65nickelsinmypocket - Tumblr blog

[65nickelsinmypocket]

The final reflection

The semester and the Media Lab went by faster than expected. As usual, I've set myself more than I could manage, which annoys me immensely. So I would love to continue with the projects in the summer semester, but the Media Lab always overlaps on Mondays with a course in Bildnerischer Erziehung, which is why I unfortunately cannot take part in it in the summer semester.

I would be happy to do more in the direction of gamification. Especially with programs that can also be implemented in the classroom and which are also  interesting for secondary grade students.

I would also have liked to have worked more with Arduino, because to be honest, I still have little idea about it and I would really like to understand how to implement simple projects in school with it.

All in all, however, it was an exciting course, even if there was so much more to learn and our group probably would have tried really great things in a presence course. 

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Exodus. The Motion Comic

Exodus is an interactive motion comic created by illustrator Jasper Rietman. It was originally published as a graphic novel which you can buy online too.

The digital novel uses a parallacx effect, which is also known as 2.5D (instead of vertical scrolling like in "The Boat" which I presented before) but also music, sound effects and animations. When you move your phone or iPad horizontally it produces a unique scrolling experience with a series of 45 illustrations forming a single panorama nearly 12 metres log.

The story itself is rather simple but impressing. Exodus is about a group of refugees fleeing from an unnamed country of war. In this storyline you see numerous continuous tragedies lined up.

Exodus competed also at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2020 where they build up a huge physical installation to show the long panorama drawing of the story.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jasper Rietman (@jasperrietman)

source: https://www.filmfestival.nl/en/films/exodus

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Research: Pictotop. The Comic-Blog

I was extremely surprised to find out during my research that my main newspaper has a sub-blog for comics and graphic novels.

On this blog there is, among other things, an alphabetically sorted list with individual reviews (last updated in January 2018).

Here is the link to the list: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000046093094/comics-graphic-novels-besprechungen-uebersicht-einzelrezensionen

An article appears on this blog once a month, trying to cover a variety of topics. The last articles are about the New Yorker EC publishing house, the historian Yuval Harari, who published his first comic book adaptation, or just about science cartoons in general.

I can generally recommend the articles, but unfortunately nothing suitable for my research topic has yet been published (even tho I still want to browse through the best-of list from last year).

Here's the link to the blog of derstandard.at: https://www.derstandard.at/wissenschaft/wissensblogs/comics

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Possible Backgrounds for the Graphic Novel?

As I already mentioned I want to use photographs as background and scribble over them. The problem is to find an acceptable motive now. It transfers the story and has an impact on it. 

These are possible images that I could use. With each of these pictures, the story would change. It is important that the picture is atmospheric and gloomy, but at the same time the floor must be light enough so that you can see the shadow figures. In addition, there must be enough space on the floor so that the story can build up in the room without the figures looking squashed.

The last picture would be a very radical solution and would almost turn into the horror genre. I find this idea exciting, but I would rather refrain from it for this story to be honest. 

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Character sheet / sketch of the mermaid character for the project

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Research: Interactive Storytelling in the Web

by Cornelia Zumtobel (2015)

Interactive storytelling is a powerful tool in design. Well-told stories are remembered and gladly passed on. Used correctly, it guides the customer through a website and makes surfing an experience - an interactive world of its own opens up.

A good story builds up an arc of suspense. The reader wants to know what happens next and is thus encouraged to continue reading.

Good web stories play with curiosity, aesthetics, skillful animation, and well-structured content.

The design of the online stories is currently rather minimalist - white space is used generously. The page takes up the entire screen, adapts to different devices and works heavily with typography. The font gives the page character, voice and expressiveness and at the same time becomes the narrator's voice.

The reader navigates through the story by scrolling vertically. Content reacts to the scrolling movements of the reader and becomes an important tool of the narrator.

The arrangement of the content is - compared to spoken or written stories - not linear.

it is important that the reader can quickly find his way around and orientate himself. The content should be linked with each other via the headings, navigation labels, breadcrumbs, hyperlinks or button texts and should be easy to navigate.

The headings play an important role: They should summarize the content of the respective section and be easy to read so that you can skim the page.

Stories develop their potential when the text is supplemented by images, sound, video and illustration - that is, as many senses as possible are addressed.

Pictures are used either to support the story by way of illustration or to tell it yourself.

So-called one-pagers are a nice way to tell a story on the web. These enable a consistent user experience by scrolling.

Restraint is required, especially with parallax or exaggerated scrolling effects. The user gets tired of it quickly and the page is out of date once the trend is over. Well-used effects are a meaningful narrative and convey the look and feel of a page.

When it comes to storytelling in web design, 3 questions are essential:

- Who is my target group (readers)? Who do I want to address?

