ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notion of immersion in narrative environments as an extension of the term engagement. Engagement involves absorption, which is taken to relate to intense, conscious, cognitive attention and the maintenance of interest, often through physical interaction in combination with the heightening of emotions elicited by implicit communications in the environment. The design of narrative environments, however, conceives of more profound kinds of immersion, in particular, critical immersion designed to combine surrounding visceral world-like experiences, emotional engagement, cognitive absorption and insightful reflection to make powerful, meaningful and memorable experiences. Critical immersive spaces have been developed for educational narrative environments in the Museum of the Future, Dubai. Brendan McGetrick describes Fair Enough as a totally immersive experience that delivered much more than a book or a website could, because it provided a fourth dimension in which visitors could actually enter and cultivate social interactions in the world of the story.
