1. Planning Your Navigable Space
Week 3
LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media
Fall 2005
Ian Bogost

2. Project I: Create a Navigable Space
Week 4: submit and present a map of the space
Week 5: submit and present space itself
* clear navigational cues to script the interactor
* consistent, logical space
* a reason to move through it
* at least 5 separate segments or “rooms”
* at least 3 objects with behavior within the space

3. Experiencing Space Codes of relationship Left / Right
In front of / Behind
Forward / Back
Landmarking
Zones of proximity (Downtown; the South)
Pathfinding (2 stops on MARTA; Mapquest directions)

4. Representating Space: Overview

5. Overviews Provide sense of boundaries and extent of space
Provide relationship of parts to the whole
From a god’s eye (bird’s eye) perspective
Sitemaps and good site navigation provide overview of information spaces
Establishing shots, zooms in film provide overview prelude to smaller scene; create illusion of proximities
Digital media can create overviews that can be entered and navigated

6. Representing Space: Navigation
Navigation produces sense of immersion
Space seems more real because you can move through it
Space must be consistent
Logically Retraceable (up/down, left/right)
In scale (lower floors matched to upper floors)
Landmarks support orienteering

7. Coherent navigation leads to exploration and discovery
Passing a “tripwire” can set off a dramatic effect
“Room” abstraction useful even for spaces that are not rooms, such as mazes, forest, any logical space segment
Glimpsing one space from another, or hearing/smelling something just out of sight, creates anticipation
Sounds can become louder as you approach
Hidden objects can become more, or suddenly visible

8. Creating Motivation for Exploration
Placing objects in the space reinforces the illusion
Following a fleeing character (White Rabbit) can motivate navigation, discovery
Spaces and objects can be taken from familiar story genres: treasure boxes, outlaw hideout, alien space ship
Story expectations from props and characters, sound and visual style create anticipation, suspense, curiosity

9. Geographical Space as Cultural Code
East Coast, West Coast
Beltway (Washington)
The South, the Midwest
(other countries have similar shorthand)
Valley of the Shadow of Death
Underworld of the Dead
Mountaintop or Celestial habitation of the gods
(in multiple religious traditions)

10. Space as Emotional Code
Choice as a “fork in the road” or a “crossroads”
Despair as a forest (Dante’s inferno)
Being confused as being lost “at sea”
Drowning as being overwhelmed “out of his depth”
“Walking the straight and narrow”: moral orientation for spatial orientation