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Saturday, March 30, 2019

Mysteries of Aunor - A Destiny 2 Inspired Interactive Narrative Piece

Good Early Morning Guardians,

Today I wanted to preface this post with a message regarding a quick reflection about a work of Interactive Narrative Fiction that I produced earlier this week for my Writing for Digital Media class. Lore is always an interactive way for game developers to intertwine story within the universe of their game. Bungie does a great job with creating this adaptive universe around various characters, weapons, and historical events set in the world of Destiny. This narrative is presented as lore that characters can scavenge, achieve, and decipher throughout the game. 

Recently, the devs released a DLC that follows the storyline of the Drifter. A Rogue Light-bearing Guardian, whose intentions aren't entirely known to the Vanguard safeguarding him within the confines of the Tower. This narrative was extremely interesting to 
me upon the release of the latest DLC


I wanted to further indulge myself and explore further into this realm of narrative by coming up with my own characters and perspectives of the story being presented. With this comes the creation of my Mysteries of Aunor Interactive Narrative Fiction piece. Upon following that link you will be transported, via space magic, to a webpage that will guide you through your adventure discovering the world of Destiny and its latest conflict of characters. 

The piece introduces ways that you, the reader, can explore an delve into a story that revolves around the choices that you allow your character to make. Some are good. Some are bad. Some may even result in the death of your character. However, there is little way of you knowing until you try it out yourself! I hope you enjoy the piece, I enjoyed the time I spent working on it, so much so that I actually ended up posting this assignment slightly late.

I apologize again Prof. Landrigan, I don't mean to be a pain in your butt.


Good 'Morrow Guardians,

I hope you enjoy the piece!

-OVBDavid 







Friday, March 8, 2019

ULTIMATE MEGA MASHUP EXTENDED EP

I had a few inspirations in originally making this style of piece. I wanted to mix up a few media outlets as well as trying to get as much emphasis on aspects of games that I love most. Originally my project was supposed to be centered around one specific game, and was supposed to be a blast to the past with incorporating previous incarnations, as well as focusing all of the energy towards criticizing some of the flaws within the game itself. Firstly, as much as I wanted to entertain myself and create something around flaws I found within a game I loved, I simply couldn’t. Not because it was a criticism toward the game itself, but I felt like I was doing a disservice to a hobby I’ve had for decades. Almost two full decades actually. I started playing games when I was about three years old. Skating and Video games. Those were the two things I grew up doing, and I can never regret any of it. Thus, what I can do is to look back on positive things, and remembering all the different types of games I’ve played. However, there’s an unfathomable amount of content that surrounds the production of a game. And with all that content, I became inspired. First it started with the viewing of a video I still frequent to this day. It was made by a YouTube creator known as Dunkey. Within this video:



I found the importance in being consistent. This means looking at both the positives and the negatives of life. With this I resorted to the place I knew best for this assignment. The YouTube comment section.


Obviously, this isn’t the first time someone has used the comment section under a YT video to create an original work, but that’s the point of this project, isn’t it? Anyways, so what I tried to do was mashup as much as I could into a collective piece turned Selective Remix. I wanted to combine multiple platforms and forms of stimulation. So for the complete, final, rendition of the project, I made a review of another YT video. The point of this was to add and remove the comments to my liking, and then create what I feel would be the best representation of a review for the video. This review will be about this video here and will have been created from the comment section of the sequel video. And this. THIS VIDEO. It has to be one of the greatest remixes of all time. It perfectly incorporates everything I’ve come to enjoy in my life. From movies, to games, to music, to anime, to memes, shows, and so so much more.



With this, I hope you enjoy the detailed review I left for the video below. 

"To date I’m glad I was born in this generation. 
I can’t believe u did this
I’m crying and shaking rn. 
These videos don't end
they just stop moving. 
Year is 2050
kid asks what the early 2000s were like
Me: this video.
Me to friend: dude, have you seen this song?
Friend: no, what genre is it?
Me: ALL OF THEM. 
I showed this to my milk 
Now it's a protein shake. 
Better than youtube rewind. when my grandkids ask me what type of music i heard when i was a teen, ill just smile and show them real music. 
why did this song make me emotional....


i have serious issues. 
I think we can all agree that adding shooting stars to any song makes it 1000x better.
Things like these make me so proud of this community...
This has been the best 9 minutes of my life. I'm sad it had to end.
Grandson: grandpa, I found this in your old liked videos. What is it?
Grandpa: sit down, son.
Grandpa: *crying* I will tell you a great story.
Friend: What genre of music do you listen to?

Me: Yes
Top 10 anime crossovers
This definitely needed to be YouTube rewind... I mean youtube rewind has good editing, but this is just different
The Shooting Star was executed perfectly
Good Bye to a World into Smash Mouth into Firework all while Shooting Stars play.
Well played
so many emotions.
I know these are memes but... This is actually beautiful
I take it you like anime?

You're a man of culture as well
this is not a mashup.
this is not a song.

this is not a meme
this is not a groove.

I T     I S       A N        E X P E R I E N C E"

I hope you will all enjoy this as much as I did. And just to do Dunkey a little dirty, I made sure that none of this was consistent. Nothing could be less consistent, not even a little.

Friday, March 1, 2019

Mashing Up the Competition

Good Afternoon,

Ladies and gentlemen, we return this week with a normal scheduled programming you've come to love from my TWWD.

