Transmedia Gaming - A new way to play

[Loki Eliot]

"Transmedia storytelling, also known as multi-platform storytelling, cross-platform storytelling, or transmedia narrative, is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies." - wikipedia

 

This topic is the one i am most excited about when it comes to Second Life experiences. When you think of gaming most think of traditional gaming from consoles or PC's and i know there have been some top prim based mini games, but Sl has a gaming genre that could very well be unique to SL and that Transmedia Gaming.

 

I admit i don't know if it's happening on other virtual world platforms but it's something i haven't been able to produce on anything else.

 

The best example for this would be my Transmedia Game "Babbage Chronicles" in New Babbage as steampunk town full of very awesome Steampunk role-players. Now i class roleplaying as gaming also so some might read this topic and flail their arms about saying it should be in the role-play section of the forums. But Roleplaying is a part of gaming, you take on a role when you pick up the game pad on xbox.

 

Second Life is a hub of many different media and experiences in a way that i don't think is anywhere else. In The New babbage Chronicles you get to choose how you experience the story and how you interact with the story. The basic plot is a thin string with various ways to discover it or contribute to it. 

 

For example New Babbage has its own forum to which people post accounts of their experiences in the game. In this way i get feedback and can react to what they say and in doing so the story telling process becomes fluid. I also use twitter to tweet hints and tips and specific blog posts from people playing the game and in doing this other people stumble across the story and can take part.

 

Within Second Life events are organised to tie in threads of plot and specially built encounters allow people to experience key moments in the game and uncover more of the story. But the way Second Life is used by users no encounter is the same as everyone developed their own view of the story depending on which angle they came into the game.

I hope this is making sense to some of you XD

 

This is an area of Second Life's roleplaying/gaming/experience that i find really interesting. Other gaming stuff like Combat weapons, puzzle solving and interactivity just become components in the way people step into the Transmedia Story. 

This is the 5th year i have run the New Babbage Chronicles and each year i learn better ways to tell the story and produce ways to interact.