Also, another question: Do I need an essay and thesis explaining what I'm trying to do here. Because that was one of the concerns I had after talking about my project at the end of class. I am trying to relate this to both Joy and Lyotard and how simple changed in an "evolution" of a project and getting it in the wrong hands can be disaster.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Choose your own ending.
OK, All pages will be posted as comments and will only contain the written ones I have done which is to page 19. I have to roughly page 60 with thoughts except I find it hard to get ahead of myself because I keep having to retrace steps and change page numbers so they will remain just "thoughts" until I work further on this. And also posting these isn't very fun and would rather not post that many times.
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Page 1: Title page and table of contents
Page 2: Introduction
Page 3: Characters with pictures.
Name: Sam Springs
Job Title: CEO
Years Experience: 29 years
Hobbies: When he is not overseeing the work on the company’s next project, Sam is usually at home with this family. One of his biggest concerns in life is the safety of his young children. His latest innovations have all dealt with this issue, and he has been pressing the company to move in this direction for some time. He is rarely seen out on the town.
_______________________________________
Name: Howard Bell Arbuckle
Job Title: Senior Partner
Years Experience: 48 years
Hobbies: For someone who works in the science industry, Howard does not like the new technologies being pumped out by even his own company. If he had it his way, he would send everything back fifty years to the way things used to be. The technology world is getting too complicated and this old-timer is just about to retire.
____________________________________
Name: Tony Stark
Job Title: Head Design Engineer
Years Experience: 11
Hobbies: Tony has definitely watched too many movies, as all he cares about is being the next Iron Man or Batman and tends to only try to develop military machines. One day his influence will cause him to create the perfect weapon, but until then it is just a bunch of robots with faulty weapons and wires.
Page 4: Characters with picture.
Name: Lee Jones
Job Title: Entry Level Engineer
Years Experience: 2
Hobbies: Jones has just graduated from MIT and was the outcast in his class. He partied harder than anyone and was still the smartest. He has brought his no-ambition-do-what-I-want attitude to work and it shows. It has been two years and no one knows his name because he never puts himself in a position to succeed or be recognized, yet has made his presence known in the night scene.
____________________________________
Name: Marshall Matthews
Job Title: Town Sherriff
Years Experience: 18
Hobbies: Marshall is a fun loving guy who couldn’t be happier as a cop. He doesn’t have a family but is friends with nearly the entire town and cares of nothing but their safety. If he had it his way there would be no research except if it had to do with making the lives of his officers easier. He has lost a few friends over the years and would prefer to lose no more.
____________________________________
Name: Jessica Saint-Pierre
Job Title: Unemployed
Years Experience: 0
Hobbies: Stereotypical girlfriend who is just in it for the money; a.k.a. gold digger. She wants nothing more than a fast, cute car, expensive clothes, and big diamonds. She will push you to choose every job that pays the most no matter what the requirements are; even if it means being from home for long times, because she likes money more than our friendly narrator.
Page 5: Characters with pictures.
Name: Tim Reynolds
Job Title: Band Member, Team Leader
Years Experience: 13
Hobbies: Tim has had his name on numerous tracks that are being played on the radio, but takes his greatest pleasures in being the creative mind at the company. He is not an engineer, but rather the team leader brought into to promote creativity and push the team over the hump when they hit mental road blocks.
____________________________________
Name: Leroy Jenkins
Job Title: Local Drug Lord
Years Experience: 6
Hobbies: This is the man to know in town if you need the hookups. Not just with drugs but with girls, parties, VIP entrances, and anything else a person could desire. He isn’t all bad, he has never murdered or done anything else illegal expect for push large quantities of drugs. With his money he has his younger cousins fed and housed with him when they had no place else to go. He is marked with a red ‘X’ in many people’s books but none really give him a chance, although he might just get them high and waste potential.
____________________________________
Name: Jodi Strong
Job Title: Major, United States Army
Years Experience: 15
Hobbies: Jodi is one badass lady. She doesn’t take anything from anyone and is concerned only with military supremacy. She would get along with Tony perfectly except for the fact she would rather not rely on robotics. If it was up to Jodi, everything would depend upon human run machines. Cold hard explosives and big flashy nukes are the only way to go.
