Researching-> Finding a cool concept-> Making up a term to describe a cool possible expansion of the concept-> turning a few pages and finding the EXACT same term and description already implemented. Feels like a Win and a Fail at the same time : )
The concept was player rewards for social participation and my expansion was ” Microvolunteering”
” that I later realised exists and is established for at least a couple of years 
Interesting Microvolunteering link : Sparked.com
From wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling
In his book Convergence Culture,Jenkins further describes transmedia storytelling as storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a fan’s understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, transmedia creates “entrypoints” through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. The aim of this immersion is decentralized authorship, or transmedial play as defined by Dinehart. Transmedia Storyteller Jeff Gomez defines it as “the art of conveying messages themes or storylines to mass audiences through the artful and well planned use of multiple media platforms.”
I can’t start describing how cool I find this new finding. It makes me feel so good, so belonging somewhere, as if for the first time the mess of things I would like to do could be considered something other than random stuff. Releases tha story from the boundries of one format and set’s it free to be enriched in a magnitude of media like music, pictures, games, video, or whatever. I can’t stop imagining applications of this newly discovered term of “transmedia storytelling”.
First of all the obvious thing to notice here is the fact that a blog could be a good place to create such a narrative, since it can support most of the types of content. But a more complete experience involving online content, a book and an rpg adventure looks rather interesting.
Without a doubt the world of Warhammer 40k thrives as such a narrative, combining books and games, both table top and video games, as well as rich content in the format of RPG games, and even an MMO in a short period of time.
This variety of entries maximizes the potential of this narrative, I guess which one made the start for me. It was without a doubt the tabletop games, but then I started reading books and read more that 10 in less that 3 months. I love the video games and enjoy playing the pen and parer RPG….I am hooked, feeling like a part of this brilliant story created in this format from various contributors through time.
So what could be the potential of such narratives? hm…
I am still not that able to create, the way I would be if I wasn’t studying, and I cnt even consume entertainment the way I would, but I stumbled upon a very cool movie 0 trailer actually and felt like bloging about it.
As I said it is still just a trailer, but I found it really cool. The movie is SuckerPunch and I expect it to be really nice. I really have high expectations. It is so random I just loved it. It is the story of four(or five? could be five) girls that are held somewhere under strange sircumstances – a sanitar
ium of some short- and escape by using their minds to imagine different realiries. In these realities they search for some things that will eventually help them escape in the rel world. At least this is what I understood from the trailer
It is kind of obvious that for this one the bet is to get every guy in the theater, and more particularly the nerdy guys that would find the combination of sexy girls, robots, samurais with miniguns, and dragons a perfect mix.
It definately feels like a mashup that could work as easily as it could fail so I will have to see a bitmore than the trailer to be convinced, but as I said I find it really cool. (yeah,I think that “cool” is the concept they were going for with this project…we will see then
Hindsight edit:
I managed to see the movie in April 2011. It didn’t deliver. The plot was too loosely connected and the opportunity for epicness was wasted. Now I apreciate the soundtrach more than the movie, which I consider a major letdown.
It’s been a while since I had the time to blog. My studies got in the way and I feel I haven’t thought of anything original since it started. I guess it is called learning. But I miss the open ended creation….I guess it is necessary though. After this year maybe I’ll go back to not-completing creative projects
I just saw the movie “The Call of Cthulhu” made in 2005 (Check in imdb)
I have read teh story and many more from H.P. Lovecraft, and I am familiar with the Chtulhu Mythos in general. For same time I was playing the related RPG from Chaosium, and in general I love the mythos. This is partly the reason why I chose to see it. I also wanted to see the “Mythoscope” as a way of direction. Apparently it is a way to make films to resemble the way they would be made in the 1920′s. In this movie it is great as it manages to convey the style of the story. Grim, dark and mysterious. I really enjoyed the movie although I have to say the whole Mythoscope thing is really new and exotic for me.
About the Mythoscope.
The movie is silent ( no speach) and instead when the actors speak the text is shown for the reader to read as a cut-scene. This didn’t frustrate me as I thought it would. But the music that is playing constantly did. Naturally this music is required to set the tone and convey part of the film’s meaning but it is really new to everyone who is used to the modern way of making films. I liked it though and now I am even planning to see another movie like that (meaning that it is filmed in Mythoscope) called the antenna. Also known as The Aerial. Maybe I will write the review…
I just read about this RPG and just wanted to write it down, simply cause it is peculiar. It is about girlfriends, and their relationships. The character creation tries simulate the social interactions of girlfriends and some short of popularity system. I read the intro and t seems fun, although I can’t imagine my self roleplaying as a cheerleader, or Xena, or one fo the Charlies Angels (three themes suggested in the guide to start things up.)
The cost for a PDF is around 5 dollars, so I guess it would be a nice choice for someone trying to make his female friends roleplay. Although I really doubt he could make them play DnD later on
Links
The official site of best friends
The site of teh company, BoxNinja
I just saw the movie Re-Cycle .
I saw it mainly because it is about an author and a world she created, I knew from thr trailer that much. But in the end I believe the movie couldn’t deliver the main idea of the writer which was more or less the below:
A writer begins to write a book about the occult, named “Re-cycle” When she starts to write the book strange things appear around her, she hears voices and sees things. During the brainstorming about the book,she creates an imaginary character, a woman, which she imidiately rejects. A few days later she is somehow drawn in a world, which symbolizes the place where rejected ideas “go”.
In that world, the rejected character hunts her to make her stay in this nightmarish world for ever. With the help of a little girl and an old man she learns of a passage through which she will make it back to reality. Through various tests she makes it to the passage, and finds out that the little girl is the girl she never gave birth to, which there since she “abandoned” it, and the old man is her grandfather, although now reasons why he is there are stated.
When she makes it back to reality she finds another projection of her self talking to the phone, announcing to her manager the rejection of the “Re-cycle” and the commencement of a different project. This implies she had been living the story she wrote and rejected.
Having said that, I must say found it a bit random. I didn’t enjoy it and I find it sad that it fails to skip the whole “Little girl in white, with long black hair stands in the corner” which I find cliché and stupid. 3/10
P.S. During the movie, me and my brother commented on the random parts in this world, and a thought crossed my mind. I will think about a mechanic for my RPG setting which will generate random settings like the ones in the story. No need for thought, as it turns out. Why not use it in RPG setting creation?
I wrote grinderhead.wordpress at google and my blog didn’t come up….lol
I guess it is a matter of the quantity of posts still it is quite funny
It looks like blog.com s a copy of WordPress.com only it doesn’t work. One out of every 3 clicks leads to a fault page. I almost started a mlog there instead. Even the Dashboard and the Howdy(name) are the same….
blog.com=FAIL
I had heard it before but now I got teh chance to study t a bit more….and it looks great, can’t wait to play it.
Check out the links
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpg/series.php?qsSeries=19
