Last week I wrote about the embedded narrative in Syphon Filter for the PSP.  Chad over at Library Voice followed up my post with an excellent one of his own.  He talked about the game and related some of the games’ experiences to library services.  The four points he made are not isolated to the Syphon Filter series but can be applied as general lessons that games provide for library services.

Chad and I are both currently playing strategy role playing games (SRPG).  Here’s a quick link to define what SRPGs are.  But for me, SRPGs have always felt like a complicated version of chess

.  The player moves each character around a map (traditionally a grid) with a set movement distance and attempts to clear (or take) the opponent’s characters.  I’ve played and thoroughly enjoyed a number of games in this genre including Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, PSP) and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA).  Last fall I wrote about how the Final Fantasy Tactics series offers players a number of ways to practice their information literacy skills.  A large part of my enjoyment of the series is the numerous layers of depth and skills applied during the preparation and execution of each battle.

In addition to the Final Fantasy Tactics series, the publisher Atlus and developer Nippon Ichi  have also pushed the genre forward with games like Disgaea, Phantom Brave, and La Pucelle: Tactics.  Chad is currently playing Disgaea on the PSP currently.  I’m playing another SRPG, Jeanne D’arc, published by Level 5, that was released for PSP last year. 

Based on my post last week about the embedded narrative, I wanted to look at the narrative of SRPGs, but realized that I couldn’t without talking about the gameplay as well.  Often in SRPGs, as in traditional RPGs, there is a degree of grinding and character building involved.  Leveling up your character is important to being statistically strong enough to defeat the opponents’ characters.  Yes, with good tactics it is very possible to defeat an opponent at a level or two higher, but often grinding is a potential solution to a challenging battle.  The difficultly with grinding is it tends to delay the narrative of the game.

When a player needs to spend time leveling up, the central story arc takes a backset.  The political fighting of Final Fantasy Tactics or the magical interpretation of the Joan of Arc story slow to a crawl as a player spends time leveling their characters.  This past weekend, I was trying to push ahead with the central story only to continually get defeated in a specific battle.  The solution was clear – grind, level up, and try again.  Doing so I made the intentional choice pull myself out of the narrative and dive into the chess-like strategy of individual battles.

Upon doing so, I instantly recalled where my emotional investment came from in previous  SRPGs.  It is not the game’s narrative that held me in the game’s world, it was my emotional connection with the individual characters.  Like many role-playing experiences, the enjoyment is derived from the expanded story and characterization created by the player.  Grinding has built up a camaraderie between the game characters and myself.  While the game’s attempt at developing relationships has slowed as I’ve continued to grind, my emotional investment with the characters has continued to grow.

As I develop a personal investment in the characters, my commitment to the game and the success of each character grows.  This isn’t a unique experience for video games.  And the debate over which is more engaging: an open ended user created narrative vs. a tightly channeled game narrative is one that fills message boards on a regular basis.  There is clearly a place for both.  And some games find a balance between the two (the 12  million playing WOW’s new Lich King expansion are an example).

Is one narrative experience more valuable than other?  

Or is it a matter of taste?  

I’m curious what Chad and others have to say.

Tomorrow I’ll come back to SRPGs and focus more on the tactics and strategies and how that can relate to our students’ searching experiences.

images via Gamespot

Over the last week or so, Chad Boeninger, from Library Voice, and I discussed the game Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow for the Sony PSP.  Both Chad and I finished the game this week and spent some time talking about the narrative of this game and other games in the Syphon Filter series.

Even though the work of Gee, Prensky, Jenkins, and others have addressed videogames value to literacy. And with the ALA focusing on gaming and literacy, drawing connections, and increasing our patron/students’ ability… students have still struggled on traditional evaluations. Squire (2005) suggest that the failure is not in the students but in the way our traditional education systems are structured. While the discussion of how our education system assesses students is important, it is not the focus of the post. The successful engagement of students in multiple literacies can start with librarians at every level. Continued documented success of these literacies will lead to institutional acceptance and value.

To work toward that end goal, understanding the multiple literacies students engage in is necessary. Our patrons and students are seeking text that have meaningful context within their lives. Videogames and other transmedia stories are shaping their expectations of what a story can do. A non-linear, multi-layered experience that rewards their previous knowledge is a way for students to flex their understanding and thought processes. This application is important not only for increasing students and patrons literacies but also their information literacy skills. We have the opportunity to seek out these multiple literacies and help students and patrons evaluate and responsibly apply their knowledge.

