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Furthermore, each player's ring may be merged with others to form new combined
sequences.
These interface mechanics are considered metaphors for narrative construction and
maintain common recognizable aspects of conversation associated with storytelling,
as such scope, exchanging views and merging ideas. (Fig. 4) These are either
performed intentionally or inadvertently through the mechanics or player actions to
produce dramatic or unexpected outcomes, a common feature of narrative emergence.
Fig. 4.
Narrative Metaphors
The player rings are considered as agents in the experience that attempt to
incorporate participants' creative actions and also show the self-organising
conversational process. This is an attempt to visualise the system process, a form of
expressive processing [35] that develops the relationship between system processes
and the surface level interaction of the players. This relationship is central to idea of
developing emergent play as it provides affordances to the player for enacting a
conversation. In similar ways to enabling a group of improvisational actors, it exhibits
clues on how actions are taking place in the fictional world and invites collaboration.
This allows the player to enact a conversation with the fictional world and assume a
dynamic role of narrator, player or observer.
The general approach to the interface and its incorporation with the system
processes, looks to holistic paradigm for how mental models and cognitive
convergence can take place. While he system formalises some narrative structure
through self-organisation, the interface metaphors allow for creative possibilites. The
combination of the fictional world, the interface affordances and the understanding of
the player's mental model in relationship to the other players creates the possibility
for an emergence to take place.
4
Discussion
This paper has presented a view of emergent play that considers players experience of
real world knowledge to develop appropriate fictional world affordances. Our
comprehension of the real world is a continual sense-making process that accumulates
knowledge from the world based on our bodily relationship to the world. This takes
into account a holistic view of how emergence occurs in the real world and its
possible application in game worlds to drive narrative coherence.
