An
Anatomy
of Anchors
[66]What We Will. Broadband Interactive Drama, 2001. <http://www.z360.com/what/> (aesthetic)
What We Will is an interactive drama that uses both time and place in a selectively animated anchor to drive the action. The anchor here selects a short movie clip, and viewers pan through a day in Richard's life.
What We Will, like War Games--Catch The LandMine!! [40], is wholly driven from a single graphic anchor at the top of the screen. Like the anchor in Reagan Library [47], the reader pans around a 360-degree landscape. Here, however, the landscape is also divided into the hours of the day, with a clock above the landscape of London. The action is set within a 24 hour span, and selecting a place and time will reveal the actions in that portion of the day.
Screenshot used by permission.
Anchors here are termed envelopes ("select an envelope to hear a whisper"), a very different feel from words that yield. The envelope, or anchor, contains the moment--it presents the content rather than yields to new content.
The place/time anchor is the only navigational device in What We Will, a subtle context of control through rooting an action firmly in a particular locale.
Screenshot used by permission.
Yet time is circular: the reader can scroll round and round the same time landscape:
Screenshot used by permission.
The anchor triggers a short quicktime movie, and the anchor-time moves as the node plays through time, again emphasizing the connection between navigation and time-based content. Compare this subtle movement of the anchor with the striking anchoral movement in 'm Simply Saying [35].