Engaging these multiple literacies through videogames is just on of the many possibilities and examples we can create. I recorded a podcast segment yesterday for the ALA Gaming podcast on fantasy football. My discussions on fantasy football are focused on more than encouraging libraries to use fantasy football to connect with users of their libraries (which is a good thing). My discussion and application here is larger and I believe ultimately more rewarding:

• Seek out and create connections with existing interest (pop culture or otherwise) that students/patrons already value and have an existing knowledge base. Game stories that transcend videogames and move into graphic novels, novels, and other media involve our readers in deep and complex narratives that allow them to flex those multiple literacy muscles.
• Our job can be to use these experiences and help students recognize the traditional, information, and other literacy skills they are currently practicing through their multiple literacy experiences.

I’ve used the bridge metaphor before and will continue to do so. We have the opportunity to bridge our students/patrons existing knowledge and skills in these multiple literacies to the traditional academic skills and literacies our educational systems value. Our successful bridging may be just the evidence and documentation needed to help create the changes and shifts that leaders like Gee, Squire, and others have advocated for so long.

I missed my "Adventure of Link" links last week, although I had the links combined. A head cold hit me and I woke up out of the haze to realize that it is Thursday. Well, here are some links for this week.

Using traditional games for educational purposes:

Instead of making serious games for education, why not embrace traditional gaming to enhance kids' lives?

The concept and the discussion in the article are good. We talk about games having educational and critical thinking value, but we in academic libraries work to create games to our specific needs. If we looked at games that were out there and the skills they taught, we could not only use their strategies (an application I promote), but we could use the game itself to help teach. Problem puzzles deep in a temple of a Zelda game? Logic puzzle from a Telltale adventure game? Physics challenges and predictions from a FPS? Games provide applications of educational concepts that we could use. GameSetWatch also ran the article from Serious Games Source.

Which is it? A serious game or a simulation?
Clark Aldrich has a quick post talking about each on his site. I think it is easy to blur the line when thinking of what we want to create or what we want our students to experience. The line can also be blurred when discussing educational gaming with administrators. Clark puts it as such:

But what is also tough is when people confuse serious games and educational simulations. Now these are obviously much closer together in any taxonomy. But serious games are light experiences that are easy and fun to engage while building awareness, and educational simulations rigorous develop skills and capabilities.

Cerise weighs in on game cannon:
I've mentioned the quality work at Cerise before. This article looks at the ongoing debate of if games are art/expression or have value... what is the core group of titles. What is the gaming cannon?

Gaming on a grown-up's budget:
Mister Raroo drew criticism from some gaming libraries with his initial column, but his most recent one is a good read for any "grown-up" with a gaming passion. Sometimes our passions and our pocketbooks don't have the same priorities.

Managing my money:
Speaking of budgets, Future-Making Serious Games has an interesting story about a new educational game used to help teens manage their money, learn budgeting, and other financial skills. As someone who's taught money management to 7th and 8th graders, a game to do this would be a welcomed resource. Granted there are many games that apply economic issues, but this is a great use of teaching a process through gaming.

It is important to understand the narrative potential of video games, both for their ability to engage players in stories and to motivate players to create their own narratives. The concepts I’ve covered over the last series of posts on narrative including Jenkins concepts of transmedia and understanding part of the larger debate over narrative vs. ludology provides us an important insight into how our students are interacting with stories and text.

This interaction is not only relevant to the literature and composition faculty I spoke with on Sunday at ACLA but it is also vital for us as librarians to understand as well. The changes in students interaction and expectations create opportunities for us to engage readers and address reluctant readers.

The same recommendations I gave to the ACLA conference, apply to us as well: recognizing, engaging, and creating the value-added narratives that transmedia creates.

The next few posts cover issues of literacy and why understanding this change in narrative is important for reaching our students and patrons.

During my presentation on Sunday for the American Composition and Literature Association, based on my ongoing research into videogame narratives and literacy, I offered three points of action on how we, as educators can apply this narrative.

