Hypercompendia

Now available for Mac, this looks like something I’m going to have to get as a gift to my overworked brain:

Screen Shot

Just completed the WordPress 2.7 upgrade here, and successfully transferred the posting content from the Typepad site over here. Have yet to check out the permalinks so that they may be redirected, export or simply rebuild the sidebar with categories, links, etc., and see what I can leave behind at Typepad.

Then the fun part, a new look with color and redesigned heading.

Or maybe I’ll do that first.

Just about to download this Journeymaker software and give it a whirl. While the examples shown are not really what I’m interested in, the one that made me think along the lines of a visual comic-book type IF narrative game is the one called University Chapter Zero: Prelude and it’s got my attention on the creative end as well as the playful instinct. Here are a couple screenshots from this IF game:

It’s cheap enough at $20.99 plus it has a free demo option available and a 5-user special price of $39.99. One of the things I notices was an ability by menu to choose action, i.e., “allow this if this and this are in place” type of thing.  I’ll play a bit and report on it’s use and the project.

One of my favorite pieces from the work of Steve Ersinghaus, the haunting, interactive Stoning Field has been chosen as a featured selection by The Oregon Literary Review. (Follow the Hypermedia link to Film and Video Arts to Editors' Picks.)

(Posted originally at Spinning 01/02/09)

As always, I read and write with the basic idea of borders, nodes,
times and spatial levels in mind since messing around with a bit of
hypertext and interactive fiction some years back. One thing that hit
me along with all the other editing done in reading and reading and
reading my own work was the notion of the separation of time and place
via nodes or lexias that is the hypertext way. Perhaps because the past
in this piece is enclosed within the face of a four-slice toaster, a
visual space that separates the events; past and present, and the two
women who are so much alike.

I don't really do a good job of
hypertext writing, using it not to its complexity of levels of story,
so not really getting everything out of it for the reader's benefit, I
suppose. But even on the simplest mapping of two or three or four main
story paths, I cannot fail to see the past as an ongoing story that is
not only closely related to the present (the present becoming the past
in the flash of a nanosecond) but is responsible for it as it plays out
toward the future.

The other main appeal (for me) of hypertext
is the simultaneous happening of time within different space. Easier
put: I'm sitting here in CT typing on my laptop, but what's Willie
doing and where?

This particular story is not prime for hypertext, but perhaps all stories contain the possibilities.

Everyone who has played with IF is aware of learning boundaries and that this element when met ("You can't go that way") helps to define the storyworld.

In Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness, the first victims of the epidemic are locked away in an empty mental institution and Saramgo draws out the map of the building, borders being extremely important in keeping the inmates behind gates, away from the outside world. At the onset, even the building is divided into two main areas separated by a hallway where the afflicted, and those who were in contact with them are kept apart until there are too many people, almost all blind. The intricacy of the hallways and the three wards on each wing of the building become a maze to be traversed by the blind in order to get food or to the main entrance.

When there is an uprising against the one ward and it is set on fire, all the inmates must find their way to safety, and safety means the same as what freedom had meant prior: outside the building,

But the "game" is not won. For the blind, the world outside of the building is unchartered, unknown. The very fact that it is an open expanse whereby all directions lead somewhere, where there is no wall to guide one's way, is perhaps their greatest loss of all. Since most were blind (or unaware of a need to know) on the trip to the facility, they have no clue how to leave it and return to their homes, It would be very interesting to see how one would deal with this in IF.

"A road runs parallel to the front of the building. To the north there is a town about a mile away; to the south, the open universe.

I have two great-nieces that are 6 years old and while one’s a Mac user (mom’s a graphic designer) and the other’s a PC, I found this games pack that incorporates interactivity with three well-known fairy tales.

Some of the key features listed are:

• Visual environments based on detailed descriptions
• Challenging puzzles
• Multiple levels of learning
• Deductive thinking
• Logic and reasoning
• Problem-solving
• Concentration and memory
• Critical thinking skills

I don’t know how advanced Graham and Tatum (I call them Graham-cracker and Tater-tot, love the food-based names!) are with their computer skills, but I’m sure that they’ve been at it for a number of years already. It’s a different generation and learning is a whole new ball game that includes high tech for toddlers up onward. In truth, their own parents, now in their late thirties have been brought up on home computers.

While experience may help with the older student to comprehend learning new ways of working and learning, the younger students approach these marvels with an open mind and no need to relearn or justify what they’re involved in. This, I believe, can only speed up the advances made in technology as these kids grow up to build upon the base they’ve used since chubby fingers and wide eyes played with Christmas toys on keyboards and monitors.

I'm obviously affected by my work with hypertext and find that in straight-reading for the past few years I'm noticing the connections where links would be appropriate or where a narrative would be prime for hypertext mode.

On Spinning I'm reading and reviewing Jose Saramago's Blindness and it strikes me that this story is perfect for application of IF. Six people suddenly go blind and in fear of an epidemic, are confined within a large, empty mental institution building that is separated by wards and hallways and courtyards and gates. What more perfect environment for IF?

I discovered this as I was reading this:

More and more people are struck by the sudden white blindness and here they are put into an overfilled ward so must seek out other rooms in which to settle. Up to this point, there is one woman, a doctor's wife, who has been faking blindness in order to remain with her husband, so she alone (along with the reader) sees what is happening (which just fired up another thought on reading–would the story be able to be told without that single seeing character?). Through her eyes we can locate the other victims, the doorways, the beds, and the limited arena of the story world.

Just as I was about to draw up a little map for myself of the building according to the clues I'd been given by the doctor's wife, she comes up with the idea of tying strips of sheets together into a rope and with one end tied to the knob of the door of their room, tie the other to whoever chooses or has reason to wander down the halls for something (the bathroom, the food bucket, the kitchen). So much better and necessary when finding their way back to safety.

So despite my best intentions to forget about hypertext and IF and all that stuff, once explored, there will always be in my mind the directions: Go north.

Writinghood has a post this morning bemoaning the loss of good writing skills by way of technological access. While I might agree that a lot of people dont' spell well, use proper capitalization and sentence structure, or bother proofreading, I would suggest that if technology is the problem, the burden of the degeneration of proper writing form is based not on weblogs, but on text messaging, email, and the generation which grew up in this new world of visual communication. And too, I would most assertively take into account that the personality of the user/writer is the most overwhelming influence of all.

"Blogs and Instant Messengers: the Bane of Good Writing Habits" is deceptively simplifying a trend towards less stress on grammar, punctuation and spelling. The majority of people aren't real writers, aren't terrific at good writing, and hate it. It's true that text messaging and limited character space such as what twitter allows encourages stuff such as "w meet u at 3, be :)" but blogs have no such restrictions on space and the majority of folk who keep them up (as opposed to those who drop them after a a few months, or write sporadically with months in between) develop a sense of pride and flow of words that encourages good writing habits. It is my belief that the more one reads and the more one writes, the better one gets at improving one's skills. 

It all comes down to this: if you're going to be a writer, every word you write will be improved by the practice. Twitter and such services, much like poetry, encourage brevity. That's what a serious writer will be aware of in using it. Weblogs will be seen as a showcase of communication.  The serious writer will rise above the medium even while it serves as a great means of social communication for the everyday user.