Interactivity

1. Acting or capable of acting on each other.

Oh look! They're interacting!

If someone were to sum up life in one word, the word ‘interactive’ would be it. Almost everywhere we go we are interacting. As I walk to class I interact with people. Not just by having a conversation with them, but by dodging the golf carts that the maintenance crew drives around wildly.

Interaction involves you being able to control what you get out of your input. One great example reminds me of an online game I played in high school called Asheron’s Call. Each player in the game created a character of his or her choice. As the character earned experience it would grow and learn, much like we do. The player chooses who to become friends or enemies with as they try to save the land. If the land is not saved, a town might be lost and left in ruins for several months until it can be rebuilt.

Not only did each player have an effect in the ever changing story line, but the world around the characters changed with the seasons. Summer would quickly change into winter quickly leaving the land covered in snow with a nicely developed three-dimensional landscape (for the time & technology).

Asheron’s Call is a good example because it was an open system and players could be immersed in the game for hours on end. The player could attack another player in the game with their character and not know what they would do back. Just like if we were to slap our roommate out of the blue. They might retaliate and hit us back, possibly harder, they might ignore us, or they may choose to hit us several times in attempt to start a fight. But we are the ones that ultimately choose if we fight, run away, or talk about the incident.

The game takes a few aspects of real life interactivity and simulates it very well as an online game. Games aren’t the only form of interactivity around us. We can interact with almost everything in one way or another, just take a look around you.