WRT: Writer Response Theory

What do you get when you combine acts of creative writing with multiuser game mechanics?

Ink: an online multiplayer game for writing & reflection.

According to the development blog, Ink is “a persistent alternate world, similar to a MUD/MOO” which will “blend research-based and theoretically-informed approaches to teaching writing with compelling, creative gameplay.” Unlike Infocom, whose text adventure games promised to put you inside the story, Ink proposes something less like literary immersion and more like the cultural immersion typical of MMOGs.

To this end, Ink will feature a game economy driven not by gold and kills, but by a unit of text called ink, and by ‘Lauds’ and ‘Libels’ - acts of writing that increase or decrease the reputations of others.

How this will work in practice remains to be seen - but while the public beta is not expected until May 2006, the project is moving forward and worth keeping an eye on.

Ink is a joint endeavor of the Michigan State University Writing Center and the Writing In Digital Environments (WIDE) Research Center.

via Bookslut via The State News