Here's a one off entry to allow the posting of my very own interactive fiction, the final project for this module on E-Publishing. This is a link to download the .z8 file. the final project for this module on E-Publishing. Its a fun story of orange skies, mice and a confused person on a flashback - frankly if this isn't turned into a feature film within a week I'll be shocked. Below are download links for the story file and then interpreter programmes for Windows, Mac and the I-Phone (yep you can play this bad boy on the move).
More interpreters can be found here. The story is an adaption of a short story I wrote over summer, which can be found here. Its not long, but is slightly different to the interactive fiction version.
Its not a very complex interactive fiction to be honest. To navigate it, you can go north, east, west and south. You can take items. You can eat things. Theres even a bed you can get in :). Good times all round I think you'll agree.
Sit down, this may come as a shock, but the internet is being used for evil. Surprized? Didn't think so, but either way its time to abandon the internet. This is incidently the last entry in this blog.
Social networking - an epically awesome way to distract from anything remotely constructive. But isn't all virtual reality farms and 'likes'. Nope, people far too clever and with a warped sense of right, wrong and decency have decided they can tell if your gay or straight from the content you post and the friends you have on facebook and alike, shown here. This dosen't have much of an impact in western states which are hopefully tolerant but say you were entering a country like the one in Africa which just made it punishable by death and it was decided based on your facebook account you were gay - sad times all round.
You can't even protest properly anymore over the internet without being found out and traced over social networking sites and caught. That or countries such as China will block you from them all together. Slactivism - slacker activism. This is another way social netwrks are ruining the protest, using our own lazyness against us - we join groups, feel good and then forget about them. I'm guilty of this like anyone, but have raged against the x-factor, do it! Do it now! An internet wise government is bad news all round, in a internet take on the journalistic process of soft soaking governments hire people to spread the good word about them. Having been employed by a music pr company to do the same maybe I can't really talk but done by governments this has serious implications on freedom of opinion and speech. Something taken to extremes by potential laws such as this.
But wait - take a minute from barn raising and wagon building to hear about the awesomeness of podcasting. Building on the development of RSS feeds this maybe the first and only good thing to come from Apple. Its good for videos, pictures and music so ideal for catching up TV or radio prgrammes you've missed - it also means you don't have to go looking for stuff, it comes straight to you - good times. Its easy enough to make your own as well so everyone can make random podcasts and inflict them on the world with ease. A directory of UK podcasts can be found here.
Right, for now that it for this blog - hope you've enjoyed the content, embeds and everything else. Now back to putting information about myself into social networking sites and buying things from websites. Take care :)
Yep, it's getting on for christmas time - that time of year when everybody starts making 'top 10s' of the year, so here's one of sorts. But inbetween all this retrospective thinking get Spotify, theres a sign-up form here so you don't need an invite. Music streaming is blatantly the future.
Lulu, blogging, interactive fiction, P.O.D - they all need things without which they couldn't possibly operate (and thankfully humans are still one of them). If we're getting deep then lets start with words, but I'm not awake enough for that much though so lets fast forward slightly. Lulu and blogging - you may never be able to buy a copy of this blog bound and printed but they're more similar than they first seem. Both need word processors, both need html and xml coding,both need encryption, both require e-commerce (although this is more like a collection of technolgies if you want to be picky) - the list could go on ... and on. They could have practically have been seperated at birth. Having said this their mechanics do work slightly differently, here is someone who probably had too much time on thier hands - but it does show all the magic behind blogs. Blogs also need RSS feeds to build their lists and notify people. And by their very nature depend on hyperlinks - but then again hyperlinks are more a stylistic and referencing tool so are more of a convention. Tricky buisness this for 20 to 12 on a Sunday night. Seperated at birth, maybe, but Lulu clearly went to a different school when it was growing up in internet land because its a whole world of seriousness. In order to function Lulu needs e-commerce, a nice easy term for a collection of technolgies, so websites can stock its books and people can run the website. As importantly as this however Lulu depends on the PDF, this allows it texts lovingly created by someone to be stored in an unchangeabe way and sent off safe in the knowledge that despte the really really obscure font everyone will see it as you intended. Speaking of printers - thats a whole other can of worms that Lulu depends on.
Speaking of printers, printing on demand is another publishing form that depends on them to make its little world go round (its ok you can say it, smooth right?:) ). Like Lulu P.O.D also needs databases to operate, boring but essential like wheetabix. These make sure every text is waiting and ready, and importantly not lost when the vanity press comes calling. PDF's also play a big part in P.O.D, telling the printer what to print out. Lulu, blogging and P.O.D aren't a million miles from eachother in terms of their core technology but interactive fiction stands alone ... you'd think. And to be fair in some respects it does, it depends on programming language to make it work - but in the same way the word processor is development platform needed by Lulu and blogs, Inform or its counterparts are need by interactive fiction writers to even dream of creating things. In the e-publishing class interactive fiction is the kid who turned up in year nine, learnt most of the same things just with a different take in them. Interactive fiction needs the interent (itself a collection if technologies) just like all other forms of e-publishing, and just like all other e-publishing needs a set of distribution technolgies. However blogs like this show the potential for the core technology in interactive fiction to change and evolve - something true in all e-publishing.
Right, essentially all you need to know is that most e-publishing share their core technology with a few variations here and there. But now its sleep time, but as well as that its christmas so heres a festive video - funny stuff :) Nos da, come back soon for podcasting.
