Koenitz delivers a high-level synopsis of the field of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN), which integrates the theories and practices of artistic expression through technology, and how these topics are analyzed. He introduces how the field is focused on the dissolving the reader-author binary; scholars and practitioners in the field seek to understand how the process of creation, the process of consuming and engaging, and the artifacts produced by the fusion of both these processes are innovating artistic expression and the human capacity to critically reflect. The interdisciplinarity of the topics are challenging to research funding and finding unifying ontologies, but Koenitz argues that this is a productive ambiguity that keeps academics and creators alike stimulated. He compares IDN to the mediums of books and film; while both books and film already have canonical approaches of the novel and the montage respectively, Koenitz makes the case that IDN does not yet have a canonical approach and may precipitate a new form. The rest of the introduction covers current explorations of these forms, from the perspectives of spatiality and ludology to cybernetics and interface design. He concludes with the sentiment that IDN, though around for several decades now, is still a blossoming field with room to grow, especially with emerging technological advances that change the ways we behold narratives.
Goal of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) (the book and the field) is to “make the fourth wall permeable.”
Research in IDN ideally combines technical development and advances in artistic expression, as well as the expansion of analytical perspectives; and historically, it has been difficult to find resources for such interdisciplinary projects.
IDN promises to dissolve the division between active creator and passive audience and herald the advent of a new triadic relationship between creator, dynamic narrative artefact and audience-turned-participant.
Our technology is getting better and higher fidelity, but the narratives and characters they host are shallow!! Static!! Lacking!!
If the defining artistic moment of the book was the advent of the novel in the 17th century1 and of film was the invention of montage (Eisenstein, 1949), a similar breakthrough is still elusive in IDN, and maybe there never will be a comparable moment in this field.
Narratology vs ludology = people wanted to distinguish game studies from narrative strudies
“The commonest use of a completely parallel medium that does not actually interact with the game system is narrative” (Koster, 2012). He categorises the narrative parts of a game experience as linear, noninteractive and in the sole function of rewarding players.
The book’s third part is concerned with practice. When a new medium appears, early practitioners often engage with it first by extending existing practices. In this way, early film was used to show theatrical performances. Eventually these modes of extension lead to distinct practices. As the writ- ten text became more than a collection of printed pages in the form of the novel, and film became more than a theatrical performance through mon- tage, it is no longer adequate to relegate IDN practices to the fringes of a perspective centred on narrative in long-established media forms.
Hunch: The emerging practice will be about self. All IDN artifacts will provide a playground, an arena, for exploring and iterating on our self-perceptions, values, and decision making models.