

Prediction of your life story via the corresponding Greek myth

The reader will search the face, arms, or back of the person being read for prominent constellations of freckles or beauty marks found on the body. Once a constellation appears, the reader will find the corresponding Greek myth and read it aloud.

The person being read is prompted to dig deeply into the myth to see how it may relate to their lives in anyway.

Divination System 3

Users will be able to answer a question of their choice.

The reader will help the person being read start the question and then will allow the person being read to continuously tap predictive text until it feels like their question has been thoroughly answered.

The person being read will work with the reader to interpret the AI's answer.

[elenands]

Assignment #4

How important is the absence of reader/audience control to novels and traditional storytelling? 

I don't completely agree with the premise of this article. Though Juul claims that games and narratives are at war with one another, I don't believe this is the case. I agree that narrative is not typically meant to be repeatable, while games are intended to be, I think that narrative and game can overlap significantly, especially when the narrative is complex enough to allow users to notice something new about it throughout each game play. This article seems to have been written 20 years ago when the complexity of the time didn’t necessarily allow for a complex narrative that not only intertwined with gameplay, but became gameplay. As for the question "how important is the absence of reader/audience control to novels and traditional storytelling", I think in traditional forms, control is essential, but the lack of control is what elevates the medium. Giving control to the audience/reader allows for a more complex, interesting dynamic between both the reader and the story itself. Though, traditionally, storytelling was a form of communication, forewarning, or instruction and complete control of the story helped to convey correct information. Because storytelling is no longer about this sort of exchange, we can, and have been exploring its surrender to the audience/reader and allow them to manipulate it to push the medium further.

[elenands]

Assignment #3

*Does an interactive documentary needs to be digital? Why or why not?*

I think that traditionally, yes interactive documentaries, tend to be digital. Being digital allows for single-player interaction (as opposed to seeing the piece in a theater with a group). The digital nature also can contribute to promotion of a film, through conventional modes such as search engines (SEO) or social media. While a digital version of your interactive documentary may make it easier to incorporate activity, an interactive documentary could also be taken outside of the internet.

*What alternate forms might an interactive documentary take?*

For example, a piece of immersive theater, centered around a current political situation, real-life relationship dynamic, etc could be created. I can imagine a physical in-space navigation of a space, in which the space is crafted to reveal certain parts of the story depending on where one stands. Though the lack of digital-ness of this sort of piece may hinder the accessibility and success, it may take the audience on a deeper exploration of the subject matter.

*How do Effectiveness, Efficiency, Engagingness, Error Tolerance, and Ease of Learning manifest in one of the resources below?*

I watched QuestionBridge: Black Males, an interactive documentary platform that allow "Black men of all ages and background to ask and respond to questions about life in America". The goal of this piece is to allow both viewers of the piece to explore what it means to be a Blacks man in the United States, in addition to serving as a online community to facilitate a conversation. In terms of Effectiveness, the site itself was very clearly laid out. It features a carousel of videos allowing users to click-through questions and then, once a video is selected, the answers submitted are displayed below. Navigation is limited allowing users to easily figure out how to interact. This limitation also limits error tolerance, forcing users to either click the left or right arrows to navigate. Additionally, it uses a visual cue of the carousel to nudge users to use the arrows, contributing to the Ease of Learning. While all of this lends itself to effectiveness, it also plays into the efficiency of the site. The site is striking, too, pushing users to engage, but its also appropriate for the subject matter. It doesn't use flashiness to draw away from the focal point: the videos. Instead, the dark background and sleek interface draws the eye to the center (where the videos are located).

[elenaleegold]

Assignment #2

What is the best chatbot you’ve experienced? What made it good? The best chat bot I’ve experienced is the AI interactive narrative Façade. It’s not perfectly done of course, but it’s an incredible use of the chatbot form. I tend to gravitate away from the service-oriented chatbots because I’m not as interesting in exploring the one-sidedness of that type of relationship. Instead, I think Façade helps to establish the “bot”/“bots” as “autonomous”, by situating the player in their world, as opposed to the opposite. So often chatbots attempt to help users within the user’s world, but it’s an interesting twist to see users being asked to do the opposite. Much of robotic work seems to be in service of humans, and I’m much more interested in the way that humans can occupy the space and world of robots.

Describe a use-case for a chatbot that you haven’t seen but you think would be effective. I’d love to see a chatbot with a fully fleshed out personality chat with its human players unprompted. I’m curious about what the implications for being contacted by a bot might be and how human responses might serve to change how it interacts. We’ve seen plenty of AI chatbots that have become corrupted in one way or another by humans (notably Tay), but I’m curious about what an “autonomous” bot that both starts as ends conversations on its own terms might look like. I think it would be an effective way, thought difficult, to give agency to robots in an environment where they tend to have none. The role-reversal might also serve to elicit a kind of carefulness humans don’t tend to have with robots. 

In regards to the Intelligent Systems Approach reading, the main computational system I came away with was the usage of an experience manager, or an automated entity used to manage a narrative in the vision of a human author. An experience manager must have a way to properly communicate an author’s sense of dramatic tension, pedagogical goals, and aesthetic considerations as mentioned in the text. By having a way to parse character decisions, the experience manager can then redirect players in a number of ways. The text mentions both intervention and accommodation. While intervention pushes users away from having full agency to exist how they please in the world, accommodation prioritizes full human engagement, and adapts to it. Given that this article also reference Façade and I mentioned it earlier, it’s interesting to view that particular game through this lens. It manages to achieve the pretty incredible feat of both intervening, by kicking the player out or simply not responding, or accommodating and shifting the storyline as the player responds in a number of ways. By adjusting and preserving the storyline in these ways, the experience manager is ensuring that the author’s vision is carried out as intended.