As you walk up to the massive automatic doors of Green Technologies, the anticipation is killing you. How will you do? What will you work on? Will people like you? These are the questions everybody faces on their first day of work, but your first day seems so much worse than everyone else’s. The walls seem like an endless maze of new faces and futuristic toys until finally you reach your desk. The journey is over, but a new one begins which will last much longer than the first walk down the long strange corridors. The first face you see are the pearly whites of your personal secretary. She says there are already some people wanting to meet you, and get you started on their teams. She waits a while for you to get settled and then buzzes in with the itinerary for the afternoon:
If you would like to meet with the CEO, Mr. Springs, please continue to page 7.
If you would like to take an office tour to meet some coworkers, please continue to page 8.
If you would like to get started on your own, please continue to page 9.
Page 7: Slowly but surely, your secretary leads you through a series of elevators, escalators, and security locked doorways into which she plugged her I.D. number into until finally you see colossal double doors with a powerful silhouette on the other side. The only writing on the doors is “Samuel Springs, CEO” but behind that stands the most influential man in the technology industry. The doors finally swing open after what seems like hours of waiting, but was really only mere seconds. Mr. Springs has a welcoming smile as you enter. The papers are shuffled around on his desk as he pulls out a resume and portfolio with your name on it. “Very Impressive, sir, very impressive. We are lucky to land such a talented young man on our team. But before we get started we need to figure out what sector you want to try out.” You’re overwhelmed that he knows you and already has such kind words, but keep your happiness to yourself and continue listening. “There are currently three openings that you should fit into nicely. The first will be with our best designer, Tony Stark, who is currently working on a few different robotics projects. A second choice will be to join the creative team under the leadership of Tim Reynolds where you can continue your graduate research and explore more things. The last option would be to work with the government and help them on some defense issues.” As you sit there and ponder and look over the current projects that each is working on, you finally come to you conclusion:
If you would like to work with Tony, please continue to page 10.
If you would like to work with Tim, please continue to page 13.
If you would like to work with the government, please continue to page 14.
Page 8: The offices are very spread out, so before lunch only have time for quick introductions with everyone in the research and design departments. There are so many different personalities that all somehow ended up here together. “So many different people, I can’t wait to meet all of them even more,” you think to yourself as it nears lunch time. When it comes lunch time, there are a few different people you want to meet and see that a couple coworkers that you want to work with first are all going at the same time, so you decide to go catch up with them. It turns out that all have different tastes, and are going to all go to different places. Since lunch is not enough time to get to know them completely, you will probably end up spending the rest of the day with them as they help you around the facilities even more.
If you would like to eat and take the tour with Howard, please continue to page 15.
If you would like to eat and take the tour with Lee, please continue to page 16.
If you would like to eat and take the tour with Tony, please continue to page 11.
Page 9: As she buzzes in, your feelings of overwhelming excitement do not go away so you decide to just take the rest of the day to get situated and arrange your office. It takes a lot longer than initially planned and you didn’t get to meet anyone around the offices. At the end of the day you see Lee walking by looking like he needs a friend. “Hey man, how’s it going? Good first day or what?” he asks as you walk to the parking lot together. “Yeah, it was decent, didn’t get to meet many people though. Tomorrow is another day to get started on that,” you reply. “Well, I’m headed to the bar down the street and we might see some workers there, it’s a common spot for us all to meet. You’re more than welcome if you want.” After this long day, an ice cold beer would be awesome, except your girlfriend, Jessica, left you a few messages during the day to come over. You told her that you might be able to stop over after work but wouldn’t know if you’d make it. After a short walk to your car, you come to the conclusion that you:
If you would like to go out with Lee, please continue to page 17.
If you would like to meet up with Jessica, please continue to page 18.
If you would like to go home and relax, please continue to page 19.
Page 10: “Great choice! Meet with him tomorrow and he’ll explain everything he’s working on. If you ever need anything let me know and don’t be afraid to come hang out, have a great afternoon.” The next day offers an even more exciting walk to your office, after looking up Tony Stark’s credentials. He’s been every one of the most influential jobs in the field of robotics in the last ten years.
Please continue to page 12.
Page 11: Looking around for Tony was a job within itself, and trying to find him on his breaks were even harder. When you finally locate him, he has already eaten and is too busy the rest of the day to show you around. He says:
If you would like to wait and he’ll show you around tomorrow, please continue to page 12.
If you would like to get a tour from someone else, please go back to page 8 and choose another.
