Textual Analysis: Week 03

Discuss the in-game design and implementation of decision points in your chosen game[s] (i.e. the actual way conveying choice to the player looks and functions)\

In my chosen game,"The Banner Saga", decision points were presented in situations where the player must make a choice that influences the game, be it on a micro or macro level.
 These decision points were presented by sliding a list of options up from the bottom of the screen for story decisions and conversations, most commonly between battle segments.
 The Banner Saga is heavily text based and to acquire the players motivation I believe requires heavy attention to the plot which, because is text driven, can feel very hard to immerse the player into the world as the heavy amounts of texts can feel intimidating and some lore can be confusing if you miss or cannot connect the diegetic pieces together from prior knowledge to similar themed narratives.

Because of this I found many early game decisions to be meaningless and uninteresting and although I have some sense of agency over what the character responds, not understanding the context entirely makes them feel hollow.
 In a text section where the Dredge are invading a small village, amidst the panic your character can choose to send his ally to safety or to let them fight along side you in battle. After prompting my choice to send her away I found myself in battle and outnumbered resulting in my defeat. Understanding the consequences of the decision and having it reflect in the following gameplay so dramatically made the decision feel meaningful, compared to a conversation segment where I got lost by the language and lore which made me less interested in the decision.
In this heavily Text based game, the decision points were implemented seamlessly into the flow of the gameplay but whether the text kept my attention or not would reflect on the amount of agency I felt making those decisions.

Textual analysis: Week 02

Did Linear Storytelling in your chosen game(s) engage and excite you as a player? Explain why or why not.

In my chosen game, "Prince of Persia The Sands Of Time", the linear storytelling managed to excite and engage me with its intriguing cinematics and clearly presented production elements that reflect in game actions.
As I progressed into the gameplay which would take me to different parts of the world to achieve certain tasks, the game provided context through the cut scenes and gave incentive to follow the provided path to see what comes next. An example of this is when the player discovers a shrine/tomb in which a shining dagger resides elevated high above, and your character narrates its majestic appeal to him. I found myself compelled to progress the designated path despite its puzzling nature which after solving gives great satisfaction. Upon discovering through a later cut scene that the dagger is a central plot device for the entire game makes the task feel extremely significant.
In essence the task is often to get from one point to another but solving the correct way to get there can be just as rewarding as getting to the end itself. By having the cinematics reflect your success of a certain task in the narrative makes the sense of reward exponential and encourages you to progress further.
Even though the narrative is linear, I was able to find myself engaged and excited to progress through it because of its interesting and well presented story which reflect in game elements giving the player a great sense of agency despite the story's end being predetermined. 

Textual Analysis: Week 01

Does the chosen game(s) make user input feel meaningful in terms of story direction and progression? Why or Why not?

The text based computer game "Zork", did not make the user input feel meaningful in terms of story direction or progression , as complying to the correct language proved difficult at times.

Being unfamiliar with text based games, I found complying to the games syntax challenging and what i believed to be logical responses or inputs were often invalid and halted my progression several times. After literally describing that “It is possible to climb down into the canyon from here.” I input, “climb down canyon” in which the game responded, “I don't know the word canyon.” Having the game stop my progression, even though I entered what I believed to be a valid input, took me out of the story and left me frustrated.

This resulted with me entering safe inputs that I knew would have an effect on the game, like go west, or, go north etc. Typing primitive and archaic commands for my avatar made the experience very bland and I didn't progress anywhere beyond reaching points where I “cannot go any further East.”

I did not feel any progression in either the story direction or gameplay, aside from accomlishing the trivial task of transporting to a slightly further area from where I originated, because the game language was foreign to me [despite being in english], and what I believed to be logically sound inputs did not register within the game world as anything/or anything significant halting any progression through the story, losing all desire or pleasure to play it.