The goal of this project was to create an interactive artwork incorporating elements of the fun and freedom of exploring an open-ended storyworld environment, where (almost) anything can happen (as in a game like "Tomb Raider") with the structural requirements of dramatic storytelling, where narrative, conflict and obstacles create momentum and ever-increasing stakes for the protagonist (as in a movie like "Star Wars").

On a much more down-to-earth level, Dramat-iBlaster tells a story to an interactor while encouraging her to explore a variety of tones, moods and dramatic situations. The project is a prototype for an ongoing web-based collaborative artwork oriented towards high-school aged students.

Dramat-iBlaster's premise is taken from the traditional game of "mix and match" drawings, where, for example, a character's hat, hair, eyes, nose, mouth and chin come from different sets of selectable drawings, so that a whimsical, balanced or bizarre character is created by the player. Dramat-iBlaster consists of "layers" of animations and sound that are built up according to the user's selections in the "eZ-nDing Actualizer" interface. These layers are:

· Character animation,
· Location,
· Season,
· Time of day; and
· Mood, created by the musical score.

As is frequently the case with interactive media, creating equally compelling elements for each selectable option quickly escalates into an unwieldy production task. This issue is addressed further below, but for purposes of this prototype the implementation of the project was restricted to a modest scale.

Interactive artwork, narrative story game, multimedia, make your own movie, interactive Flash movie by Mike Roy. Integrated Arts, animation, animated story game, storyworld, narrative time based artwork.

This project is a prototype for an ongoing multi-user animated artwork. Because the project is delivered through the widely available Macromedia Flash application, any number of students and artists with access to Flash and the web could collaborate on new animation elements, the combination of multiple scenes into longer form movies, multiple sound elements and new approaches to interface design.

The creation of an exponentially increasing number of media elements in order to provide a new user experience for each user action is typically a barrier to the development of interactive media. However, in the context of an open-ended project, where many people are expected to participate and where a great variety of elements would benefit the ongoing production with a steady infusion of new ideas, this requirement becomes a useful means of keeping the ongoing project fresh and interesting.