- What are the goals of the website?

- What do I want to convey? What's the point of the page? What do I want to tell?

Source: https://www.massiveart.com/blog/in-5-schritten-zum-interaktiven-storytelling-im-web

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Research: Interactive Storytelling

by Lisa Vlasak (2019)

What is "interactive storytelling"?

Stories - whether books, films, video games or audio books - are divided into different sections, to which you are referred based on your own decisions as the story progresses. After a storyline, the story is interrupted and you are asked to choose from various options: e.g.

- "I will take the right door"

- "I will take the left door"

- "I will stop and wait"

What sounds like pure entertainment has long been a popular tool in the world of communication and marketing. Companies use interactive commercials to get attention; Campaigns rely on active participation in order to present products in an exciting way. In a time of digital oversupply, interactive displays manage to stand out from the mass of stimuli and attract the interest of the recipients.

The first steps are already there: Wiener Linien recently initiated a campaign in which moral courage and correct behavior in local public transport are advertised. A series of videos invites users to slip into the role of road users who witness a scuffle or a medical emergency. The videos ask you to decide how you would behave and explain the consequences of the respective decision.

What is sure to say: The development of "Interactive storytelling" requires lots of time and resources. Depending on how a story is structured, the possibilities and thus the versions of a plot multiply.

"Branched Structure"

A relatively classic narrative structure in which viewers can make more and more far-reaching decisions about the course of action. The narrative branches into different endings depending on the choices you make. Depending on how many branches the narrative contains, this type of structure can get very complex very quickly.

"Herringbone structure" This is a traditional linear structure that allows viewers to explore the sub-stories of their story, but keep bringing them back to the main theme of their story.

"Parallel structure"

This structure means that, on the one hand, viewers are offered choices in the story, and on the other hand, they are repeatedly returned to the main theme of the narrative for decisive moments.

"Threaded structure"

The perfect structure to tell a story from multiple angles. Topics can be linked to one another or remain completely separate. Rather, the story consists of a number of different themes that develop largely independently of one another.

IStory or ChoiceScript, for example, offer simple tools for creating interactive stories in book form. These can be used on mobile devices and are very popular. In the video area, freeware programs such as Kylnt or Interlude are available to users.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Research: These aren't your father's funny papers: the new world of digital graphic novels

a paper by Heather Moorefield-Lang and Karen Gavigan

Children and Teenager of the 21st-century are surrounded by different technologies and a new mediasphere of visual and textual resources.

The online graphic novel/web comic/digital graphic novel first apppeared on the scene in the 1980s with numerous challenges (conversion from print to web. Since print is rather expensive more and more artits are using the Internet to publish their work, also graphic novelists are publishing online to make their work accessible to more people in a shorter time. For example, Gene Yang originally published American Born Chinese (2006) as a digital comic on the website Modern Tales before publishing the award winning graphic novel edition.

Why Use Digital Graphic Novels in Schools?

Although print graphic novels are an established literary format in school libraries and classrooms, digital graphic novels are a relatively new medium in school settings. "Digital graphic novels provide new ways for students to experience reading, and/or learn new content, using the comic format."

Furthermore Moorefield-Lang and Gavigan present some companies and platforms that introduce digital graphic novels, for example: IDW publishing, comiXology, RASL graphic novels, Cognito Comics, Comics, Comics+, ComicZeal, Graphicly, iVerse Media, Panelfly, Viz, and Yen Press.

John Shableski describes how they can be used with digital and interactive graphic novels for a great collaboration: "The best partnership possibility is via SMART Board applications ... When the entire class can view the same images displayed on a screen, the interaction opportunities multiply ten-fold"

The following digital graphic novels are free and can be used in classrooms: Inanimate Alice (www.inanmatealice.com), Toon Books (http://toon-book.com/rdr-one.php), Myths and Legends (http://myths.e2bn.org), Howtoons (www.howtoons.com).

Source:

Moorefield-Lang, Heather, and Karen Gavigan. "These aren't your father's funny papers: the new world of digital graphic novels." Knowledge Quest, vol. 40, no. 3, 2012, p. 30+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A278786565/AONE?u=43wien&sid=AONE&xid=1a91a355. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Research: Art Teaching and Creative Technologies: Interactive Graphic Novels Foster Thinking and Artistic Creation

a paper by Agnes Papadopoulou

I read the paper of Papadopoulou for my media lab project but also because I want to use the techniques and the knowledge also in the classroom later.

This paper writes about the positive aspects of digital graphic novels and how they could find their way into school.

Interactive novels allow to become more active while the reading process in an exciting way. They're a hybrid type with panels, visualisation and sound that resemble videogames. It's not just scrolling down a page and read a big amount auf blank text, it's is important to offer the user freedom while navigating. The interactive graphic novel offers "a wealth of information, freedom of choice and practice of creativity" (Papadopoulou 2018, 153).

