Dystopia and The Player: Living Through the Nightmare

In current digital games, classic fictional worlds are transformed into ludofictional worlds, spaces rich in characters and emotions that are especially affected by the intervention of a player. In this book, we propose a model, inspired by the Semantics of Fiction and Possible Worlds, which is oriented to the analysis of video games as integrated systems

The philosophical concept of possible worlds (Lenzen, 2004; Lewis, 1986) has been used in literary studies and narratology (Dolezel, 1998; Eco, 1979) to define the way in which we conceive different narrative possibilities inside the fictional world. In Game Studies, some authors have used this concept to explore the relationship between game design and game experience (Kücklich, 2003; Maietti, 2004; Ryan, 2006), while Jesper Juul (2005) has studied the fictional world evoked by the connection between rules and fiction. In this paper we propose a new approach to video games as ludofictional worlds - a set of possible worlds which generates a game space based on the relationship between fiction and game rules. In accordance with the concepts of minimal departure (Ryan, 1991) and indexical term (Lewis, 1986), the position of the player character determines his/her actual world and the next possible or necessary world. Lastly, we use this model to analyse the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and show that the possible worlds perspective provides a useful, flexible and modular framework for describing the internal connections between ludofictional worlds and the interactive nature of playable game spaces.

2003

This thesis examines several aspects of narrative in video games, in order to construct a detailed image of the characteristics that separate video game narrative from other, noninteractive narrative forms. These findings are subsequently used to identify and define three basic models of video game narrative. Since it has also been argued that video games should not have narrative in the first place, the validity of this question is also examined. Overall, it is found that while the interactive nature of the video game does indeed cause some problems for the implementation of narrative, this relationship is not as problematic as has been claimed, and there seems to be no reason to argue that video games and narrative should be kept separate from each other. It is also found that the interactivity of the video game encourages the use of certain narrative tools while discouraging or disabling the author’s access to other options. Thus, video games in general allow for a much greater degree of subjectivity than is typical in non-interactive narrative forms. At the same time, the narrator’s ability to manipulate time within the story is restricted precisely because of this increased subjectivity. Another interesting trait of video game narrative is that it opens up the possibility of the game player sharing some of the author’s abilities as the narrator. Three models of video game narrative are suggested. These included the linear ‘string of pearls’ model, where the player is given a certain degree of freedom at certain times during the game, but ultimately still follows a linear storyline; the ‘branching narrative’ model, where the player helps define the course and ending of the story by selecting from narrative branches; and the ‘amusement park’ model, where the player is invited to put together a story out of a group of optional subplots. The existence of a fourth model, the ‘building blocks’ model, is also noted, but this model is not discussed in detail as it does not utilise any traditional narrative structure, instead allowing the players to define every aspect of the story.

Proceedings of the 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination, 2023

The space in videogames is not a visual extension of conventional narrative structures, as in traditional media, but it becomes a tool to organize the tale. The possibility of exploring space and acting on it makes the videogame the closest medium to the embodied experience of a story. This feature attributes a central role to the spatial representation that help the player in the construction of meanings which are necessary to understand the narration. The spatial suggestions become a formal and structural code of visual signs, able to emphasize tones and atmospheres and/or to express emotional valances. Starting from these considerations, the research aims to analyze the relationships between visual representation and narrative language in videogames. The survey methodology includes a comparative analysis of videogame spaces, starting from the main types of stories: realistic, verisimilar and unrealistic. This distinction allows to identify three macrogroups of spatial representations. The empathetic/anempathetic spaces reproduce perceptions similar to those existing in a physical space. The utopian/dystopian spaces propose perceptions that do not coincide with existing reality but that are potentially realizable in certain space-time conditions. The impossible/elsewhere spaces, finally, offer perceptions that not only do not coincide with reality, but that are also impractical in the physical world. This research underlines how the scientific area of representation can contribute significantly to the study of videogame, understood as a narrative form in which the drawing of the space is applied as an irreplaceable modality for the construction of a visual code of thought.