Page 12: Early in the morning, you approach what looks to be a huge scrap covered gymnasium, but on second glance you see him. Cautiously, you proceed and see that he is working on a metal suit that allows the user to fly with turbo packs. As he see’s you out of the corner of his eyes, he crashes his prototype and just stands up and laughs, “just a few more tinks and she’ll be up and running.” As you spend the entire after noon with Tony, he explains his other projects. His first one is just a microchip that will revolutionize the toy industry, except he doesn’t much care for this so he offers “If you want you can have that and finish it yourself, I got too bored to do anything else on it.” Other than that, everything in the entire hall was based on his robotic man designing. For the majority of the afternoon, you’re in awe of the futuristic designs he has come up with. Finally he says, “If you want you can just hang out in here and be a partner on my robotics squad. There isn’t much glory to be had by us designers but it sure is a lot of fun!” So finally, the day concludes and he wanders how it went, and inquires what you want to start on, you immediately response with great excitement:
If you would like to work on his robot design, please continue to page 20.
If you would like to work on the microchips, please continue to page 21.
If you would like to go crazy in his robot lab, please continue to page 22.
Page 13: “Great choice! Meet with him tomorrow and he’ll explain everything he’s working on. If you ever need anything let me know and don’t be afraid to come hang out, have a great afternoon.” After going back to my desk and finding out exactly what Tim does from your secretary, you become even more excited for the upcoming days. Tim is not really an engineer or designer, more of a motivator and leader. As soon as you arrive, Tim shows up and has the energy of an eight year old kid. “Hey there, welcome to my team! If you haven’t been told, this is where all us ‘artists’ call home. We can speak our minds and work on what we want.” This is definitely the place you want to start at, as you reply, “Great, but where do I know where to start?” Tim, with a huge grin on his face starts into a laundry list of things that his team came up with just the previous list, but a few of them stuck out. Of the choices he listed the best possibilities would be for you to continue the research from college, come up with a new project in any field and not steal their ideas, or take an opening as a creative consultant for Tim. For this you would travel around the country and meet with companies that need some help in thinking up and then following through on new products. The projects will be limited to the industries of the clients, but provide great opportunities to broaden your horizon. After much thought:
If you would like to continue your college research, please continue to page 23.
If you would like to come up with new ideas, please continue to page 24.
If you would like to be the traveling company consultant, please continue to page 25.
Page 14: “Great choice! We’ll meet with them all tomorrow. There is a currently two different government bids were aiming for, and their people are actually traveling to Green Technologies soon.” At this point he hands you two profiles and asks that for the rest of the afternoon, and tomorrow if more time is needed, to look over these project proposals. The first one deals with the local Police Department. The details of this obviously are private, but the jist of the job is to come up with options they can implement to help better the safety of the community. When looking over this envelope, Sam hints that “I hope you go down that path, I have three young daughters that are out there going to school, visiting friends, and hanging out at the malls and shops. I always love to see new public safety concepts.” As for the other proposal, it is much more top secret. It dealt directly with the Marines and that is about you can learn. The third option, that Sam hasn’t directly stated but implied since it is still day one on the job, is to take more time to meet people and see what everyone is doing and who you click with. So the next morning, after looking over the options and reporting back to the CEO, you decided to:
If you would like to work with the Police, please continue to page 26.
If you would like to work with the Marines, please continue to page 27.
If you would like to give it more time and meet some more people, please go back to page 8.
Page 15: Lunch with Howard was awful. Sure he is one of the nicest people you’ve ever met, but dang old man this is the twenty-first century. Quit blabbering on about the telephone, black and white TVs, and when a candy bar was nickel. You almost wish he was with the program because he is also one of the smartest people you’ve ever met. Working with him could be good for the career if he is going to retire soon because working under him will put you first in line for his open position. But back to the moment at hand, how much of this can you take? OH NO! You’re late back to work on your first day, not a very good impression to leave. Although someone the old man comes through in the clutch and takes all the blame. Another positive about him is that he is a partner, so getting all the premier jobs could go a long way, it’s a tough decision but it has to be done.
If you would like to work under Howard, please continue to page 28.
If you would like to give it more time and meet some more people, please continue to page 8.
If you would like to not work with Howard at all, please continue to page 29.
