Janet Murray’s 1997 book Hamlet on the Holodeck enthusiastically looks toward the full exploitation of the enormous potential for storytelling that interactive media and hypertext offer – not just as a tool for telling tales, but as a way for people to play, understand each other, and think. In addition to (and probably even second to) her enthusiasm about the new media, Murray’s description of the essential properties of a successful digital environment influenced the development of this class by defining four elements that students needed to consider when
conceptualizing projects. 

Digital environments are procedural (p. 71) Procedural environments move forward through the execution of rules – the rules, or the set of consequences linked to each user choice, are part of what a writer creates. In essence, the author becomes responsible for the grammar of the product, not any particular path.

Digital environments are participatory (p. 74) Participatory environments are audience-centered in that they are audience-controlled. The author must turn over significant responsibility and control to the users.

Digital environments are spatial (p. 79) Spatial environments create a sense of place, from graphics, description, metaphor or any combination of these.

Digital environments are encyclopedic (83) Encyclopedic environments hold the promise of an unending potential – one that can be extended, updated, combined with other worlds to become unending.

Because of the nature of interactive media, my students usually write proposals describing complete projects which they could never have the time, equipment, of money to complete on their own – and that is what I encourage them to do. I want to encourage the enthusiastic vision Janet Murray expressed in her work for the medium unfettered by the reality of what a 16-week class in a college computer lab can do. I hope they will cultivate an understanding of what is and will be possible in interactive media and understand that in this field they need to get into the habit of thinking beyond what they can do at the moment. Ultimately, they produce a piece of their monster visions that is small enough to practice specific arts yet large enough to get a taste of the scope of the work needed.