Helena Barbas

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa | NOVA · Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) - Laboratório de Humanidades Digitais

Game design is not emotion engineering. The French structuralism's methodology, story-oriented, allows the creation of a minimal structure, fractal, to be developed as IF or a game. Here, in detail, is the making-of two serious game projects. In “Instory,” the narrative is created bottom-up, ruled by the space, an epitome for other cultural heritag...

Serious Games Reloaded Helena Barbas Game design is not emotion engineering. The French Structuralism’s methodology, story-oriented, allows the creation of a minimal structure, fractal, to be developed as IF or a game. Here, in detail, is the making-of two serious game projects. In “Instory”, the narrative is created bottom-up, ruled by the space (...

Considering that all kinds of simulations are based on verisimilitude and take their referents from the real world, this presentation will focus on the tools-exosuit, helmet-holographic prototypes, and «design fiction» elements in the film "Iron Man 3". Some Sci-fi works can become prophetic a-posteriori, or more humbly show what is presently calle...

The object of this paper is to discuss the concept(s) of Design Fiction(s), and to elaborate a critical re-definition of the terms from Literary Theory and Narratology's standpoints. By so doing, it aims to propose a clarification of the types of objects frameable by Design Fiction (DF), and shorten the gap between the latter and Interactive Fictio...

Video games are driving technological and societal advancements that serve gamers and non-gamers alike from entertainment to edutainment. Video game software is one of the fastest growing industries in the worldwide economy. 75% of the most frequent gamers believe that playing video games provides mental stimulation or education. Recent cognitive t...

The increasing weight of user-chooser participation in Cloud Computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) urges the making of conventions, terminologies and ontologies that may frame their usage in particular in what concerns tagging the objects of IoT. This labelling will be – is already – surpassing its mere cataloguing mission, being used to conve...

Considering Alan Turing's challenge in «Computing Machinery and Intelligence» (1950) – can machines play the «imitation game»? – it is proposed that the requirements of the Turing test are already implicitly being used for checking the credibility of virtual characters and avatars. Like characters, Avatars aim to visually express emotions (the exte...

From a narratological perspective, this paper aims to address the theoretical issues concerning the functioning of the so called «narrative bifurcation» in data presentation and information retrieval. Its use in cyberspace calls for a reassessment as a storytelling device. Films have shown its fundamental role for the creation of suspense. Interact...

A 20 de Fevereiro de 1909, Marinetti 1 lançava o seu «Manifesto do Futurismo» publicado no jornal Le Fígaro em Paris, onde refere no ponto 4: 4. Afirmamos que a magnificência do mundo foi enriquecida por uma beleza nova: a beleza da velocidade. Um carro de corrida com a capota adornada com grossos tubos semelhantes a serpentes de hálito explosivo.....

This paper describes the problems that had to be faced during the elaboration of an interactive narrative for the Instory project (http://img.di.fct.unl.pt/InStory/) directed by Prof. Nuno Correia. The project had the goal of defining and implementing a platform for mobile and cinematic storytelling, information access, and gaming activities, in Qu...

Mary Magdalene - History and Myth Mary of Magdal, the sinner who followed Jesus to Simon's house, anoints Christ's feet and cleans them with her hair – later, the first witness of the Resurrection – is so fascinating that she frees herself from all the other actors in the evangelic drama. Tradition reveals her to be an amalgam of the feminine silh...

This paper describes the process and problems that had to be faced during the elaboration of a digital interactive narrative for the Instory project (http://img.di.fct.unl.pt/InStory/) implanted in «Quinta da Regaleira», Sintra, Portugal, and classified as World Heritage by Unesco. It also explores some of the practical and theoretical issues in wh...

The aim of this paper is to address some theoretical issues concerning the narrative practice in cyberspace. From a narratological perspective it intends to clarify the functioning of time and space in storytelling. For that purpose it traces the concept(s) of memory inherited from rhetoric; the use of memory as a narrative device in traditional ac...