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Single player games with branching narratives are often marketed as having meaningful choices, where the outcome of players’ choices affect the story. But when these games fail to deliver on their promise it allows for frustration and disappointment. To aid in avoiding this phenomenon, this study explores the ways different types of choices affect the narrative agency in non-linear, story-driven games by looking closer at one of them - Detroit: Become Human. By means of formal analysis, a framework is developed for identifying various definitions and prerequisites of different choice types. This framework is applied to the chapter Stormy Night to evaluate and measure gameplay data regarding choices. In addition to this method, an interview with the Lead Game Designer is conducted which gives valuable insight into the actual process behind designing the choices in Detroit: Become Human. The results show that the chapter’s choices are explicit in their design. Furthermore, there is noticeable ambiguity and subjectivity in how choices can be portrayed and perceived as meaningful. The interview suggests that different types of choices are better used at certain parts of a narrative. Noticeable from the interview, but not as detectable in the gameplay data, is that having diversity in choice types promotes meaningfulness. Implications of these findings suggest that the requirements for a game’s choices to be meaningful are choice type diversity and careful placement.

In Loretta Lees's study of a new public library in Vancouver in the late 1990's, she began to explore the ideals of non-representational theories, or those everyday practices that provide evidence not just of what symbolic meaning one may assign to a space, but rather what that space does—how it is enacted through everyday practice. This exploration provided Lees with another way to think about the built environment, one that she believed could open up a new direction for architectural geographers. Lees, building on the work of Jon Goss and other contemporary scholars in the field, described this new direction as a move towards a critical geography of architecture. This dissertation explores the use of a non-representational framework to study everyday practices through a single case study in the Avenue of Fashion in Detroit, Michigan. This research considers the historical evolution of Detroit through bankruptcy to present day using two common narratives of the city, one of rise/rebirth and one of Two Detroits, to offer a critical lens through which to consider performances of everyday life in this recently redeveloped area of the city. Within a non-representational framework, this study pulls in direct observational methods such as counting, mapping/tracing, photo documentation, trace observation, and field notes derived primarily from public life studies to observe and consider how the built environment is shaped through these embodied practices. This study contributes both an example of alternative methods that may be used in non-representational research, as well as new way to think about spaces that complements findings from more representational research. The findings from this study inspire a curiosity about the unfolding of everyday life and contribute to the work of Lees and others in advancing a critical geography of architecture. / Doctor of Philosophy / Using methods from the field of public life studies, such as counting, mapping/tracing, photo documentation, trace observation, and field notes, this dissertation study everyday practices, the bodily performances of everyday life, through a single case study in the Avenue of Fashion in Detroit, Michigan. This research considers the historical evolution of Detroit through bankruptcy to present day using two common narratives of the city, one of rise/rebirth and one of Two Detroits, to offer a critical lens through which to consider performances of everyday life in this recently redeveloped area of the city.

Aux États-Unis, les villes connaissent une crise urbaine qui se manifeste par l’existence de quartiers centraux détériorés, concentrant les minorités pauvres. Les quartiers de Jefferson-Mack (Detroit) et Hunts Point (South Bronx, New York) en sont des archétypes. Ils sont pourtant animés par d’importantes mobilisations civiques, se focalisant sur des questions environnementales et alimentaires. Le but de ce travail est d’évaluer le potentiel d’initiatives environnementales et alimentaires à améliorer les conditions de vie des habitants des inner cities. La première partie, en mobilisant un corpus d’études urbaines, présente ces quartiers comme les produits d’une crise urbaine structurelle. Nous mettons en évidence que les habitants y subissent une « crise urbaine de l’habiter », dans laquelle les nuisances, les pollutions et le manque d’accessibilité aux ressources environnementales et alimentaires, sont déterminants pour comprendre l’essor des mobilisations. La deuxième partie explique le rôle des mobilisations civiques environnementales et alimentaires dans ces quartiers. En nous appuyant sur les corpus de la justice environnementale et alimentaire, nous démontrons que l’hybridation des questions environnementales, alimentaires, sociales et spatiales a reconfiguré l’action collective. La troisième partie analyse les enjeux de la réappropriation du territoire, à partir du corpus des commons studies. À travers le cas de l’agriculture urbaine et d’autres pratiques établies sur des espaces vacants, nous montrons que la réappropriationdu territoire procure de multiples bénéfices. Loin d’être cantonnée aux domaines environnementaux et alimentaires, elle permet d’améliorer partiellement – mais non sans heurts – les conditions de l’habiter. / American cities are still affected by the urban crisis, patent through the existence of low-income inner city neighborhoods, concentrating the urban poor and ethnic minorities. The neighborhoods of Jefferson-Mack (Detroit) and Hunts Point (South Bronx, New York) are both considered icons of the urban crisis. Yet they witness substantial environmental and food justice activism. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how grassroots environmental and food practices can be used to improve living conditions for inner city communities. The first section analyzes how these two blighted neighborhoods are products of a structural urban crisis. By using a corpus of urban studies on urban decline, we demonstrate how the daily lives of residents reveal a “crisis of urban living” in which noxious uses and pollution as well as limited environmental and food access are key factors triggering grassroots activism. The second section is grounded in a corpus of studies on environmental and food justice, in order to explore the role of environmental and food justice activism in these neighborhoods. We defend that the hybridity between environmental, food, social and spatial issues reconfigured grassroots activism. The third section mobilizes a corpus of commons studies to analyze the challenges of reclaiming urban space. By studying the rise of urban agriculture and other environmental amenities occurring on vacant land, we explore the multiple benefits of community urban space reclamation. Beyond environmental and food benefits, and despitesome conflicting issues, reclaiming urban space allows transformative processes to noticeably yet incompletely improve living conditions.

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Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-191).

The purpose of this report is to explore the ways in which Asian American men participate in hip hop culture, and what this participation says about their politics and representation in United States media and popular culture. This is done through an analysis of Freestyle Friday All Star, MC Jin, a Chinese American emcee from Queens, New York, as well as DJ Soko, a Korean American DJ from Detroit, Michigan. I argue that their participation is a desire for political power and creative visibility rendered on their own terms. / text