Towards a Unified Theory for Interactive Digital Storytelling

“Classifying Artifacts” – ICIDS 2011 Workshop

Organizers: Hartmut Koenitz (University of Georgia)
Mads Haahr (Trinity College Dublin)
Gabriele Ferri (University of Bologna)
Tonguc Ibrahim Sezen (Istanbul University)
When & Where: 9.30 am to 5.00pm, SFU Surrey room # 3250
Intended Audience: Researchers and Practitioners in the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling interested in improving academic and practical exchange and discussions by working towards a shared vocabulary for the field of interactive digital storytelling.

Confirmed Discussants: Janet Murray and Martin Rieser

Call for Workshop Participation

Interactive Digital Narrative is not only a form of artistic expression that has produced many diverse artifacts, but it also shares significant features with other genres. While some IDN works belong to specific traditions like Hyperfiction (HF), Interactive Fiction (IF), or Interactive Drama (ID), many other artifacts cannot be located so easily. Is Cadre’ s Photopia an IF work, or rather HF told by means of an IF engine? Can we count Bookchin’ s Intruder as an IDN and if so what group can it be associated with? What about installation pieces like Textrain, news games, mixed-media locative games, or blockbuster games such as Half Life, or LA Noir?This workshop aims at moving towards a unified theory for IDN. As part of an ongoing investigation, we emphasize a tight coupling between theory and practice. Possible taxonomies such as Ryan’ s classification or the SNAPS group proposal will be put to test, pointing out strengths and weaknesses and proposing concrete ideas on how to improve early attempts at a descriptive framework for IDN.The workshop is a follow-up to two prior workshops at ICIDS 2009 and ICIDS 2010. The first workshop presented different theoretical perspectives on interactive digital storytelling. The second workshop explored the potential of advances toward a shared vocabulary as well as existing obstacles. The current workshop continues the project towards a unified theory for IDN along the same trajectory, this year with a particular focus on the classification of artifacts using proposed taxonomies and subsequent evaluation of the taxonomies.