Types and forms of media (interactive)

Today I learned about the different forms as well as types of media (of both the interactive and non interactive varieties), this includes video games (such as Sonic The Hedgehog and Doom) where the interactive element comes in the form of pressing buttons on a controller (or a keyboard and mouse if you prefer PC games) to get a character (or in some games an object, I.E: the ball from Marble Madness) to perform actions (be it running, jumping, swinging a sword, Spin Dashing, Ext.) in a sequence that facilitates progression towards completing an objective. (examples include collecting all the jiggies in Banjo-Kazooie, rescuing the princess in any main Mario game, eating the pellets from pac man, ext.) I like this one the best because there are a wide variety of genres and ways a game can be made and/or played, Banjo-Kazooie is a 3d collectathon platformer where as Pac-Man is a 2d maze runner before the maze runner books ever came to be. another example of this variety includes how two people can play the same game and go through it two totally different ways. (I.E: Super Mario 64 might last several hours to one person who wants to get all the stars, where as to a speed-runner it might take mere minutes to beat because they tend to use glitches and other strategies) not only that, but I have a small amount of experience with game making thanks to Dreams (which you can find a show case video for below the Mario 64 speed run) and Little Big Planets 1, 2, karting and 3. this makes it likely that I’d want to make a fantasy game in something like dreams (although I am torn between doing this and making a website), although one problem with using dreams is that it requires that the user has a PS4 and a copy of the game (and as a reminder, the full version of Dreams doesn’t officially release until February 14th) which might hinder my ability to “turn in” my interactive assignment if the teacher doesn’t have a PS4 or a copy of the game.

who’s that guy in the background running towards Doom-guy? (who is now retroactively called the Doom-Slayer)

this 100% play through of Mario 64 takes nearly 6 hours to do

where as this play through of the exact same game takes only 6 minutes and 41 seconds due to glitches involving backwards long jumping

and this is just the early access version of dreams, the full game (which will have a story mode) actually comes out this valentines day (same day as that new sonic movie)

Another form of interactive media is a website, websites are online communities where people can go to do things such as shopping, watching videos, do some research, play some games and even socialise with their friends. With a website, the interaction you get can depend on the website itself, if you were on Youtube for example, the interaction would come from you clicking on videos (which are an example of a form of media) that you’d want to watch (or uploading them yourself), where as with a quiz site the interaction would come from you answering trivia questions by clicking on the answer and if you were on something like twitter, the interaction would come from you posting your thoughts on a random topic and/or responding to what someone else has said. (and in this case you can “re-tweet” other peoples thoughts) most of the time the interaction you have with a website ultimately boils down to clicking on pictures and words to go places. (with the exception of sites with “user generated content” due to how people can upload content to the platform) Websites are my second favorite piece of interactive media because of how they are a regular part of people’s lives (and that goes doubly so for people who write blogs like this one) and due to the fact that I actually made a website (which sadly I can’t find anymore as my school E-mail has been disabled) back in sixth form using Google sites (I called it “Medi-Pedia” by the way) and you could argue that this blog would count towards said experience though I’m sort of on the fence about doing it again because it’s been a short while since those days so my skills might be a little rusty.

this is a site where one would go to watch and/or share videos they and others have made (and where I pulled the clips you may have seen throughout the blog)

here’s an example of one video that advertises the release date of dreams

twitter is where you’ll find another form of media (that being photographs)

this is an example of some of the content on twitter (yes, these are the official Bubsy and Sonic twitter accounts talking to each other and refering to Mega man’s twitter account)

and here’s one website where you could go do some shopping

My personal favorite example of non interactive types of media is Animation (which is a separate medium from the rest film and TV because of the fact that Animation facilitates whatever you can imagine), Animation can come in many different forms such as Stop Motion, 2D hand drawn, Digital 2D (which I did in a previous unit), 3D Computer Generated Imagery (or CGI for short) and even the odd bit of rotoscoping here and there. the reason animation isn’t an interactive medium is because in the cases most people think of, you’re just sitting there and watching a movie, tv show or web-toon. but Animation isn’t just limited to movies and TV (technically speaking anyway) because Animation can also bring video games to life as well, going back to the Mario 64 example from earlier, a group of people would have had to create the animations for Mario, Bowser and every moving object or character in the game, because if they didn’t, it would all be a bunch of 3D models stuck in 1 pose (often a T-pose or an A-pose) sliding around on the floor. If you want to find out more about animation, I have an entire section dedicated to the subject.

