Researcher: When you were playing through the story, when did you guys first notice or ssupect the other player might have something to do with your story? Participant 1: Around act 2 I think, somewhere... firstly, i was given two choices to tell Sarah something or to help her in the plan, and er, check for people and when she doing a safe or try to look for money or something, and I chose to stick to the plan and at that point I somehow, like, it clicked that I might be, err, influencing the other player. Somehow. Later, there was blue text "The other player chose this" and from then on i was pretty sure that he had the same thing done... the same thing that I did to him, he did to me, like, he had a choice Researcher: okay. Interesting, what about you [p2]? Participant 2: probably wasn't until i saw the text at the top that saiad "the other player made this choice", or whatever it was it said. Researcher: interseting, so that was the first thing that tipped you off? Participant 2: yeah, until then, it didn't seem like there was anything else affecting it, that i couldtell Researcher: okay, fair enough! So, so when you first saw that blue text that said the other player had made a decision, how did that affect... how did that make you feel, what did it make you think about? Participant 2: it made me wonder what other choices they had... Participant 1: definitely, i... thats one part, and what else.... i was just happy that he chose that! it sounded like the better otion, but maybe he chose the worst path, i don't know... Participant 2: that was.. that was the other thing, because obviously each of the choices has like a name at the top of the block of text, and i was wodnering whether we saw the same name for those decisions made, or not. and whether or not that might affect their future decision making. Researcher: interesting, was this something you were thinking about at the time? Participant 2: err Researcher: or is it something you just thought about, sort of now Participant 2: yeah, it was at the time when i saw that, i thought, i wonder if they're aware of which choices i've made? and this might make them, this might affect their judgement.. Participant 1: yeah, exactly, yeah Participant 2: but.. i get the feeling we were given different like, header text for the decisions. Based on what ended up happening, but im not certain. Researcher: interesting, so did you find that that affected your decision making? Participant 2: not really. Researcher: interesting, so what were you mainly thinking about when you were making a choice? Participant 2: mostly minimising risk! Researcher: what risk? Participant 2: well, based on the context, it seemed this is... it seemed like the kind of situation where it would be quite easy tog et your character killed by making bad choies Participant 1: yeah, exactly Participant 2: so it was... mostly trying to avoid that Participant 1: yeah, i was completely the same, i tried to go for the good edning, and mostly do the right decisions, even though there was death and... you know, not really the good things, but i tried to do the right thing. Researcher: Why did you try to do the right thing? Participant 1: i just... didn't want to see the characters ina bad position, like, i just like a story... i want them to have a happy ending. And i tried to help them. Or I tried to help the other person help me to come up with a good ending together. Something ? Researcher: interesting. Participant 1: yeah, like, i noticed i could have given him.. it coould have gone a competely different way, if i had chosen at the beginning something else. or at least, i think it would have gone a different way. i can see how if i... wasn't inquisitive enough, i wouldn't have known a lot of the story or, because i wanted to know what happened with the other person, what their story is. Thats why i kept on trying to pull the information from them. Researcher: so, were you trying to see the story from a different perspective? Participant 1: hrm.. something that.. so, my character, i just wanted to know the story of why the other person did the things that i saw, and felt the consequences of. Researcher: So when you.. were there any decisions that you made or decisions that the other person made that particularly made you... that particularly stood out to you as impactful or interesting, or that generally sticks out in your mind? Participant 2: i thought it was interesting that you chose to tell me about this data that you found Participant 1: oh yeah Participant 2: and that, i think, made me somewhat assume you were going to be taking the friendlier options, shall we say, in the future, which probably did affect some of the decisions that I made later on. I dont know how much. Participant 1: yeah at the end, i feel like the decision, like, where we were going back and forth talking... i feel that the decision to either do something really bad or just give you the keys, but i wanted to understand why you were doing this, so i kept on asking, then after a while i got an option to go with you. And, i clicked on that, and the first few sentences were like, i draw the gun. and i was like, "wait, i didnt click the wrong one?", and you know, everything turned out fine. and thats the... yeah, so, i could have killed you Participant 2: yeah Participant 1: probably, and i dont know if you had the same option for me. Participant 2: i did Participant 1: yeah Participant 2: i was actually planning to Participant 1: yeah, i was.. i had a small suspicion that you probably had the same option, and that you probably could kill me, but i didnt really care, because i wanted to.. understand, the story, from your perspetive, and understand your actions. yes, i also had a feeling that they... that you probably had the option to shoot me. Participant 1: by the final scene you mean the..? Researcher: the last dialog. Participant 1: uh-huh, yeah. Researcher: so, how did it affect you, knowing, or even suspecting, sorry, that