Instructor: Morgan Barnard
Review of Interactive Narrative  

Murtaugh's Interactive Narrative article was quite interesting to read and I found it to be quite informative in understanding the levels of active or inactive levels of participation by a viewer towards the art form they are viewing. I found his concepts of the possible effects of this form of participation on both the end user and the perception of the art from the end user to be quite informative.

Murtaugh introduced us to the concepts of diegesis (where a world is created by the narrative that is described), branch point interactions (where the viewer influenced the course of the narratives), as well as metalepsis (the division or rather the slow transformation from one narrative to another).

Murtaugh gives very clear and good examples which allowed me to truly understand how to put these terms within the context of a narrative structure. For example, he showed us how metalepsis can best be exemplified by the scenes of Ferris Bueller talking to the audience of his scheme to skip school as well as Austin Powers turning to the camera and joking with them about his arch nemesis.

Overall I enjoyed this article and look forward to reading more of his papers.