The Garden of Forking Paths
What struck me about “The Garden of Forking Paths” was the unexpected simplicity of the story. I had read other literature based upon it, such as Sandman and House of Leaves, and based upon those I thought it would be much more complex in its scope. But I found Borges’s ability to condense many layers of symbolism into such a small space fascinating. The idea of the ‘forking maze’ appears in the protagonist’s ancestor’s novel, in the world of the protagonist (through the unlikely sequence of events that allowed him to reach Albert safely), and also in our world (through the plot twist that the two were ‘fated’ to meet through probability).
On Wikipedia, “The Garden of Forking Paths” was linked to hypertext, particularly in its conception of a large number of possible paths rather than a linear one. This reminds me of the [something] type of CYOA in Twine in that you can always return to any point in time without consequences and in which everything is laid out at once.
CYOA – One Book, Many Readings
I find it interesting that the majority of CYOA books are sci-fi or fantasy. Genre fiction is traditionally seen as ‘low class’, and both comics and video games thrived in this territory before advancing to more realistic, literary scenarios and themes. Does the CYOA format make it difficult to create an effective mature storyline? A common dilemma in current video games is how much freedom should be given to the player, and how much should be relayed through linear tools such as cutscenes and dialogue options.
The 12 examples in the article show the progression towards linearity, and I’m curious as to whether that correlates with maturity. Are the creators attempting to better replicate traditional story arcs? If the player is given too much freedom, it is possible that they won’t be able to create a satisfying ‘story’ within the constraints of the medium. займ на карту займ pay psглавфинанс займзайм от частного лица спб быстро займ иркутск онлайнзайм на карту приморский крайзайм без банковской карты вэббанкир займ онлайн личный кабинетзайм экспресс одинцовомфо взять займ быстрый займ онлайн на банковскую картузайм томскпервый займ 0
