Who's working on what, and storyline

Here's who is building what in our Second Life stadium:

Vicky, Matt, Chris - stadium
Ben - field
Mandela - bins, dumpsters etc
Walter - change room
Simon and Daniel - food stalls
Nathan - toilets
Eoin - seats for stadium
Stephanie - clothes
Jared - shrine/memorial
Jason - black and white toilet cubicle that is the gateway to the other world.

As agreed in class, we'll be basing our secret on the story written by Vicky, quoted below:

"There is toilet door say "KEEP OUT. Unauthorised people are not allowed." He ignore that sign and open the door. He was shocked. It was black and white colour bathroom. He enter and close the door behind him. Everything are in black and white. He stood and look at himself in the mirror, he was colour. He freak out then run out to the door. He open and was shocked. Outside the door, it was in grayscale. Stadium material are wood, not the metal. People there wear different style, its like they are in past. People keep staring at him because he's colour. He doesnt understand until he witness the fight between local people and corporate who are responsible for building the stadium. Local people got killed and they haunted the stadium. Workers there died from strange accidents. A guy have to figure out the mystery."

The story to date

Today the class decided on a direction for our story and town that we will build in Second Life:

- we decided to abandon the gun factory/weapons facility story idea

- instead, we decided that there would be a construction accident while building the stadium that killed a number of people. These people are buried in the stadium. When visitors now to go in the direction of the toilets, on the way they may be taken from a cubicle into a parallel 1930s "village of dead people".

We still need to work out who those people are and what happens when people end up in this village...

Worlds exercise from today - what we decided

Physical world:

• Characters could be humans, ghosts, vampires or cannibals
• Some people wanted only humans. We can decide this over the next few weeks as we build
• Characters will walk
• Some wanted no flying, others wanted to keep flying. Again, we can decide this later
• days are short
• characters eat food ("like hamburgers") from vendors and food stores
• get around via Segways
• terrain is green and flat. there are trees. Characters can grow veggies
• characters carry foam hands (?)
  
• wear tshirts with team colours and logos; all class members are team players, visitors are spectators who can't go into certain areas
  

Social world:

• communicate via SMS and phone
• town has one cop/sheriff/king/emperor/sultan
• maybe a security guard?
• are things good or bad? Class opinion on this was mixed
• characters swim for recreation and party
• there are no families or kids
• most characters live the same way
  

Facts to use to create our story about our stadium

Some more facts to help us create our story about the stadium:

- St Albans railway station established 1880s
- Aboriginal people lived in Melbourne's West at least for the last 38,000 years
- 1900 - an ammunition factory opened in Deer Park
- in mid 1920s, a number of new factories for industries started in Sunshine
- In 1922, the John Darling flour mill built next to Albion station
- In 1911, a 13 week strike by workers disrupted activity...there was a shortage of skilled labour
- Throughout WWII, women worked to produce munitions, explosives and weaponry in the West
- Melbourne Cup horses were trained in St Albans during the 1950s
- 1850s gold rush traffic passed Sunshine to get to Ballarat

Keep these in your head as you start to build your stadium...

Story idea brainstorm from today

The idea for our story as it stands:

- a haunted burial ground under the stadium and/or and army base/bomb factory
- people disappear, get shot off to another world. Disappear when going to the toilets (some kind of black hole - or cubicle saying 'do not enter'?)
- get shot off to the past, when the burial ground etc was active
-based on past of St Albans campus

Some research to date:
- was Nico explosives factory at St Albans in 1890s. Didn't last long.
- Explosion in 1894 when one person died.
- St Albans campus: was army base and explosives factory

We'll continue research next week....

Dale's blog site

Hi guys.

letting you know that Dale also has blog site where he is posting stuff from the Writing for Multimedia classes he's teaching at Flinders St and St Albans, as well as the Interactive Storytelling class he's teaching with the games students.

Check it out to catch up on more notes from your class and to see what the other classes are doing:

http://oztron.blogspot.com/

Second Life Town - class brainstorm

Today we worked out in class that our town in Second Life was going to be:
- a city, not a small town
- modern
- near the beach
- have a tropical theme.

Here is a list of buildings and objects we will start with (though this might change), with a list of people who will be working on them:

Beach - Walter/Ben
Theme park - Andrew
Cinema - Chris/Taylor
Nightclub - Daniel/Jarred/Stephanie
Monuments - Eoin
Volcano - Mandela
Gym/Footy Oval - Nathan/Simon
Supermarket - Jason
Race track/motorbike track - Jarred/Daniel/Matt