Article:Games and Narrative
From unthinkMedia
Brenda Laurel, Game designer and theorist, has described ‘interactive stories’ as ‘an elusive unicorn we can imagine but have yet to capture’.
Contents |
Some points for debate
- rapidly changing technologically, aesthetically.
- a hybrid medium (games, stories, improvisational theatre)
- categories/genres are too broad and unique
- games are too tightly structured
- too little freedom
- Cut scenes have traditionally be the method in which story line is brought to the game world. This creates a clear separation from story and interactivity
Type of games
Hard Rails
to set limits on player choice in order to render a pre-structured experience
Soft Rails
allowing greater freedom for player innovations to shape the outcome
A Hybrid of both extremes
Some of the most popular games, such as Grand Theft Auto, offer both optional tighter narrative logic in the form of missions, or the ability for the player to set their own goals. This allows, "players [to] bring different expectations to the medium".
Games as Procedural Authorship
Janet Murray would like to allow for, "seeing the act of creating rules as setting the preconditions for the player’s narrative experience."
Games as "ergodic literature"
Espen Aarseth, describe games a works whose shape and structure are highly dependent on the intervention of their readers.
Games as medium-independent
stress the importance of analyzing gameplay mechanics and rule systems rather than narrative structures and plot devices.
Games are not narrated
Jesper Juul argues that games, are not narratives, since they aren't narrated. The player experiences the events in "real time" with varied outcomes. Stories on the other hand, follow a " predetermined structure and often get recounted after the fact"
Gonzalo Frasca
representation
- central building block of narrative
- depict world
simulation
- the most valuable contribution of computer games
- model worlds/representation underlying logic
Henry Jenkins
contends that theorists need to draw on tools from narrative, *performance, architectural, and game theory in order to fully understand games.
Spatial stories
"enact our struggles to possess, traverse, or access spaces. Such works may be loosely structured, depending less on character development or narrative logic than on the exploration of compelling worlds. Game design, according to this formulation, represents a form of ‘narrative architecture’, more similar to amusement park design than to, say, filmmaking. Game designers don’t tell stories; they design worlds, selecting features which they think are ripe with narrative possibilities, shaping the player’s movement through space, and controlling the flow of information needed to make sense of the story situations they encounter along the route. Game spaces may contain enactments of narrative events or embed story information as clues; they may evoke memories of previously encountered narratives or provide, in game designer Will Wright’s terms, ‘dollhouses’ where they may construct their own stories."
Herman, David; Jahn, Manfred; Marie-Laure Ryan; RYAN, Marie-Laure (2010-06-25). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (p. 81). T & F Books UK. Kindle Edition.
Reference
Herman, David; Jahn, Manfred; Marie-Laure Ryan; RYAN, Marie-Laure (2010-06-25). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (p. 80). T & F Books UK. Kindle Edition.