Using images and text in combination requires a development of skills of the students. Also it requires the ability to choose and intervene in the stroy, the usere selects how the story is evolving. Also according to Papadopoulou the goal of the interactive graphic novel is to "provide more information about the characters, more content for additional events, which coincide and co-reform developments". It is for sure a more creative process than reproducing a traditional story in class. It does not reproduce the story, nor does it copy, but "it can create sub-stories or a completely new story" (p. 154).

An important factor of digital graphic novels in school is the social-communicative function (informative, expressive or motivational). Technological devices create a new way of perceiving reality but it helps also decoding the surrounding world of the student.

Also the personal experience, here referred as self-referential, as an aspect of autobiagraphical and historical presentation is an important element.

The analysis of the image and the right use of the image in a graphic novel "means the students acquire principles of aesthetics, but mainly aims at analyzing the invisible possibilities of the image, the themes that are presented and are not apparent at first glance, especially in an interactive graphic novel, requiring an active participation from the students, this process is transformed into social experience" (p. 156). It helps making personal discoveries, raise questions about themselves and others, present relations between seemingly irrelevant ideas, etc.

Interactive graphic novels are popular and beloved to students because of narratives of anthropomorphic animals, adventure, mystery, science fiction, the existence of fairy-tale functions, mythological elements, as well as taking into consideration the subjectivity of the user and they collaborate in the interactions. Images make up a multifaceted text, as they suggest new readings. They extend the text without repeating it and work creatively. They encourage students to participate actively, inspire the intellectual representation of worlds, promote learning through study and the characteristics of complex and complex narrative. Different versions of the story form different reading perspectives. Graphic narrative (interactive or not) aims at creating broader reading structures. There is a rich store of intelligent verbal and non-verbal formats (p.158).

"The panel is a vehicle for expressing different views by the students, particularly by expressing views on the notion of fear, danger, anxiety, creaction." (p.158) Also, the goal is to gain a certain dynamic attitude and alertness in general but there are no required rules or predefined shapes. Everyone explores this ways of expressing thoughts, meanings, atriculating arguments, note actions,... in their own way.

The stimulation of imagination, self-motivation, experiential learning, the knowledge of the artistic alphabet, visual communication, the promotion of knowledge, but also the emotional stimulation, the expression of thought, the possibility to use the new media in the school of tomorrow does not trap students in anachronistic stereotypes.

Source: International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 153-166, June 2018

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Agnes_Papadopoulou/publication/326720738_Art_Teaching_and_Creative_Technologies_Interactive_Graphic_Novels_Foster_Thinking_and_Artistic_Creation/links/5dc94ba692851c818043e867/Art-Teaching-and-Creative-Technologies-Interactive-Graphic-Novels-Foster-Thinking-and-Artistic-Creation.pdf

[65nickelsinmypocket]

The Boat. A Digital Comic

The Boat is by Matt Huynh and is a interactive graphic novel which bases on a short story by Nam Le. This comic tells the story of the 16-year old Mai, whose parents send her alone on a boat after the Fall of Saigon so that she can flee.

This project is by far one of my favorites, the style and the way how it is animated is mindblowing and so beautiful. There are so many small details even tho the drawing stil looks a bit rough like it's freshly drawn with ink. It goes so well with the sound effects and the text passages, which flow with the pictures together. All these media forms are seamlessly crafted together, you're getting caught in a flow while reading from chapter to chapter. From time to time, there's the possibilty to read a short side passage for more information but you can just continue the main story as well.

I love the way how it combine classical comic elements like panels and speech bubbles with new media and make it look like it gets drawn and rearranged right in this moment.

The goal was to develop a 20 minute experience. The Novel contains 300 illustrations, 59 of them include custom animation. A third of Le's original 59 pages long short story remained in the graphic novel.

Source: https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2015/04/27/sound-and-vision-boat

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Upgrade Soul. A Digital Comic

I chose the comic Upgrade Soul which written and illustrated by Ezra Claytan Daniels, one of the founders of sceendiver.

This graphic novel is illustrated in 2D but works with a fluid navigation, interactive 3D and dynamic music.

The story is about Hank and Molly Nonnar, wealthy science buffs who decide to fund a experimental therapy that rejuvenates the human body. They're going to be first ones to receive the treatments but the procedure experiences a fatal complication and the couple is faced with disfigured but intellectually superior duplicates of themselves. Soon it becomes clear that only one, the original or the duplicate can survive and so the game begins.

I chose this novel because the art style really fascinated me and the story is already somehow familiar but with a new twist in it.

I'm suprised too how extensive the story is, I'm still not through the whole story to be honest but I will read it till the end for sure in February.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Screendiver . A Digital Comic Directory.

