Starting Flash Interactive Narrative and Research

Last week we were given our Flash interactive narrative project briefs, we have been asked to create a Interactive flash narrative using the Adobe flash that includes choices that must be made and involves a narrative which can be changed depending on the choices the user chooses. The interactive narrative must have a minimum of 10 slides, action script 3 must be used as well as it being saved for CS3 as an SWF file.

In our first seminar for Interactive media we had a look at several examples as well as being guided briefly through action script 3 on flash and how it works, we also had a look at the definitions of narrative and the difference between narrative and plot and also the structure of stories including characters such as the protagonist and antagonist. Still slightly confused about how or what i am going to do for this project, we were given time to think of a narrative which would be good to use for our interactive flash.

UFC / Cage Fighting Themed Interactive Narrative ?

FIGHT-SCIENCE ?

For the short time we was given the idea i generated consisted of the theme of fighting professionally (for instance UFC cage fighting), where my interactive narrative would also play out like a game, where the choices you make create a fighter depending on what you choose. Carrying on developing this idea i found that there were far to many combinations of what you could choose and become, so continuing with the theme of my narrative i decided to scrap the idea of choosing 2 types of martial art out of 4 to combine to create a unique combination for yourself, totalising at 6 slides for the 2nd decision i found that it would be a waste of time to create since most slides would render useless and i only have 2 weeks to complete this so i have to keep realistic goals.

Though my concept is still in development, after thinking about it further i decided that my narrative/game would still give you a choice to choose what profession/style of martial art you would like to train in but with set choices rather than time consuming combination choices and then the style you choose would have its own skill sets, such as its own strengths and weaknesses.

The strengths and weaknesses will be displayed and explained to the user of the interactive narrative and then the correct decisions for him/her would determine how far they would get against opponents they fight, since making a wrong decision would cause them too be damaged since correct decisions are based on the strengths of your skill set determined by your martial art style.

To display the opponent you fight for the "1st fight of your career" i will use an illustration of the character along with paragraph to explain himself and his fighting style along with his strength and weaknesses, along with his win / loss statistics. After reading this and looking at his strength and weaknesses along with his particular fighting style, you must choose the correct decision based on what happens during the slide - for instance he may attack you, and you will be given a choice whether to counter attack, take down or avoid - the correct decision will be based on the weakness of the opponent and if you choose the wrong decision your health will diminish, as you take a powerful blow, only 2/3 blows can be taken until you get KO'd therefore choosing the right decisions are vital to defeat the opponent and also tests your knowledge of your martial art styles strengths and weaknesses.

After reflecting on my idea i feel it is highly likely i will continue to develop this concept, though i have a feeling it may take a while ... especially with contextual and another pixelation to be completed !