Chapter Four

The essence of an Interactive fiction

Time

Time location relates immediately to the concept of time in a narrative.

What we mean by time here is the duration of the story, and the sequence used to divide it into different durations that can be named days, hours, years, or may be ages. Speaking in computer games language, we might mean levels as well...

Michael Benedikt writes about time in cyberspace (or in our case, virtual environments in general):

"Space and time combined appear to constitute a level of reality below which no more fundamental layers can be discerned, a field without natural parts, universal being that cannot be done away with." ⁽¹⁾

Considering time as the fourth dimension of existence came out from the need to a rhythm or a system that organizes events and interactions in a place. Garau argues that VR is a non-linear medium, so if you take time away from it, we remain with purely spatial environment. While Reichenbach defines time causality as "Casual connection is a relation between physical events and can be formulated in objective terms." . ⁽²⁾

Some stories don't give special emphasis on time. What matters is the events happening in a daily sequence. Others might give some emphasis on the time location being the most important part in the process of understanding the story. When others depend on time completely.

When watching a movie one should be able to distinguish between the actual playing time of the movie (which is usually around 120 minuets) and what we might call virtual time.. Which is the duration of the story events.

Braningan gives a definitive point of view about that when he says:

"Time in the world of the story may be different than the time of projection of the film. For example, in Letter from an unknown woman (Ophlus, 1948) the screen time is ninety minuets, while the story covers three hours of an early morning during which a letter is read, and the letter in turn, dramatizes events spanning fifteen years at the turn of the century in the world of Vienna." ⁽³⁾.

Some movies like SEVEN deal with this aspect as a marriage between certain events and adequate time sequence. In Seven, a criminal commits seven crimes in seven days, in the name of the seven deadly sins. The spectator can get better understanding of the events after a while when he realizes that the usual phrase that comes on the screen (Day1, Day 2…) is not important anymore, because time sequence is ruled and organized by crimes, rather than days. Quinten Tarantino might be one of the most adventurous movie directors in dealing with time. His classic, Pulp Fiction, is a four chapters story that starts at the third chapter, and proceeds in an irrational sequence of time continuity. You see John Travolta, one of the characters, shot by the middle of the movie, but you see him alive by the end. The spectator might not realize that sequence until the whole movie is finished, and might need to see it again to get full understanding.

Same logic goes in Reservoir dogs, another one of Tarantino's classics, though more rational. The movie starts with a scene of two guys in a car, one of them is bleeding, and the other is saving him.. The spectator doesn't get any introduction to the characters, or the event. Slowly, as the movie goes, it gets you moving between the present (inside the reservoir) and the past (the actually story that led them to that reservoir). With this mixture of time, you start getting to understand the story and get introduced to the characters, and appreciate the genius behind the scene.

In computer games, Time might be embodied as a stopwatch or a counter displaying the time given to you to complete a mission or escape from a maze (Forsaken, The fire tavern scene in Final Fantasy VIII, The final scene in Tomb Raider-The last revelation where Lara has to rush to reach the Door before Dr. Verner does).

Another way of dealing with time was used in It came from the desert. The game tells you that time is passing by when you realize that the infection with the ants curse is spreading, and that the number of people turning into ants is increasing. You get some short cinematic scenes while playing to show you what has been happening in other places; reminding you that time is passing by. This is similar to the previous case in a way or another, but it is designed to look more real, and relate to the plot of the story.

A third use of time is shown in what we can call semi-movies games like final fantasy, where the hero, Squall goes to sleep after finishing each mission, gets hunted by dreams and flashbacks, then wakes up for his next mission. This real-life adaptation indicates the gradual increasing difficulty level as time passes by. Because the whole concept of strength in FF8 Is based on the So-Called Experience gained in time. The concept of levels usually flows the story course, as much as it refers to the different experience, maturity and complexity the player is going through.

[Time location] - [Time] - [The Genre] - [The plot] - [The quest] - [Characters] - [Point of view]

(1) Benedikt, Michael. Cyberspace: First steps. Cambridge MA. MIT press, [1991]

(2)Reichenbach, Hans: The Direction of time, Berkley and Los Angeles, CA, University of califrnia press. [1956]

(3)Braningan, Edward, Narrative comprehension and film, Routledge 1992