Society of structure

After another session of Interactive spaces and it got me really thinking about structure, why things are the way they are , and who made it that we have to follow these “rules” a good example of this is when Simon spoke about a magazine article where the writer instead of using the standard column by column format , he broke it in the middle so that it appeared that there was two columns but in reality there was only one and it was interesting to hear the reactions from the public who read this article , have we as an society gotten so used to structure and uniformity that when someone challenges that structure we decide to reject it? , isn’t design about breaking new boundaries , so that got me thinking about my own frame story , would it work in a circular structure with a narrative which can go either way .

Video games would also come into this argument , during the 1990 and early 2000’s i was used to the linear form of gameplay in terms of , you have a player you can control and the objective was more or less to play though the level until you reach the end boss , defeat him/her/it. Then move on towards the next level , but all that changed when a friend who lived next door said to me “hey Emile , you want to borrow Broken Sword instead?” (at the time i wanted to borrow a fighting game , but he still wanted to keep on playing it) so i took it and i was amazed , since i was about 12 or 13 at the time , game companies have been trying to advance their graphics to their chosen platforms threshold (in this case , it would be the Playstation) so it come across a traditional point-and-click adventure, where the player has to logically come up with answers and solutions to riddles and problems was mind blowing to me , because there was no absolute linear path you could take and it forced you to take decisions you would take in real life , but although this game had a network of choices it still ultimately had a hierarchy ( which is that it has the same ending) but for a game brought out in 1996 , it still had a profound effect on me amongst the countless FPS’s and Clichéd fighting games coming out at the time.

After playing this game , for years i wanted to play another game similar to Broken Sword but I couldn’t find a like for like until the 2005 game Fahrenheit came out. The game still contains elements of Broken Sword, but this time there was no liner ending but rather a network of endings based upon the player’s desions that he/she made throughout the game. Another thing which made this game stand from the rest were the controls - Console versions of the game eschew most of the traditional methods of control, making minimal use of the face buttons on the controller, instead using twin analog sticks for all player actions. The left stick controls movement of the character, and the right is used for context-sensitive actions. For instance, when Lucas (The main protagonist which you control ) approaches his table at the diner in the opening scene, one direction may cause him to take a seat, while another makes him examine his bill, and a third lets him pick up his drink and take a sip.

Basically what I am trying to do here is explain that in design you have to take risks, and personally that is what am here to do