Video Games as a Story Telling medium

Many things can be said about video games as one of the latest forms of storytelling.

Certainly some people would say video game is the best story telling medium. As it is both interactive and can have the same visual effects that film/video can, sometimes better. But it is opinion still, that interaction makes stories better, or that real human characters make stories better in film.

The challenge of making books into movies has often been great, and we have finally reached a point where things like Lord of the Rings is possible. And it’s safe to say most books are possible as films (or games) one way or another, if anyone cares enough and has enough money. Sometimes however, because of length and other things, they’re not always viable as films, but maybe series, TV shows, or games.

In a video game there are more options for including more of the details described in the book, without making a “too long” story, as is often the case with video.

How would you tell a story like this in a book?

I wonder, is there any story that is better told in a video game than any other medium?

The whole storyline of “Bioshock: Infinite” would have to be a pretty long book. Even though the game is only a few hours long. In order to describe all the details etc. the book could be very long. Definitely the game series Fallout and Elder Scrolls would be long books. The games themselves include big worlds to explore, which can take days/weeks, though the main storyline can be completed in hours.

In video games you can tell such stories, with an immense amount of data and detail that is optional, and adds a lot of richness to the story whether the player explores the optionals or not. Since they are in the background and define the virtual world.

The main strength of video games is that they can tell a story with variables. With multiple endings etc. and with optionals to explore.

Gamification

Theres an increasing interest in gamifying certain tasks to make them less boring. And it’s also increasingly common for movies to have game apps, facebook apps. or some form of game related to the story.

I think as time progresses, more parts of daily entertainment will involve some gamification.  And also more of the tasks will.

At one point virtual worlds will probably be the most popular form of entertainment. And many entertainers will see there’s more money to be made in virtual worlds.

Especially big entertainment companies will, I believe, eventually there’s more incentive and money to be made in virtual worlds because the average fan spends more on entertainment in a virtual world.  And it will probably be true whether it’s an interactive story or not, I believe 2D video will become a less popular form.

d20 Dice Roller

Wrote this little dice roller app as my first project while learning Javascript.

Hosted on Google Drive.

You can pick any of the popular roleplaying dice, from a four sided dice (d4) up to 20 sided dice (d20). Up to 20 of each if you want, and roll them all at the same time.

Please share =)

Viral Video Schemes to Promote Products

Read my thoughts on the videos on Tubeblogger:

Viral Video Schemes to Promote Products.

 

Reverse Turing Test – Can a computer know if you’re human?

The recent controversy about celebrities fake Twitter followers brought to attention some cool online tools.

Having large amounts of fake followers is a sign that they’ve probably purchased their Twitter followers, and according to these recent “studies” almost every celebrity has them.

“The averages for the Top 15 Twitter personalities are 30.4% fake, 40.9% inactive and 28.7% real and active.” -Forbes

Fake Follower Check by Statuspeople.com is a web service that checks how many of your Twitter followers are fake. It’s a really great idea, but does it get it right most of the time? Statuspeople tells us the reports are inexact because the tool only measures a sample of your followers and then calculates the average.

This can be called a reverse Turing test. It is similar to the original Turing Test from the 1950s. In Alan Turings famous paper he describes how to interrogate an artificial intelligence to know if it’s really a human behind there. The purpose there is for the human to figure out the computer. In the reverse Turing test the computer tries to figure out the computer or human, to see if it’s a person.

These online tools look for algorithms that signify a bot, or fake follower. Someone who follows a lot of people and barely posts any content themselves would be seen as a fake by Statuspeople’s tool.

Other tools like Twit Cleaner looks for spammy behaviour such as repeat messages or links, to tell if a person is a bot. It gives you a report of all your followers/followings with various dodgy behaviour. Then you can figure out for yourself if they’re bots or not. A bit of a combined Reversed and Standard Turing test.

The best way to find out if a user is fake is still to manually check it, like the regular Turing test, maybe interrogate them =D.  These tools can help line up some people with dodgy behavior, a list you’ll then have to moderate. It can still get it wrong as they’re not all bots.

CAPTCHA is another more common form of reverse Turing test you see on the web, in signup forms, etc. The idea is that only a human would be able to figure out the scrambled characters. But like the other tools not fool proof. It works mainly becasue the average user doesn’t have access to the right tools that can get past CAPTCHA, which does exist.

It’s quite common now actually. If you leave a comment here *hint* there will be a reverse Turing test in a way where WordPress tries to figure out if you’re spamming. By looking for certain keywords that spam comments usually have. Although I’m new to WordPress I think it works well against bots.

I’m kinda into language and words =D

It amuses me to think of a muse, museum, and music as relatives; and when I find words that are very similar across languages I think it’s pretty cool.

A compliment I got a lot since I moved to the U.S is that I don’t have an accent. And I take that as a compliment since I was always picky with my English learning, being half american, it was important for me to do good in English class.

A Shoutout to some of the recent sites I’ve worked on.

Web designer was never really on my “I wanna become” list, but over the years I’ve learned some of it. I only have one pretty active blog (tubeblogger.net) but I have secretly made at least 20 blogs for my own ramblings, tutorials, niches, and product reviews (Though I constantly get writers block), Here are some of the websites I’ve designed or worked on:

www.bynate.net - The coolest lil L.A Kid =) still thinking of how to make the site better.
ethamc.blogspot.com - My friend the cool M.C Emac. Working on this site with my friend Rico who is a fast learner and ready to work on his own =)
www.pufftronics.com - For healthier smoking alternatives. Simple design. an example of a quick niche site set up in a day.
thehelpfulweb.blogspot.com – A simple blog for my tutorials or guest writers tutorials, an example of a quick niche site set up in a day, to throw ideas at whenever.
grownuptoystore.blogspot.com – Another quick niche site I set up. Ran out of ideas to blog about though but the concepts work =)

Not going to share all of them here. Also see Youtube Channel – Kudo Studios .

Chrome is better than Firefox but...

Reblogged from AB's Reflections:

Chrome gobbles up RAM and makes other programs run slower, while Firefox in its newer incarnations is the ideal socialist citizen, sacrificing browsing experience for the performance of other programs.