This reading offered a simple deconstruction of all the elements necessary to create digital environments. The fact that digital environments are participatory, particularly stood out to me due to variety of factors that we designers and programmers must consider in order to create more sustained engagement. With earlier programs like ELIZA and Zork, it was interesting to observe how users were often inspired to test the limits of how responsive these programs can be. The reading states that the first step to creating “enticing narrative world is to script the interactor”; thus making it easier for the programmers to anticipate the interactor’s actions and behaviors.
Due to the fact that digital environments are participatory, this means that every detail has to be designed with the user in mind: their reactions, questions, spatial awareness, etc. The most traditional approach in digital environments that is still utilized today, is having a simple branching structure “which limits the interactor’s choices to a set of alternatives from a fixed menus of some kind.” This narrative is still widely used in modern day RPG’s, chat bots, and a variety of other interactive services. Having participatory digital environments also implies that these environments have their limitations, which are dictated by a specific set of rules. Perhaps with more developments in virtual reality and machine learning, we can anticipate digital environments that are flexible enough to capture a wider range of human behavior and counter it.