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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00753
- Thesis Title
- Sonder: an examination of how choice creates meaning and the narrative effects of agency
- Author
- Cyril Focht
- E-mail
- cfocht AT ucsc.edu
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- MS
- Year
- 2019
- Number of Pages
- 40
- University
- University of California Santa Cruz
- Thesis Supervisor
- Noah Wardrip-Fruin
- Supervisor e-mail
- nwf AT soe.ucsc.edu
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Elizabeth Swensen
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Computational Media
- Copyright Ownership
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, French
- URL where full thesis can be found
- Keywords
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Choices in storygames are broadly understood in terms of how they affect causation and agency, however there is little scholarship in how choices add meaning to narrative context. This work extends that knowledge by looking at how Sonder, a storygame developed alongside this thesis, uses choice to convey characterization, and how choices can be used to create meaning more broadly by creating juxtaposition between its surrounding events, between the choice and those events, and in the structure of possible outcomes. We also discuss how Sonder frames the relationship between player and character, how current theory of agency can be used to understand this relationship, and how it uses agency to a narrative effect.More broadly, we add to this by showing how new perspectives of agency can add depth to writing point of view characters in storygames.