rhe other person might have the option to shoot you? Participant 2: it made me slightly more hesitant to go for the shooting option, because if the other person also has that choice, it isnt guaranteed that that is going to work out great for me, or my character, if it was.. it it was the same situation but only one of the characters had a gun, say only my character had a gun, i absoolutey would have shot you immediately. but because i wasnt sure say, if we both chose to shoot at the same time, i dont know whether that would have actually worked out great for me. so i was seeing if we could get through it without any depth. that was mainly out of concern for my own character, rahter than any altruistic intentions. Researcher: Okay, so, during the earlier parts of the story, when you were exploring the memories, how did you think you were affecting the other person? did you think you were affecting the oother person? Participant 2: so at the very start, i didnt think i was, the first point where i thought it might be affecting, well, i would be affecting the other person was during the confrontation with the boss where todd gets berated, but until then, i had the feeling that what was hapepning was that there wasn't much else that could have happened. although apparently that wass wrong, because you had some options before then? Participant 1: yeah exactly, i had either erm, stick to a plan or do my own thing. and i chose to stick to the plan. and thats this moment where i thought, this probably affected the other player somehow. Researcher: mhm Participant 1: when i was given a choice. Researcher: So, when you thought it might affect the othe rplayer, did that affect you in any way? Participant 2: yeah, it changed... so, if i didn't think it would affect te other player, this is the option to either stand up for todd or be quiet, i probably would have chosen to stay quiet, but I chose to stand up for him, because i thought that might make you more grateful, and more likely to do other things that might benefit me in the future Participant 1: ah, yeah. he, we Participant 2: strong theme running through all my responses Researcher: were you trying to play the other player then? Participant 2: absolutely Participant 1: so, you might say you did succeed, but i mean, i was half and half thinking about you as the, as sarah, who is making the choices, the other half thinking about todd and sarah as seperate... just as a story, and like, the fact that you made choices tha taffect my point of view and my story, was a bit disconnected from the fact that i knew you were doing that, if that makes sense? Participant 2: yeah Participant 1: like, theres a story, then theres you who changes the story, but i read the story anyway, so its like.. its a bit disconnected Participant 2: see, for me, it was the opposite of that, i was very much thinking of you as being todd Participant 1: yeah, exactly Participant 2: making decisions like, trying to think about what the character would do, as opposed to what i would do, which.. wasn't always the easiest, given that i still dont know why the organisation was so interested in sarah, or what all of that data was, but i can only assume it was bad Participant 2: yeah.. i don't.. i have no idea Researcher: so, you were very much thinking about... it sounds like you were thinking about todd and the other player as being synonymous Participant 2: yeah... mostly.. < <- sounds uncertain/hestitant>, at least, i think i was, consciously, i dont know about subconsciously, obviously Researcher: so you said there was a disconnect between the idea of the other player and sarah? Participant 1: yeah, exactly Researcher: so, how did those.. how did that affect your experience, thinking about it in those terms? Participant 1: well, it get me emotionally invested in the characters, and like, i could, they were.. a couple, i don't know, they were together doing heists and all that, and i thought that they had a connection, so i tried to keep that, and work through that. and the other player was just... mm, was like, it added, he added to the experience, if i can say it like that. like, the fact that sarah wasn't exactly my partner, and that she could do something that isn't expected, because the other player can control that, made me a bit more... even more engaged, because something might happen that completely turns everything around and the story changes, and that's.. yeah, it made me more engaged. Researcher: so, would you say the story was more... unpredictable? Or.. Participant 1: yeah, so, there were a few parts... yeah, like, a lot of the story, how it falls out, you learn on the go, while its happening, and thats part of the unpredictable things , yeah, the fact the other player also could do something unpredictable added to that so, yeah, i would say that... the fact that the game, the story, was not predictable, added to the experience. Researcher: okay, so.. Participant 1: yeah, especially for the end, i was expecting him to shoot me or do something other than that and.. i was just stalling for time and trying to.. yeah Researcher: okay, so how did the flashbacks, the memory part of the story, and that final confrontation... how did they differ for you guys? Participant 2: well, i guess to some extent with the memories, you know there's a maximum amount you can affect the story, because it has to have gone one way for that to have happened in the past to lead to the adventure you're currently in, so, i know im not going to get the option to kill Todd in one of the memories, unless it turns out to be a game about time travel, which seems unlikely. Erm... outside of that, i don't know? I think, for me, at least they seemed like it was just... still part of the same general story, so it.. i didnt feel like there was any big difference other than the obvious, err, lack of murder potential. Participant 1: yeah, im mostly the same, i didn't really think about the memories, and err, acts