Emily Backstrom on Applying Textual Transcription Methods to Interactive Media
Over this past academic year, UW Textual Studies student Emily Backstrom completed a Capstone project that experimented with text encoding to transcribe interactive media. Using XML and the Text Encoding Initiative guidelines, Emily transcribed video game scripts from Deltarune, a an episodic role-playing video game. Read on to find out more about this fascinating project!
Digital Project Uses XML to Encode Video Game Script
“My capstone is a TEI project dedicated to testing the limits of TEI and adapting it to a broader range of content— specifically a video game script. Using TEI to account for player input and choices while adding in notes that took on the role of stage directions shows how much supplementary text is needed to convey even a dialogue-heavy video game narrative and how much of the medium is based on experience. The portion of the game script encoded (excerpts from Deltarune) allows for an imagined full project where different aspects of the script, such as specific routes or character dialogue, can be queried using XPATH. This game in particular also has a distinction between the player and the player-controlled character, which added another layer to account for within the TEI.”
– Emily Backstrom
What is XML and TEI?
XML, or eXtensible Markup Language, is a markup language for storing and transporting data, and the Text Encoding Initiative is a set of standards for using this language to encode texts. Usually, XML and TEI are used in humanities contexts to digitize textual materials and visual elements. It serves an important preservation function, translating physical textual resources into digital forms that can be shared. However, Emily’s project explores its applications for an interactive medium:
“Archiving and encoding media is a method of preserving it, and games are often shockingly ephemeral despite their popularity. This project highlights the need for accessible emulation and availability of legacy software for out-of-circulation games.”
– Emily Backstrom
Text Encoding Interactive Media
Translating texts and other media into TEI always involves editorial considerations, like choosing what information to include and how to encode it. These decisions influence the way people eventually read and interact with texts once they’re digitized. Moving TEI into the space of interactive media highlighted this editorial practice and the considerations to be made when translating complicated media forms into storable data:
“The amount of supplemental text needed to make sense of a video game outside of its plain text has illuminated how the medium is only able to be experience directly with visuals and how diffcult it is to translate without inadvertently giving it some influence of my own.
Digital media at large comes with many challenges for retaining them in their intended form of experience, as well as translating them into machine readable text. As someone interested in archives, this is of importance to me and something I had in mind while creating this project.”
– Emily Backstrom
Congratulations to Emily on completing this exciting Capstone project, as well as the Textual Studies minor!
You can access Emily’s TEI project here. And you can can explore our website or email text@uw.edu to find out more about the Minor in Textual Study and Digital Humanities, Capstone requirements, and upcoming TXTDS courses.
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