Do you like interactive fiction but need pictures? The Japanese have the just the thing, Ren'Py. Words, colours, music and even a couple of choices here and there, what more could you want?
Right Ren'Py, essentially its a nice little programme. You write in characters, add sound and music, and for the win from a first time point of view the programming language actually seems far simpler than interactive fiction. Intrigued, try this. This a random game I found on the internet, but one of the biggest successes of the medium has to be Inanimate Alice. A great strengh of Ren'Py is that it can be put in an exe. format, so everyone can get it and stare inanely at it on there touch screen phones and other fashion statements. Sites like this show the potential for Ren'Py and visual novels to be distributed on mobile technology, but blogs such as this also highlights the issues it can face. When Apple owns your soul and everything else in world, Ren'Py will be the last thing standing - showing a few querks with the distribution still.
This will be nice, apart from the fact that for all the easy programming language and pretty colours Ren'pys are very limited. You won't be able to pick up the screw driver or put on the dressing gown - you'll be able to choose whether to ask the girl out - or not, and be irritated out of your mind by the music. In this respect its a little like hyper-fiction (sad times) and those adventure books where you could go to page 77 to fight the dragon. To be fair visual novels like Inanimate Alice do have little games and alike which can be quite fun. Fiction such as Ren'py and Interactive Fiction are still individual occupations such as actual reading from actual books but at the same time require a new sense of literacy - helping identify them as new and deveoping disruptive technolgy arguably. So don't blink or soon they'll be beaming stories into your head soon.
That is all for this week, come back next week for more e-publishing related rants :). If you want to make a Ren'Py, download this and this might help. Nos da :)
Nope, thats not some kind of dig at the rumour spreading nature of the blogospheare. The lecture turned into a lie-in (good times :) ), so theres actually no news.
But theres as interesting article in this weeks Media Guardian(23/11/09)which shows China blocking more social networking sites such as Twitter, a full list can be see here. The government believes social networking sites
spread misinformation
Although several sites where blocked not long after a clash which resulted in 197 dead, hmmmm.
On that obvious note, tis time to go back so sleep. But watch the BBCs Never Mind the Buzzcoks season 23, episode 8. The funiest bit of tele I've seen all week I think. Also remember sharks can only attack you when your wet.
This week, the blog looks at the ways the internet and new media has been used for story telling. There are loads - some are dire and seem highly pointless, but some are actually pretty good.
The first way is the good old fashioned blog. Some good old fashioned text and a persons imagination being all the tools required. Examples of this can be seen here and here. Apart from maybe the odd picture these require readers to think and treat the entry as if it were a book, be it an electronic glowing one prone to frequent 'are you single' pop-ups. Blogging can also be concidered a story at a basic level - any blog recounting a series of events through a persona.
As the lecture 6 entry shows, interactive fiction is also a great way to tell a story. Its engaging and potentially addictive - so a little like pokemon without the shiny colours. Unlike pokemon this has staying power, concieved in the 80s and still going. Its even appearing profitable with a call for stories from publishers. Modern examples include Tears May Fall and I don't remember why this game is called "Onion". These are well and good - but the second cousin, twice burried by common sense but still regretably somehow here is Hyperfiction. Think I'm being overly harsh? Play this. This example shows all the flaws hyperfiction has - a very vague and circular narrative, which struggles to convey ideas of plot or character - the essence of stories. This could only really appeal to the intensely introspective or bored. This seems like a better example of the medium, but based on the whole two seconds I spent playing it I can tell that will be three hours your not getting back.
Twitter fiction, such as this is a refreshing method of story telling. Blog such as this describe it as,
"Twitter is a rolling real-time format and this contrasts greatly with the typical editing process"
I can't say I fully understand the process but it seems enaging and interactive, made interesting by a 140 character limit on posts. This storytelling depends on crowdsourcing, getting users to generate content - which is an essentially genius plan for the lazy would-be entrepreneur. This method of storytelling is further exploited by sites such as Story Mash and Flight Paths. These demonstrate the fincial ability of collabrative fiction through sponsorship and sign up fees. They require users to write and submit material in a variety of media. This is great, the readers' entertained and is also telling people to check it out the site to see their name in lights. Everyones a winner - except there not as the submissions aren't neccessarily anthology standard and the skills needed by editors, especially regarding multi-media may not be amazing. The end result being a crowded but low quality affair.
There we go, a couple of internet based storytelling technqiues :) Not all good it's safe to say but interesting. Jedward are gone from tnhe Xfactor incidently I just heard so all is good in the world of money making music based talent shows. Laters :)
p.s its been a whole entry without an embed :s so check this out, funny stuff :)
It's reading week so hoipefully your all not reading, and enjoying Family Guy season 8. Unfortunately I am, its even e-publishing related (helpfully).
I'm the wrong side of lots of research and 10,000 words of new media's effects on citizen journalism. But if your interested in the impplications of blogs, tweets and what ever next months craze will be on citizen journalism will be then this book will help you no end. Written by Dan Gilmour,whom I'm lead to believe is some kind of blogging god, the book is titled We The Media. It explores the effects of new media on journalism, and on current journalistic out-put. Good stuff.
The second piece of dissertation proposal filler that has turned up is a two part documentary on citizien journalism by the BBC. It explores the strenghs and weaknesses of new media and its benefits to citizen journalism. It also has some interesting case-studies, such as plight of Egyption bloggers.
That was a fun distraction, only 120 pages left... Laters.