as different things, like i felt them as part of one, complete story, with... just retrospections, but yeha, exactly, i didn't.. i knew that i wouldnt kill you, because in the future i would... yeah, time travel. Researcher: what about your perception of the other player? did that change between your confrontation and the memories? Participant 1: for me, i would say yeah, so, in the memories, the choices the other player made weren't that obvious, like i could see the blue text or understand what he might have done, but it wasn't as in my face as wen i was waiting for an answer from them and we were actually talking back and forth, so that's the big difference for me, between the memories and the other story Participant 2: id pretty much agree with that, bebcause obviously in the confrontation, its... the switching betweeen who's making the decision is a lot more rapid fire. Researcher: what did you think to that? Participant 2: it did make me wonder, when i was waiting for you to make a decision, and i still had two of the options and i think they were either 'shoot you' or 'agree to say', what would happen if i'd chosen to shoot. whether it would wait for you to make a decision before resolving or whether that would happen instantly, but that's less to do with the narrative and more to do with just the implementation Researcher: okay Participant 1: that's actually a good point, i didn't realise that i was thinking if i shoot him now, he wouldn't be able to explain to me, maybe. yeah, so suddenly i had, if i shoot him now, does his screen just immediately turn off, or does he still have one option, maybe to dodge the bullet, i don't know, or something. so yeah. Participant 2: i think, it also actually did make me think a lot more about the decisions, because in most of the previous sections where the decisions were somewhat infrequent, I usually made them very quickly, but when it got to that point where there's a lot more happening, i spent a lot more time thinking about how to get the information i wanted out of you, as fast as possible so i could decide to shoot you. Participant 1: yeah, but im not sure in the end, when i decided i had enough information, i immediately clicked on the 'go with you', and i'm not sure if.. so, i don't think you had any choice when i cicked that. Participant 2: yeah, so what i would have done if it had been like, you'd offered to go with me, is just shoot you. but instead.... Participant 1: it didn't give you a choice Participant 2: that happened and like, okay, what now, he's offered to go with you, so, you take him with you, which isn't what i would have done, but obviously you know, to some extent there are restrictions on how many options you can provide to someone. Researcher: okay, so lets move on a little bit, so for a bit of bookkeeping, before how this whole scenario began, how well did you know the other player? Participant 2: not at all. Researcher: not at all? Participant 1: nope Researcher: cool, that's just for my reference, more than anything else. So, in general, when you were playing, how often did you think about the other player? Not at all? All the time? Any other description you want to put forward? Participant 1: occasionally, for me. any.. at the end, way more. so we started on almost, where is the other player, and it was like... er, just a curve. and at the end, i was literally talking with the other player, so it was...like that Participant 2: i mean, during the first half, i was kind, idley wondering about what kind of choices they were seeing, and, what like, whether they were seeing the same parts of the story as me or whether they were seeing something completely different, but generally, when think, like, i was only thinking about the character, rather than the other player making decisions. Researcher: interesting, so, when you were thinking about the other player, when you were considering any aspect of that sort of experience, did you think much about who the other player was, or just that there was another player? Participant 2: i don't think so. i think maybe, if, we'd known each other before, and i might have some information about how they might react in a situation, i might have thought a lot more about the other player. but given that, we basically dont know each other, like, i recognise you from around campus but thats it, i have no way of telling, what decisions you're more or less likely to make, so, it doesn't really... its not even helpful to think more about the other player as opposed to the character thats presented. Participant 1: yeah, pretty much the same for me. yeah. Researcher: okay, so. you mentioned earlier, that, i've notcied that you've interchangably been using the words game and story, is it the case that it was something you were trying to win? or... was it, what are your thoughts on that basically? Participant 2: so for me, it became pretty obvious early on that sarah as a character pretty much had the goal of get away from everything and... not be found, and have a quiet life, probably. So, like, for me i think i kind of internalised that escaping from everything is kind of the objective of both the game and the story, and any other outcome would feel like... erm, feel like i had soomehow failed the character. Researcher: interseting, that you'd let the character down? Participant 2: yeah, kind of. Because i feel like er, for instance, if i'd chosen to stay with the organisation at the end, that to me felt like it would be entirely contrary to everything i'd learned about the characters, both their experience and like, what their actual goals were. and, that, would just seem wrong. Researcher: okay Participant 1: well, from my point of view, todd was pretty much clueless abou what's happened, i mean, i might just not have understood a lotp Participant 2: well that's the impression i got as well Participant 1: yeah, then, and, that's why, i didn't have like an objective, i just wanted to finish the story, the