Screendiver is a collection of "the world's best interactive comics". From short web comics to interactive comic apps is everything on this website.

Mostly there are lots of different platforms and devices for artists to share their work. The goal of the founders of screendiver was to generate a centralised distribution channel, so that the discoverability of interactive comics gets improved. There's also the possibility to follow them for new uploads and tips on twitter, instagram and a facebook group, where it's possible to discuss and submit your own work.

The Digital Comics Manifesto

There's also a digital comics manifesto on screendiver written by one of the founders, where they're stating that print is dead, because of all the possibilities we have now and how they changed communication in general .

1. A Digital Comic Should Transcend Print: it should stake out new territories and go beyond traditional comic layouts

2. A Digital Comic Should Be Designed For Its Intended Platform: Look at the technology of your platform before you're writing your story (is there something new to explore? motion tracking, chat-bots, voice recognition,..)

3. A Digital Comic Should Never Take Temporal Control From The Reader: it should still identify as comic even if new technology is used, a big factor hereby is time. It takes time to translate the time within an between the panels, imagine the movements and sounds of the world (it's different from cinema for example).

4. A Digital Comic Should Be Called A Digital Comic: with using a lots of different terms on thing suffers: the discoverability.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

The Guardian: Digital Deadly Sins

On this nonlinear Storytelling Websites people are telling about their digital behavior and their use of modern social media connected somehow to the seven deadly sins. The stories are presented as video confessions and written/illustrated stories.

“Turn up your sound. Watch. Read. Participate. Share.” This is how this interactive project reels its viewers in from the outset.

There's also an interactive part since the online project also seeks for active participation from the audience by inviting the viewer to cast judgement on the sins (are they absolving or condemning this sin?). You can see the actual results immediately with a pretty visualization of the data.

The Link to the Site: http://digital-deadly-sins.theguardian.com

[65nickelsinmypocket]

The Grey Tales - Nonlinear Graphic Stories

The website thegreytales.net is a project with four stories with fascinating facts about elephants and why we need to protect them. It brings awareness of eliphants all over the world. You can navigate through the stories by dragging, scrolling or using the arrow keys.

The website is lovely designed and combined with music/nature sounds in the background. In each story you visit elephants in one of their 5 natural habitats.

I really love the minimal design of the website. While you're scrolling on the left side through lovingly prepared informations you can enjoy great animations on the right side. The richness of detail is unbelievable good, especially when it comes to choose the country, the illustrative style fascinates.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Time for more experimental research: Little Nightmares

Little nightmare is a adventurous puzzle-platformer horror game which released in 2017. A sequel will be released in two months.

In this game you're playing a little girl names six in a yellow raincoat and guiding her from left to right through The Maw, which is an ocean facility with dark, dark secrets). You've to avoid deadly traps and solve riddles to proceed.

Running through The Maw feels like a nightmare for sure, the rooms seem surreal and it feels like it reflects the giant, adult world in the view of a small child. You only have one possession, a tiny cigarette lighter, to see where you need to continue. But to be honest it would be greater sometime if you couldn't see where it continues. You meet lots of grotesque and disgusting visitors.

I like the idea of being such a small and defenseless person as character and you've to outplay in the boss battles with wit and ingenuity.

It's so good designed, it's terrifying and cute in the same way. Animation, sound and character design fits very well altogether! :)

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Which program to use for interactive story games?

Apparently a lot of these programs require coding and I’m really not talented when it comes to coding.

Ren’py for example, which looked quite interesting to me, is written in Python and includes support for Python scripts. Apparently to the authors it is easy to write visual novels and other writing-heavy games and provides lots of features to customize the stories.

I also took a look on Quest by textadventures.co.uk, which is also a free to use app and open source. The good thing about Quest is that you don’t have to know how to code either. You also have the possibility to add music and sound effects and embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo (I would appreciate it more if I could implement videos and animations directly into the game, which was my plan in the first place).  The interesting thing is there are hardly any blog entries about this app. There is just the Quest Documentation and a forum directly on their website, which should be enough of course, but still it couldn’t convince me right.

[65nickelsinmypocket]

Using Twine for Interactive Stories

I decided to take a look on different Apps for creating Interactive Stories. One of the most common one's Twine which is a free tool. The good thing about twine is that apparently it doesn't require a lot of knowledge about programming languages (which I really appreciate haha).

There are lots of tutorials that show how to develop a good interactive story with twine:

According to many blogger you're able to use Twine if you're able to write a children's book, so I'm quite optimistic about using this app.

In 5 simple steps you're able to create an interactive story game:

1. Plan your game

2. Write your game

3. Link your passages

4. Add multimedia

5. Publish your game