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Content Orchestration and Game Design

Content orchestration is strictly dependent on the organization of the visual material on the display. However we make use of two distinct levels of representation: the plot level and the presentation level [Galyean1994]. At the plot level the orchestrator of the environment records the past events and plans ahead while the user's input continuously influences the presentation. Although the user is engaged in exploring the HyperPlex, the interactive form of our system is not uniquely ``navigational'' [Laurel1989]. Where the user goes does affect the world and the user's previous choices of the content also determines the subsequent material presented. The ``narrative form'' of the HyperPlex is reinforced by the personalization of the visual objects in the display that try to catch the user's attention in order to attain their goal of being seen. Moreover we're planning to have a version of the HyperPlex where many users explore the environment at the same time. Each user would ``connect'' to the world from its own location and engage in a game with the other users present at the same time. An interesting solution to having many users sharing the same environment that we would like to explore is the one proposed by [Ishii et al. 1994]. The key design idea of their collaborative medium is to make use of translucent overlay to combine the workspaces of the different users together with the users' image. Other solutions that involve interactive control of the camera in the virtual world are also being taken into consideration [Drucker et al. 1992].

The design of the user interface is based on the analysis of popular computer games [Crawford1990]. The art of game design comes in constructing a set of different possible interactions with the environment. ``The difference between the New Hollywood and the Old is that computer games are 'interactive cinema' in which the game player takes on the role of the protagonist'' [Friedman1995]. However most of the adventure or explorative type of computer games currently on the market do not have a ``content orchestrator'' or story-telling system. They import a narrative structure from popular stories and reduce the narrative trajectory of the user to a succession of enchanted worlds to explore [Fuller and Jenkins1995]. Our approach aims to orchestrate the presentation of the visual material in the HyperPlex with respect to the content and the temporal structure [Davenport et al. 1993], all embedded in a game. Users communicate with each other through magic mirrors, going to meeting rooms and can exchange messages and objects having a virtual dog traveling through the different users' environment.



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Next: Human-Computer Communication for Up: HyperPlex: a World of Previous: A Dynamic Display



Flavia Sparacino
Mon Apr 1 11:15:21 EST 1996