objective could have been to finish it with a good ending, or sometihng thats resembling a good story, but other than that... yeah, for me, it was yeah, more like story, with inputs from other players. rather than a game that i'm trying to win for myself. like im trying to win for the whole characters... setup. the other player too, so yeah, something like that Participant 2: yeah, i think i'd agree with that Researcher: so you were trying to guide the story? Participant 1: yeah Researcher: mm. Participant 1: yeah, guide the story. Participant 2: i think if, at the beginning, say, you'd told.. you'd told me this is the specific, this is thew inning state for the game, and if that had differed from my opinion about what the characters would have wanted to do, i probably would have intentionally lost the game, because it would feel wrong. Participant 1: mm, yeah. yeah, exactly Participant 2: it felt a lot more like a story, than, something like... a standard RPG, where you just... this is the goal, go do it, who cares whether its right Participant 1: probably mostly because it was actually like a book, you read it, and we have the... we know that books don't change when you read them, so that might be something engrained that we subconsciously think about, that the story is already written and we just try to read it and make the choices that would fit in with the story Participant 2: maybe, i hadn't thought about that. id be interseted to see if it was presente din a different format, whether that would significantly change the experience. Participant 1: i mean, if it was an rpg in like, 3d space and all that, it would probably be... different, in the feel, for me at least. Participant 2: i don't know, it might be. Researcher: fair enough! Thinking about the experience as a whole, how do you think having the other player there affected your experience? Participant 1: for me it, was more engagement, so, i actually felt more engaged with the story and with the characters, and if it was just im reading through a story making choices for myself without any other input, then it would have been a bit more boring. because yeah, it's still a nice story, its still an itneresting story, but the fact that another player could change what im seeing and how the story unfolds actually made it more fun and interesting for me. Researcher: interesting, is there anything else to elaborate on that? Participant 1: not... that's generally so, it made the game more fun. it made the story, game, more fun to play. yeah. Researcher: what about you [p2]? Participant 2: for me, it definitely affected how i interacted with todd as a character, becayse knowing there was an actual player making decisions, i felt like the actions i made were more likely to have significant, or a useful affected later on when they're making decisions, whereas if i knew it was just a standard text adventure, then what todd does in each situation is pre-programmed, so its a lot harder to tell whether or not they're actually going to respond like a person when you make certan decisions. for example, when i chose during the boss scene to stand up for todd, i feel like knowing there was a person that would see the result of that made me more likely to pick that option, because i know that a person is going to see that as like a nice thing that someone's done, and be grateful, whereas a character that's been written months ago might not necessarily react that way, in the end. it might be that because of the way that its been set up that that decision doesn't ultimately affect something they do later on, whereas when there's an actual person seeing the result of all the choice you know that to some extent, it will always affect what they do later Researcher: okay, hrm. Okay, so last bit of bookkeeping is just: have you got much experience with interactive narratives, or thiings like telltale games, or...? Participant 1: what do you mean by much experience? Researcher: have you played many, or read many before? Participant 1: ive looked at them, studied them as in how they make the choices within the story, for the game course, ive looked into the choice trees and.. whatever it was, i dont remember, but thats mostly... i dont really normally play games like that. Researcher: okay Participant 2: ive played a fair few text adventures and other similar type.. ostensibly interactive narrative games, and ive also played a fair amount of DnD from both the DM and player side. and a lot of avalon and resistance... which, given its entirely about not knowing exactly what decisions other players and making and is very backstsabby, i feel like it was quite influential in the decisions i made in this specific story. Researcher: mm Participant 2: erm, so i lied to your character than i necessarily would have done, if i hadn't spent quite a long time lying to and trying to find lies in groups of friends, through games. Researcher: gotcha, okay, so... last question i think, for now, is... how do you think.. you know, we've now spent about half an hour talking about the story and the experiences you guys had. do you thnink that's changed your perception on that at all, or what have you thought since just discussing it? Participant 1: well, i realised the scope of it is much greater than i initially imagined. so, at the beginning, i wasn't... like, i'm coming in without an idea whats going to happen, and slowly my brain fills the whole story up, and at the beginning i didn't really make the connection that the other player also created the story with me and plays the story, but by the end of the game and by the end of this interview here, it's like dawned on me that its much.. more connected with the other player, somehow. like, at the beginning, i was telling you how the other player and the story were seperate, but now i can see how... it's so, it all comes together. Researcher: okay, what do you think of it now that you've put it all together in your head? Participant 1: well, i