Sarah Fay Krom: [Verge]

Visual language is a primary form of communication in storytelling media. As it transitions to serve the needs of game-based and interactive stories, expressive qualities are lost in translation in the move to a computational foundation. The question in searching for the missing palette is: can the same rich expressivity found in traditional media be achieved with a visual language that is now interactive?

[Verge], by Digital Arts and New Media MFA student Sarah Fay Krom, is an interactive storyworld that explores the answer to this question by recasting the cinematic frame as a playable space. The dramatic intent of visual composition is transformed into a conversation, enlisting the player’s help in discovering how an interactive environment might use the cinematic frame to communicate story between the player and the storyworld.