Chris Goodswen

We had a Lecture the other week of a ex Games Art and Design student Chris Goodswen who has just completed his masters degree in Games Design. We were asked to take down some notes for later research that would help us in this current topic. Most of what Chris Goodswen talked about was the jump from foundation degree and BA Honours to a Masters Degree and his progression from each year and the steps he had to take to get to where he is.

I made many notes that might help me later in my designs and time at University but he made a point during this lecture about Narrative theory particularly to non linear pipelines. I thought that this would be a good area of study that would relate to games and the Transmedia topic. After some research i found that Non-Linear pipelines are a way of telling a story/narrative by not placing information in chronological order in simpler words placing events in a different order to what they happened. The use of this is seen a lot in film and literature. The most common use is the telling of a memory as its piecing a part of the backstory during the middle of the main story.

When talking about Non-linear narrative in games normally reflects to how the story is being told, is it following a pipeline were the player cant escape the written narrative. Theres a debate over the use of Linear and non linear game play and when and when it shouldn't be used. Non linear games such as Fallout 3 often to get referred to as 'Sandbox' this means open world not a path in which to follow which allows narrative to be broken and played out how you feel like achieving it. When Creating Worlds in games there will be that choice to follow a linear pipeline of play or to go for the 'Sandbox' Non-linear play.

Relating this topic to Transmedia; A Linear game as more opportunity to work in Transmedia than a non linear due to the fact more mediums can display new information and useful information relating to narrative in a Linear game. This is because of a player in linear pipeline will have to follow the story meaning a lot of other world happenings in the game will not be told but might be going on, this can then be shared through the use of transmedia but non linear has the choice of allowing a player to explore and find out most of the worlds information in game meaning there would be less to place in transmedia. Relating back to Non linear pipelines in films and literature, a useful way of using Transmedia would be to use information in a non chronological order and place this in different mediums, this would be that the story would be stread around all different points creating an immersive story that happens in more than one area and piecing each part of the information together will create an immersive feeling and draw you into following and finding the information.

To start my research into Creating Coherent Worlds i have followed a link given to us on the brief that lead me to a blog written by Henry Jenkins. He is a Professer at the Unversity of Southern Californa professing communication, Journilisum, and cinematic arts. He also an active member of the Convergent Culture Consortium, a Network that builds connections between the academic researchers and Media Industry.

The reference given was:

Jenkins, H. (2009) The Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Remaining Principles of Transmedia Storytelling. Confessions of an Aca-Fan December 12 [Internet blog]. Available from: [Accessed 18 February 2010]

After reading this blog i have been very interested in transmedia and how it has been a big part of my experiences of media without my knowledge. The media industry is always changing and at the moment is at peek with the online media taking over. Jenkins talks about Transmedia or Deep media by Frank Rose or Cross Media by Christy Dena. Transmedia is affecting all media markets from books to games.

When i first tried to understand transmedia i was a little confused and Jenkins described it as "Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story." I like to simplify this into something more of a easier statement that is easier for me to understand and that is Transmedia storytelling is a way to tell a story through a means of different medias in order to make a new experience to the viewer. In each media area it can tell the story in its own way.

Transmedia can make a story into a new universe through the expansion of the medium, The use of transmedia allows more potential to hit more than just the audience you aimed for. It is also a way of expand on the story its self, by having a limit of information you can tell in your story the use of other mediums can allow you to express more and alls allow others to create there own story in the world you created.

Jenkins talks about 7 principles that create Transmedia story telling, The first is Spredability vs Drilliblity. This is how we can spread a story or a piece of information across a media to get to the widest audience, spreading the story/information allows you to pick up on were you can start to drill down on the audience that picks up on the story. Today the online community has the chance to spread anything from information to videos across the world in seconds.

He next talks about Continuity vs. Multiplicity. Continuity is keeping the story the same without mixing information up that could hurt the story or upset the audience because there has been a lack in through of the progression of the story through the different mediums. Multiplicity is how you can expand the idea further than the original story but keep in the same universe that the story is in. Jenkins compares this to the Star Trek series in which the original was one ship but multiplicity
lead to the development of the future ships and shows that came later. To be able to build upon a story is always good in games especially because a game that sells much better than expected a sequel will most likely be wanted among fans and with the chance of multiplicity you can create more without spoiling the original game even if the new game is on a different media medium or isn't even a game.

Immersion vs. Extractability is the next step written by Jenkins, he says that the cinema focused on the immersion of a story from expanding from books but the extractability comes from the power to pull ideas from your created story/universe and place them into our universe. Jenkins talks about the new harry potter world and how a story has gotten so great it now has its own place in our land and universe, its stepping out of the medium and into reality.

We started by creating story to fit characters and ideas into but through Transmedia worlds are being born. By creating a world first we can do more than create a story we can create multiple story's and characters to be told in different ways through different mediums but all relating to the same concept and idea. World building is the next step in creating a good Transmedia narrative.

Seriality in Transmedia is the power to break a story into chucks and spread them around to be gathered and placed to gather to create a meaningful idea, Like how a cliffhanger will make you pull all information from the film and then previews and leaked information to guess what happens next, this leads back to immersion were you are immersed into creating your own next step of whats going to happen or what is happening. You begin creating a your own world out of the information given to you.

Transmedia builds bridges across subjects through the use of Subjectivity were an area of the story or world can be looked more in-depth to but not disturbing the story while building a stronger background and links of areas of the story. In games were secondary characters get there own games or game mechanics that get build and used again in a different but relating story.l