Making micro-choices in Dan Hett’s “C ya laterrrr”
Submission Type
Paper
Start Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 2:15 PM
End Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 3:15 PM
Location
Narrative & Worlds
Abstract
In her classic Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janey Murray suggests that, in some digital storytelling environments, an interactor’s agency is linked with their pleasure in “enact[ing] our most basic relationship to the world- our desire to prevail over adversity, . . . to master complexity, and to make our lives fit together.” Offering just such an opportunity for enactment, Dan Hett’s 2017 Twine game “C ya laterrrr” narrates the sequence of moments and days after Hett learns that his younger brother had been one of the victims of the Manchester Arena Bombing during an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017. Hett’s game, a performance of grief and a call for community, offers players a series of micro-choices that have little to no impact on the narrative progression, but that nevertheless provoke feelings of anxiety and dread as players travel towards an inevitable conclusion. For example, one can choose “Check social media feeds” or “open your laptop” or “call mum” or “call dad” and, with either choice, one still remains mostly on the same linear path.
The game finishes with a passage where the author reaches out to the player, explaining that the ending isn’t really an end and that “the only thing that really matters is that these words and thoughts are somewhere,” setting forth the use of the interactive platform to retell or, perhaps, to have others reenact this experience of loss and loss of agency. The many micro-choices the player clicks render them complicit in this performance and the experience. In my talk, I explore this concept of micro-choices, as exemplified in “C ya laterrrr”, particularly considering how they create this complicity and, relatedly, how this Twine story’s (micro-branching) structure intervenes on the pressures of linearity even as it rushes to its inevitable (non)ending.
Recommended Citation
Kelly, Kristine N., "Making micro-choices in Dan Hett’s “C ya laterrrr”" (2024). ELO (un)linked 2024. 13.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2024/narrativeandworlds/schedule/13
Making micro-choices in Dan Hett’s “C ya laterrrr”
Narrative & Worlds
In her classic Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janey Murray suggests that, in some digital storytelling environments, an interactor’s agency is linked with their pleasure in “enact[ing] our most basic relationship to the world- our desire to prevail over adversity, . . . to master complexity, and to make our lives fit together.” Offering just such an opportunity for enactment, Dan Hett’s 2017 Twine game “C ya laterrrr” narrates the sequence of moments and days after Hett learns that his younger brother had been one of the victims of the Manchester Arena Bombing during an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017. Hett’s game, a performance of grief and a call for community, offers players a series of micro-choices that have little to no impact on the narrative progression, but that nevertheless provoke feelings of anxiety and dread as players travel towards an inevitable conclusion. For example, one can choose “Check social media feeds” or “open your laptop” or “call mum” or “call dad” and, with either choice, one still remains mostly on the same linear path.
The game finishes with a passage where the author reaches out to the player, explaining that the ending isn’t really an end and that “the only thing that really matters is that these words and thoughts are somewhere,” setting forth the use of the interactive platform to retell or, perhaps, to have others reenact this experience of loss and loss of agency. The many micro-choices the player clicks render them complicit in this performance and the experience. In my talk, I explore this concept of micro-choices, as exemplified in “C ya laterrrr”, particularly considering how they create this complicity and, relatedly, how this Twine story’s (micro-branching) structure intervenes on the pressures of linearity even as it rushes to its inevitable (non)ending.
Bio
Kristine Kelly is a lecturer in the Writing Program at Case Western Reserve University. She teaches and researches digital literature and interactive storytelling. Her work also focuses on colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary Anglophone literature, especially related to travel and mobility.