With the new Season of the Driftor we have a lot to discuss, and some unpacking to do. But first, to get a sense of what I'm talking about, please feel free to grab some popcorn and get ready for the visual mashup of a lifetime:




Wow. Stunning, but let's kinda settle back down into our seats and unpack what it is we just saw. When talking about remixes, the topic online can be a bit controversial. Everyone always discusses the notion of citing where it is you may have gotten information, or if you're displaying the work of someone other than yourself. It has been taboo within the creative community to steal the content of others, and display it as your own.

However, today we leave these controversies behind as we discuss an original work created by Bungie Studios and the production of this new DLC's Video Documentary (Vi-Doc). As you've now seen within the video, there are various forms of art all mashed-up together within the video to insight some HYPE within the audience.

Being able to provide an intense mix of musical production, as well as video production, mixing further the process of interview style cinematography and actual gameplay allows for greater insight and immersion into the game's universe. With the center of the video being to sell and inspire purchase of the new DLC, its focus relies heavily on incorporating as many cuts, pans, and commentary it needs to visually, audio-ly, and mechanically.

Bungie does this perfectly by combining all various forms of cinematography. Flashing between interviews with designers working on the game, whilst simultaneously displaying combat and new items within the game immerses the viewer into enveloping themselves into the new content.

This opportunity combines that use of multiple forms of cinematography to create a truly magnificent product. Consider me HYPED for Season of the Driftor, and I look forward to seeing you Guardians on Tuesday.

Alright, Alright, Alright...
- The Driftor

Friday, February 22, 2019

Original Guerrilla

**A quick warning for those that normally come to this blog for weekly updates regarding news relating to Bungie and their Destiny 2 Title. This post is a required project that I completed for my Writing for Digital Media class.**

Here lies the beginning of a tale I've rarely told. For my Guerrilla Lit original work, I was inspired by the narrative piece of Kate Prosachik, Talisman. Her narrative was formed through the use of an online resource known as Quizlet. A popular site used as a study tool for the masses. There you can create sets of flashcards and focus on studying for anything you may desire. However, as an original work, she chose to tell a story through words that impacted her. 


Today, I post with an inspired piece derived from an idea I had while viewing her original work. I, myself, am currently tri-lingual. I speak English, French, and Italian. However, during the time of my visits to Italy, I could never fully speak it. I was able to follow conversations easily, but could never formulate sentences in the ways that I wanted to without sounding like a broken italian speaker. So, with that in mind, I decided to form a Quizlet set of flashcards, much like Kate, and based it around conversational pieces that held significance to my travels within the country of Italy. From spending time with family, to summiting mountains, to being on the other end of an unfortunate breakup. I decided to create a narrative piece from that entire experience. I formulated the study set as a means of understanding common conversational phrases that I heard during my time visiting, but based the definitions around the narrative backstories that surrounded those phrases for me. 


It was with little difficulty that this style of Guerrilla Literature sprang out to me. Kate had done an incredible job in surrounding her vocabulary set around an emotionally moving narrative. The idea of creating a "study set" around something that may be foreign to others, was a perfect segway for my narrative creation. 


This style of narrative allowed me to introduce something foreign to an audience, who most likely doesn't speak Italian frequently, and provided a story around the definitions of the phrases presented. Throughout this post you'll see links to photos I took during those trips, and a vista to the landscape I surrounded myself with. 


Upon reflection with this piece, many things stood out to me. I realized that it had been a while since I had organized a narrative around my life. Personally, I am fairly an introverted individual and the idea of telling "my story" despite it being a small fraction of it was slightly jarring for me. Remembering various parts of that part of my life was slightly cathartic. It provided an insight to a rhetoric I had not really explored myself. 


The platform provides a unique ability to provide a "definition" to the study material provided. However, the uniqueness stems from the author's ability to create their own definitions. In short, the author creates a definition that best suites their needs to understand a specific material. In this case, this was the medium I found most beneficial for myself to express the narrative. 


Below are links to various photo albums I created during my trip expressed within the narrative. 


https://tinyurl.com/y28xqgrz
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQeRyzQCrysyr4in7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DMmBUZz6ypmWwyK89
https://photos.app.goo.gl/oEWx6XMw6yxHpje19
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KhmBDdVoMjVMoBfr9

Friday, February 15, 2019

Collaborations - An Importance



The saying has always been, "Two heads are always better than one"

This week, I want to take the time to showcase two individuals involved within the Destiny community, which have been recognized by both Bungie, as a corporation, as well as the individual Devs of the company. 

The two spotlights will be placed on Nic and Miss ram-shakle (you can click their names to follow them on Twitter). Respectively, two highly respected members of the Destiny 2 community for their contributions on both a Digital level and a Graphical level.

The first showcase is Nic, and his amazing Destiny 2 Infographics that he made during his spare time. Every week there is a "Reset" on all the activities within the game, and they act on a rotation. Nic, was godly enough to make beautiful templates that perfectly displayed everything a player would need to know going into each weekly reset. 


weekly-reset_02-12-19.png
HPE v2.png





































Already, as a community, there was mass-praise and awareness spread as both Youtubers and Twitch streamers began displaying this content and praising Nic for his incredible work!

A clever blogger named Ram-Shackle, created a digital news platform, in the form of a blog, that would help players be notified of literally anything they could think of. As always, you can follow the link to the site HERE. Here Miss Shackles takes time out of her days every week to make sure any and all players are updated with the latest Destiny 2 news. This could be interactions by the Devs, TWABS output by Bungie, and even just comments people bring up on reddit about the game. You want to know? She's got answers. It's volunteer collaborators like these that promote a positive community outreach and allow welcoming access to all players!