Patchwork Girl and Red Riding Hood

Patchwork Girl was a story created by having the reader go through seemingly unordered sections until they have read enough to put the story together. Throughout reading, a lot of the information gathered tells about a female monster that was created similar to Frankenstein's monster. There are references to the author of Frankenstein, where the body parts came from, the scars on the monster's body and the comparison between creator and creature. There are scenes in graveyards, taking a walk, and interesting bits about writing. The visual atmosphere of the hypertext is really empty, leaving the reader to view only the visual image of boxes and a drawing of the patchwork girl. I thought that even though this idea could be seen as symbolic, it left me bored and tired of trying to read until I understand what is going on. I liked clicking the boxes more than I liked being confused when I tried to read them. The best substance was the origins of the body parts in my opinion.

The second story I looked at was Red Riding Hood. It was a hypertext that engaged the reader more with clicking visuals to continue the story. There is a scene where the reader chooses if Red Riding Hood dreams or not and that is where the story becomes wild. At some points it can be very confusing. Sometimes it isn't always obvious what to click, or why the wolf turns from an animal to a man. Yet, it was interesting and sort of short if you didn't let Red sleep. At either ends, it didn't make complete sense. There was a lot of pregnancy and randomness incorporated. I still thought the story was hard to follow and the alarm sound at the end of the dream path felt unexplained. I needed to read about the actual story in order to make sense of what I was playing. I thought at first that it was some story about Red Riding Hood getting raped if she keeps sleeping and then choosing if the baby grows or not is like aborting it...