would definitely play stuff like that if given the chance, because it was fun for me to experience, and the fact that i normally don't really read books at all, or... i think actually shows that this, which is a story, like a book almost, actually makes me want to read more stories like this. Researcher: huh, interesting. what about you [p2]? Participant 2: erm, so for me, when iw as going through it, i ofteen felt a little bit lost during the story or while making decisions, because i felt that to some extent there was a lack of context or backstory as to what was going on, and occasionally while reading through the actual prose found certain uses of phrase or things that, er, I found a little bit off. but looking back on it, i think that that stuff wasn't really as important as it felt at the time, because it doesn't really matter if I havea ny idea what this organisation did or why they were so interested in sarah, because the important parts of it were the interaction between the characters. and so, you don't need to establish the setting so much, because the character, if the characters are reasonably well defined, you can put them in pretty much any setting and expect them to behave in consistent ways. which has made me think that.. potentially a lot of the like, descriptive prose stuff is more... unnecessary, than i thought before. so like, a this point, i really don't mind that i have no idea what,, for instance, was in those files that you found. whereas at the time, i was, i found it quite frustrating like, what is this information about her? why is she so desperate to get rid of it? Participant 1: yeah, i was pretty much the same with extracting the information from you, understanding why you were doing all that. Researcher: mm, huh, well alright, we should probably round it out there guys. i believe you had somewhere to be at 1, right? Participant 1: yeah, it's so it's just... 2 minutes walk. Researcher: cool, alright, so we should definitely call it a day at that. i'll leave the recording going for a few more minutes just in case anything interesting is said. But yeah, did you guys enjoy the story? Participant 1: yeah Participant 2: yeah, it was good Researcher: so you guys are the only two i've seen, where todd has left with sarah Participant 2: oh really? Researcher: yeah Participant 2: to be fair, i was trying to stop that happening Researcher: so this is... Participant 1: ..who normally dies? Researcher: ..so when you couldn't stop that... hrm? Participant 1: who normally dies? Researcher: todd i think dies more often.. have we had a... nobody has stayed, a handful of todds have let sarah leave. Participant 1: yeah, i was going to do that if i wasn't given the option to Researcher: so that was probably, i'd probably say it was a 50/50 split between ;someone getting shot and letting sarah leave. in no situation did sarah stay... Participant 1: yeah, makes sense. Researcher: ...at all. and this is the only t ime when todd has left with sarah. Participant 1: wow, okay Researcher: so why did you actually choose to leave with sarah in the end? Participant 1: i felt like they had a story to complete, something er, like, i could see they'd done a lot in the past together, at least that's what I made up and all the mainr easons that... i don't know, in my mind, they were together. something like that. Researcher: fair enough! just wondering why you were the only person to make that choice. but we have had a couple of accidental shootings happen too. Participant 2: i can see that happening in that situation though. Participant 1: yeah Researcher: we've had the situation once where they've been going to click and the nodes have changed and they've accidentallly hit... shoot instead Participant 2: oh, yeah Researcher: well, thank you both for doing the experiment! glad it was interseting at least. Participant 2: it was, i think... erm, about specifically to do with the actual browser page, when there aren't any more nodesto choose because you're waiting for the other player to make a decision and it just says like "There are no options left" or whatever it is. I think, if you weren't already consciously aware of the fact that there was someone else making decisions that will affect what happens, err, that would have... if i didn't know that, that would have caused me just to leave, very early on. Because.. yeah, i guess i'm done, that was weird, it didn't go anywhere! Researcher: thats why i had to very explicitly say at the start, and i couldn't tell you you were waiting on the other person, because part of what i was looking at with the study was how you developed awareness of the other person's actions Participant 2: right, that makes sense Researcher: and how you understood how you'd affected the other person, and then how all that affected your experience of the whole narrative Participant 1: mmhm Researcher: so i was particularly looking a t how certain aspects of the story, that were designed in very sepcific ways, changed your experience. as well as in general, what doing the whole multiplauer story thing did to the experience of doing an interactive narrative. Participant 1: really interesting. Researcher: yeah, ive got to got write up 11 runthroughs of this now, 11 interviews, and see if i can actually come to some conclusions! Participant 2: well, at least you dont have to transcribe it by hand. Researcher: yeah, i do.. Participant 2: do you?! Researcher: yeah, i've got to transcribe all of them. Participant 2: oh, dont you.. Researcher: yeah, i've got the recordings, but i've got to delete the recordings because it's identifiable... Participant 2: but on the information sheet, it said that the transcription was going to be done by software? Researcher: yeah, turns out all the software that can do it is crap. Participant 2: ah, im not surprised by that. sorry to have been talking for so long then! Researcher: it's fine, i'd rather have the data and spend more time typing it up than...