this is what uncharted looks like when none of the characters have animations (someone went in there and removed the animations)

you can check out my Animation here (to make a long story short, there would have been more to it but because of Deadlines I had to cut most of everything and just have Captain Cartridge grab some rubbish, you can find out more by looking at my “production of the masterpiece” post under the Animation category)

Another example of a non interactive type of media comes in the form of the radio, the reason radios aren’t super interactive is because all your doing is sitting down and listening to a radio broadcast. most of the time radios tend to broadcast the latest pop hits from the current year interlaced with radio host chatter, I.E: The news, the weather and that money music ticket contest they tell you to call for (which is the closest thing to interactive that radios get by the way, just saying) and adverts, but there are times where radio is used to tell a story, This is what we call a radio drama. (speaking of I’m actually doing a radio drama at the moment) The strange thing is that nowadays, radios aren’t the only place you can get radio content (as little sense as that makes) because your phone actually has apps (or at least, you can get apps) that allow you to tune into radio stations live on the air. now I’ve been doing a project where I make a radio drama for a while so I have a little bit of experience here.

this is an old radio device

and this is one of the radio apps you can get

here’s an example of some of the stuff you’d hear on radio, although if you wanted a truly authentic radio experience, you’d have to place some ads in between some of the songs (careful Gromit, some of it might have language)

Now we’re going to explore the forms of media (which yeah, is different from the types of media because they’re things like files and pictures rather than films and games), one example of such is a photograph (which, photographs are pictures of real objects and people in the real world. (and no, images of fictional characters don’t count towards this, no matter how photorealistic said images may look) photographs have been around since the dawn of the camera itself (which was invented in 1888 by one George Eastman), photos can be taken on dedicated cameras or even your phone’s camera (given that phones can do that these days and how you no longer need physical film to take a photo) and thus can be taken anywhere and of anything (as long as it’s not illegal and/or something a government doesn’t want you to see) and/or of anyone. (even yourself, hence the term selfie) Personally I don’t have much interest in Proper Photos due to how they mainly reflect reality (don’t get me wrong, they can be beautiful, but still, I have my preferences), I like it when there’s a few special effects thrown in there to enhance the visuals (stuff like characters and whatnot) heck, I even have a series of pictures I jammed Super Sheep and friends into during my taster days (one of which is in this post)

this is a film camera (which means you’d need to keep buying film for it if you run out and you’d need to go to the photo printing shop to get it printed)

this is an example of some instant photo cameras (these things use self developing film to print their photos minutes after they’ve been taken, this eliminates the need for physical photo shops but you’d need to keep getting film for it (and not to mention paper)

this is an example of a digital camera, these things don’t print out any paper or use film, these babies store the pictures you take inside an assorted SD card which you can take out and put your photos on your computer or phone

now this is a camera that’s on your smartphone, it’s used by several apps (I.E: the obvious camera app and even AR apps such as FNAF AR; Special Delivery)

this picture of a photographer taking a photo of the camera taking her picture for example would count as a photo…

…where as this picture of Polygon the Robot (one of my original characters) doesn’t count as a photograph because it’s not from a real camera in the real world…

…this picture of Pikachu, despite being set in the real world and being filmed on actual cameras, would also not count as a photograph because the character of Pikachu isn’t real (he’s a CG character), no matter how photo-realistic he looks here (now if the pictures of Polygon and Pikachu were in a picture of the computer screen taken on a camera, then it would count)

here’s one of mine (even if it breaks the laws of physics as pointed out by a friend)

Another example of a form of media is a game file (which allows you to run a game), most game files are associated with the source code, this may include things such as a .exe file (no not that Sonic story that went viral) which is short for “executable” file. this special file type contains the game (or the app/program) and it’s source code and everything else that’s needed to get the game to work on your PC, console, handheld or phone, these files are easily accessed on PC games if you know what your doing but on a console or mobile game it’s not entirely possible, or at least not as easy to do considering that some people can get console games running on PCs (and in some cases even a phone) via emulators which often times are frowned upon by publishers unless they’re the ones doing the emulating.

this is a screen asking if you want to run the .exe file for an old PC game called 3D pinball space cadet

and this is what happens if you forget to put an executable file in place for a game (this has actually happened with several real games on steam, mostly with certain asset flips)