Page 16: Lunch with Lee was very fascinating, not because he was so bright because he had so much fun in such a serious industry. He told the best stories of the best adventures and they didn’t stop at lunch. Once back at the office, they continued while not working. I guess it was O.K. because it is still day number one, and hopefully people didn’t expect you to do too much work. He persisted with his stories all afternoon, drunk escapades, random hook-ups, and hilarious jokes. This seemed to be a good choice of lunch companion as you’re now very comfortable at work knowing just one person. Although he didn’t do much work, he brought an atmosphere that people were drawn too. Finally, as the day concluded “So how’s it going? Good first day or what?” he asks as you walk to the parking lot together. “Yeah, it was decent, didn’t get to really meet many people though, just introductions. Tomorrow is another day to get started on that,” you reply. “Well, I’m headed to the bar down the street and we might see some workers there, it’s a common spot for us all to meet. You’re more than welcome if you want.” After this long day, an ice cold beer would be awesome, except your girlfriend, Jessica, left you a few messages during the day to come over. You told her that you might be able to stop over after work but wouldn’t know if you’d make it. After a short walk to your car, you come to the conclusion that you:
If you would like to go out with Lee, please continue to page 17.
If you would like to meet up with Jessica, please continue to page 18.
If you would like to go home and relax, please continue to page 19.
Page 17: The stories from Lee were not far from the truth. He is one crazy guy, but it’s nice to know that there are other young people who are still enjoying their younger years. The night starts off with a couple of beers but ends with many rounds of shots. Good thing you don’t have any workload yet. Some more of the stories come out as soon as more employees get here. It is really exciting that a lot of people in this new company are able to enjoy themselves. You’re off to a good start and making a good impression on a lot of people who can’t wait to get to know you a bit better and work together. At around eleven or so they all start to head out and it’s just you and Lee. But soon enough, you’re surrounded by some of his friends, especially a guy named Leroy Jenkins. He asks if you want to go outside for a quick smoke, but you insist that:
If you would like to stay and drink with Lee, please continue to page 30.
If you would like to meet up with Leroy, please continue to page 31.
If you would like to go home and end your night, please continue to page 19.
Page 18: After a long day of organizing and decorating, a visit to Jessica’s always brings a smile to your face. Or so you thought… As soon as you walk through the door she gives you a huge hug and proceeds to ask “So did you meet the big men upstairs?” To which your only response without lying can be “No, today there was so much commotion, I just got settled. Don’t worry baby, I’ll meet him someone soon.” This did not settle well with her as all she wanted was a raise even though it’s day one of a large number of days. “But how can you get anywhere without him. Remember, you promised me the big bucks. You better march in there tomorrow morning and meet him and tell him how good you are for his company and everything you offer!” After an already long day, you not sure how to respond to even more drama and as you leave you decide to just :
Listen to her and meet with the CEO, go back to page 7.
Ignore her and start your day on your own terms, please continue to page 32.
Page 19: Ah, Home Sweet home. Nothing is better but a nice drive-thru dinner and some of your favorite TV shows to end the night. You fall asleep early and wake up ready for day two of the next job.
Please continue to page 32.
re: mechanics. Don't post it to the blog again this way - that's way too much work. Just email me the whole document, and possibly cut & paste it to the blog, or use google docs (or some equivalent service) and link it to the blog.
re: characters. What sort of "science industry" are we talking about? That's vague.
Lee doesn't necessarily seem like the type to have gone to MIT in the first place, but maybe that's just me...
Jessica - maybe a little *too* simple & stereotypical?
Anyway, I like that you set the stage with characters in this way, and can then jump right into the story...
I like the introduction, but the lack of description of the "futuristic toys" is troubling - same as with the character intros.
In the meeting with the CEO, a couple more details about the three projects would go a long way here.
I think some of your transitions (the different ways of getting to Tony Stark, either directly or through the CEO) are clever - you're using the standard CYOA tools effectively.
I find the direction of Tim's research very unclear.
I think Howard's technophobia is a little over the top, especially since he's working at a technology company! Maybe you could make him more subtle & fleshed out? For instance, you could have him be interested in a direction of research which he thinks is legitimate (medical research?), but highly skeptical of some of the work of his colleagues - just as an example. In other words, he could be a way of exploring tension within the company (in plot terms) as well as tension about technology itself (in thematic terms).
I'm not convinced that Jessica is anything but a distraction from the material which most interests you.
Overall: I like the structure, and I like the premise very much. I do think that it's taking you a little too long to dive into the details of the relevant technologies - there's no reason you couldn't provide more details even in the first couple pages; we haven't seen much in the way of difficult technological choices (war machine or biomedical research - and what is Howard working on, anyway)?
To put it another way, I'm enjoying it, but you're being a little slow actually exploring the thematically interesting material.
Which relates back to your question about attaching an essay - I don't think you should do so *if* you do get to explore the thematically interesting stuff (Joy, Lyotard) through the plot of the CYOA. If you're struggling and running out of time, you might consider attaching a short essay which at least articulates your goals...
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