When I looked back at my previous blog posts, I found it important to focus on how the game affected the user. While the message from the author is important, and I did put emphasis on it, what is more important is how it comes across to the user. A message that cannot resonate or deliver itself to the audience properly is a failed message. For example, in my body – A Wunderkammer, a story is told through a mix of text and strong evocative images which I made explicit references to in my blog post. The message is able to present itself through these images and descriptive text. However, in Dakota, I observed that while specific messages are delivered based on format, further messages are lost through the absurd speed it’s presented at. Therefore, a lot of what I focused on was how the audience was impacted through interacting with these pieces.
Another interesting aspect with my writing was that as time went on, I focused more on the game itself and the story it told, rather than specific messages or styles. In the first three blog posts, I made a point of prioritizing the structure and messages of the story rather than the story itself. However, the later pieces made me more focused on the story itself due to the format it was in. The last two pieces had the uniqueness that one felt like a movie (How to Rob a Bank), and the other was a broken apart movie (Her Story). This meant that rather than focusing on the structure, I became more involved with the story which showed in my blogs.
It is clear that my attention shifted throughout the process of writing these blogs. At first, the story was very superficial to me and I was more focused on the author’s messages and their way of presenting them. As time went on I became more invested in the stories that were being told because the last two pieces had a compelling story that did not feel overwhelmed or overshadowed by the format they took place in.