What are videogames? Are they fictions? Kendall Walton’s detailed account of fiction in Mimesis as Make-Believe is the most influential extant account of that category, and we argue that videogames count as fictions according to this view. But as part of his discussion of fictions Walton distinguishes between two kinds of fictional world, work worlds and game worlds. Work worlds are those fictional worlds associated with representational works or fictions, whereas game worlds are those associated with games in which those representations serve as props. In recent writings, Grant Tavinor has argued that although videogames are fictions, the Waltonian distinction between work worlds and game worlds breaks down, or is at least blurred, in the case of videogames. This would suggest that videogames are unlike traditional Waltonian fictions. We reject Tavinor’s claim and argue that videogames are perfectly standard Waltonian fictions and that the game/work world distinction is just as robust in the case of videogames as it is in other fictions. To do this we first lay out Walton’s account of fiction, and then explain why it should be non-controversial that video-games belong to this category. In fact, we shall argue that this is the case even if Walton’s controversial theory of depiction (which implies that all pictures are fictions) is rejected. We then draw attention to two important ontological distinctions and use these to diagnose the errors we think Tavinor is making. We then go on to highlight some cases where there is a clear divergence between what is fictional in the work worlds and game worlds associated with particular videogames.

Nordic Literature: A comparative history, Volume I: Spatial Nodes, eds. Steven P. Sondrup, Mark B. Sandberg, Thomas A. DuBois, Dan Ringgaard, John Benjamins B.V., 2017

2009

Modern computer games often have a strong narrative structure to the progress of their gameplay. In some genres, story is at the forefront of the interaction. As game makers seek to add new capabilities for procedurally generated content to their new releases, work on interactive narrative is growing in significance both as a basic research topic as well as a source for insight into the creation of content for games.

Bigl, B. & Stoppe, S. (Eds.) Playing with Virtuality. Theories and Methods of Computer Game Studies, pp. 53-64., 2013

The proposed chapter is focused on the creation of video games fictional worlds from an integrative perspective of narratology and ludology. In addressing as premise the Leibniz’s Possible Worlds Theory -which has also been successfully applied to the literary field by Eco, Dolezel, Albadalejo and Laure Ryan-, we will study the predesigned possible worlds structure of video games worlds. According to the Possible Worlds theory, the actual world can be considered to be one of the many possible worlds and considering some rules of accessibility (for instance, the principle of non-contradiction) the actual world may change to another possible world. Structuralism has applied this theory regarding to the relationship between fictional and real world and, in this chapter, we will used it close to other perspectives like Ludology (Aartseth, Eskelinen, Juul, Frasca), Semiotics (Greimas, Eco, Ruiz Collantes) and Narratology (Genette, Soriau, Murray, Laurel and, specially, the “narration as game space” Henry Jenkin’s proposal). Thus from the modal-logical operators of possibility and necessity, different game experiences are built. In some games, the experience is focused on possibility (walking in Skyrim, driving in GTA IV) and, in other cases, video games are essentially goal-oriented (some “needed” possible worlds are required). For which reason, this chapter would focus on the Possible Worlds Theory to explain how video games are built (game design) and received (game experience via game play) through the following model: The designer proposes a specific reference world from the “objective reality” and other ideological and social possible worlds that configures his “enciclopaedia” (Eco). In this "axiological level" lays the principles and values (propositions, existens, properties) that must be transmitted and translated into a "surface level" by (a) game rules (' player must do', 'play can do') and (b) aesthetic and discursive structures (for instance, Greima’s actancial model). The combination of both blocks generates the play space (game world or diégèse), an interactive system where the ludic nonlinear possibilities allow the player to "rebuild" the world of reference and generate specific possible worlds. The ordenation and explicitation of these worlds by the player generates narrative experiences. The ontological articulation of these worlds can be conceived with the application of Lewis’s “indexical term”, which appoints an actual world in relation to all other possible worlds considering our existence in it. In its translation to video games, the indexical term establishes the position of the main character (for instance, the player’s avatar) in the “possible worlds” framework: the game level determines the current (actual) gaming world. The correlation between actual world, possibility and necessity makes possible to analise the game from its macrostructure (what kind of worlds arise from permuting these 3 categories?), but also from its microstructure (what possible worlds may configurate the characters’s psychology and which ones affect the video game interactivity system?). Therefore, this chapter proposes a two level methodological analysis: macro (the possible worlds system considering the possibility, the necessity and the actual world) and micro (characters’s subworlds and their impact on game narrative).

In: John R. Sageng (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the Philosophy of Computer Games Conference 2009. Oslo: University of Oslo. S. 1-6., 2009