Interactive Narrative

OK, so our last project is going to be an interactive. Basically that means we have to create a piece of work using flash (cs3 woot) along with pictures and a well thought out narrative. This was set by one of our lectures called jools who after giving us a brief intro to flash told us to toodle off and go play with it ^_^. Now where to begin. Ive done coding before, i did As and A lvl in computing. The sight of all those words and numbers on a white background just makes me want to be sick! I really didn't enjoy my experiences coding, however that aside, its a new start and im not coding programs I'm coding something much more fun. So at least Ive got a head start hehe.

We were told to get about 7 photos minimum, but i think it would be best to have more! You cant really tell a story in 7 pictures. However a picture is a thousand words so 7 * 1000 = 7000 words = a mini story ha. ANYWHO, getting side tracked. I worked out (looking at the coding of the template we are using for a stop/go cycle in flash) that i need about 12 photos. I also drew up this picture to help plan what pathways I'm going to be giving the user. At the moment it looks like it can split about 5 or 6 different ways. Here's the pic:


So now all ive got to do is think of some ideas! Here is what ive got at the moment-->


. Love and Hate - Using drawn pictures and if possible good photos ( i say good photos since it will be hard to get subtle hints across) i will let the user explore the picture and it will force them to click one of two areas selected. The picture will be giving away hints into which pathway it will lead too. For example, a devil and an angel (that's one example, and a very obvious one lol). Along with this, i might try to put some music clips of one tone, and add tones as they progress. I may have to use a midi keyboard for this (music gcse YAY).

. How to fix/clean/build/find something - all my other ideas seem to be rolled into this category, of trying to get the user to do one of these things until he/she reaches the end. Its kind of basic and does ofc give a simple narrative, but nothing special as it is clearly obvious what it wants you to do.


I think i may use my first idea as jools was telling us how important it was to get the narrative right, and not necessarily the actual look and functionality of the flash piece. So now Ive just got to draw these pics, or take some, and make a nice final interactive project