Crafting Trajectories

Abstract

The overall rhythmic structure of an interactive experience creates a moving trajectory that through anticipation pulls our present and future attention ever onwards. It creates a journey over time, as composer Bree van Reyk puts it. Crafting the rhythmic structure of this journey is now our focus in this chapter. We look at the way rhythmic structures can work to unify an experience and outline practical techniques that creative practitioners can use to help map and conceptualise the overall rhythmic flow of a work. Then we focus on techniques for designing the structural dynamics of a rhythm. Many of these structural dynamics are also articulated by game designers Patrick Cook and Ilija Melentijevic , whose interview introduces this chapter. These two designers work for the Australian company SMG Studio where they have designed games for mobile, tablet, console and desktop. In their interview Patrick Cook and Ilija Melentijevic describe the structural rhythms of small-screen casual games and longer-form big-screen games. They speak about respecting players’ investment of time in a game and staying true to the patterns of expectation that a game promises its players. As they point out, this respect is something that must also be given to the inherent momentum of the game form itself. Balancing out the dynamics of the trajectory of an interactive experience while providing multiple ways that rhythmic possibilities can combine and develop, is one of the fundamental design tasks we face as designers of interactive rhythmic structures .

Banal music raises common anticipations then immediately satisfies them with obvious resolutions…Well-written music takes its good time satisfying anticipations. It teases, repeatedly instigating an anticipation and hinting at its satisfaction, sometimes swooping toward a resolution only to hold back with a false cadence. (Jourdain 1997, p. 319)