Project 1 Interactive Fiction Sketches

Orientation: In a small town in America, your character’s backstory is not completely clear but she seems to have pure intentions, making herself incredibly available to the people she meets. They aren’t quite taken by her because of her reputation as being"witchy". People don’t totally trust her, but they are cordial with her nonetheless. 

Crisis: Mrs. Minter, the sweet older woman in town starts to fall ill in an unusual way and others are concerned. 

Escalation: Others are starting to fall ill and in a fit of desperation, people start to visit your character for treatment. 

Discovery: Your character takes advantage of the situation. She feels wanted loved, and thought it comes through in a way that feels genuine to the reader, this feeling drives your character to (what you discover is) continue to poison the people of the town. She revels in the idea that only she can make them better. 

Change: She becomes deluded with power, but guilt also starts to peek through once she brings several people close to death. The death of the people “under her spell” brings immense relief to her tortured desires and she kills them off, one by one, by one.

The set of images below defines my moodboard for my story. I’m interested in painting an image of a small town using “found photography” or what I hope to pick up in secondhand stores. I think that using older photographs will help with not only the ambiance, but the intimate nature of a small town and the interactions your character has with the people in the town.

A few of my precedents for this story are most stories that include an unreliable narrator:

- Phantom Thread - P.T. Anderson - The Grownup - Gillian Flynn - The Husband Stitch - Carmen Maria Machado

Below are a few sketched out scenes from my story. I’m hoping that each storylet or vignette can be accompanied by a photo that “represents” that theme. Every time that theme, character, etc is referenced the same sort of old photo will be shown. Each photo won’t necessarily describe the situation but rather serve as a representation for that topic. The first sketch depicts a house in the woods, perhaps the house of the first character to fall ill, Mrs. Minter. Secondly is a run-in with Mrs. Minter at the supermarket. Thirdly, the local newspaper boy with gossip about the going-ons about time. The fourth, a brew that your character concocts with various ingredients. The 5th, your characters house, and 6th, one of many beds that start to fill up with the sick townspeople. 

[elenands]

Assignment #1

Ideas for interactive narratives. Note: (#) Explains the basic overview, followed by and explanation of its importance/meaning to me. (a) lists the world state variables of each story. (b) dives into each story’s truth and promise it intends to make to the reader.  1) New in town and escaping her past, your character decides to start completely fresh with the other characters in town, figuring out how to juggle and remember the lies she tells to them. I'm interested in telling this story because I want to try to humanize a character that compulsively feels the need to erase her former self, one she is deeply troubled by. 

a. World State Variables

   i. Number of Lies / Character Interacted     ii. Number of Truths / Character Interacted     iii. Hometown    iv. Past/ Present Career     v. Children/ Family     vi. People interacted with 

b. This story intends to explore the extreme side of people-pleasing, insecurity, and the lengths to which one will go to protect a lie, or more importantly protect themselves from someone they can’t bare to be. From my own experiences, I recall a predominant part of my childhood wondering what I could do to make myself fit in, being new and bullied consistently in my early years. While I didn't lean on compulsive lying to help me exactly, I pushed my identity towards conformity to ease my discomfort. In a way my story allows me and others who have straddled the line between reality and lie to protect ourselves live out the fantasy of completely reinventing oneself, but in this case, not without repercussions. 

2.This story takes place in a world in which all facets of consumerism are engineered to be "addictive" and the player is compelled by these as they navigate each day's routine, losing pieces of their "real life" in the process. This story feels worth telling because of its potential to take our current situation and twist reality, exposing a deeper truth about human compulsion and capitalism. 

a. World State Variables   i. "Stages" in Day completed (Bed, Shower, Breakfast, Groceries, etc)   ii. Time of Day   iii. Number of Days completed   iv. % of Stage Complete   v. % of Day Complete

b. This story starts from a place of addiction that many of us have started to taste: addiction to technology. The truth this story touches on are the ways in which addiction can happen to anyone, its effects, but more importantly the system that puts it in place. The interactive narrative/ game intends to prey upon the player in a way that any addiction might, simulating loss of time and self-awareness. 

3. This interactive narrative can be played from the perspective of two characters navigating their relationship, one that desperately wants and needs physical closeness, and the other that has a deep fear of it. This story attempts to create empathy for two people in a intimate, entwined relationship who have very different modes of operating in their partnership. 

a. World State Variables    i. Partner choice (Anxious vs Avoidant)    ii. Day in the story    iii. Talked to partner today    iv. Fought today    v. Relationship score

b. This story promises to provide insight into both sides of a relationship that feature extreme reactions to closeness and intimacy. Though the incentives of both characters are quite literally opposite, players will hopefully empathize with both players regardless of their own personal feelings about relationships, complicating their actions throughout the story as they begin their second play-through. My ultimate goal is to experiment with player empathy and decision making, to observe what changes and how that affects the story as players swap the other in which play-through as after multiple plays.