1) Use Traditional Strengths: English departments have screenplay and scriptwriting course or currently partner with Drama/Theater departments. They should create partnerships with Computer Graphics or Game Design departments

English departments can house videogame story / game narrative courses alongside of film/theater ones. Looking back at Bronsky’s game writing elements, they are traditional storytelling elements. If you or your department is not sure where to start – start there. Use it to start a discussion and incorporate what you already do well. Or partner with existing gaming courses and departments to team teach or assist with units on videogame writing. A faculty member in the English department at the University of Dubuque partnered with our Computer Graphics program. Last semester, the students had to create a proposal and design document for an original game. This semester, the English faculty member worked with some students to continue to develop the story and narrative of their videogame project. If this type of partnership is not possible, create an elective course or J-term / summer class and see what the registration is like. You have the skills, experience, and passion – continue to instill a passion for storytelling in others no matter what the format or medium.

2) Seek Transmedia Connections: Many of you already do this to a lesser extent – grabbing a film or play – as a visual representation of the text. Stretch beyond that. Allow for the additional media (TV, theater, games, film) to add and expand the students experience and understanding. Ask questions about connections and draw on their value of information across media. As someone in the audience (Mark) said during the presentation, our survey courses already do this to an extent by showing how and using all the previous analysis to help understand each new piece. Yes, draw out those connections between narratives, even if loose associations. The more our students can see the connection and how their knowledge of one adds value to others, the more engaged they will be.

Another panelist from the conference, Edward Aiken from Syracuse, described an art and religion course he once taught. He talked about looking at artistic depictions of Mary the mother of Jesus throughout history and then showing the film Terminator 2 and raising the question of narrative similarities. The topic struck a cord with students to the degree that a former student stopped him on the street years later to tell him about it. Transmedia creates meaningful lasting connections.

3) Deliberate Awareness: Be aware and deliberate in the engagement of students and narrative across mediums. The pieces described in the presentation and the forthcoming paper discusses how both our current and future students interact and what they expect out of narratives and stories. If we are aware and planning to incorporate these changes in narrative interaction we can and will continue to engage our students in meaningful analysis and creation… inspiring passion along the way.

Terminator image via solarnavigator

I just returned from presenting at the ACLA Annual Meeting. While the crowd was small there were a number of good questions on my presentation and some excellent discussion between all the panelists. I'll post some more reflections on the presentation and the slides later, but I wanted to post the last narrative resource. Next week I'll post my reflections and write-ups on some literacy studies and videogames.

Dansky, R. (2007). Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games. In C. Bateman (Ed.), Introduction to Game Narrative (p. 1-11). Boston, MA: Charles River Media.

Narrative as the method by which the story is communicated to the audience. Dansky states that the “greatest mistake” is reducing a game’s narrative to story and story alone. Games reach beyond fiction, to where the story is only the “launching point” for the narrative. Players can add to that narrative experience in a variety of ways, beyond the choices made and gameplay actions taken. Players add to the story through original ideas on fansite discussion boards and fan fiction or through official external narratives in web clips, film, novels, or comics. The narrative the player understands and appreciates expands well beyond the game screen or the page.

Dansky’s chapter serves as an introduction to game narrative writing and storytelling within games. His work is more technical rather than an analysis on storytelling. But it is useful to consider what Dansky includes within creating a narrative:

• Setting
• 
• Character
• Backstory
• Cut Scenes
• Scripted Events
• In-Game Artifacts

Dansky also looks at three techniques of videogame narratives

- Immersion

o Similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow”; the player is absorbed in what they are doing and have suspended their disbelief to follow along with the experience

- Reward

o Narrative advances in the story before/after key moments of the game

o This helps to drive the player forward and motivate their progress

- Identification

o Gives the who, what, why’s of the game space and in-game world; creates the context for a player’s actions

o This investment of the player creates ownership and is related to the idea of “agency”

Any narrative experience is completely defined in advance. For game writers this presents challenges to incorporate multiple paths and connect the choices players might make to the overall narratives or narrative. It is possible that no one player has the same exact experience each time. The writer needs to account for all these actions and decisions the players might make.

Because of this difference, while videogame writing borrows much from traditional scriptwriting it cannot be used alone. Game writing takes a little of each media, but not all of any. And this makes videogames and unique storytelling telling medium.

Dansky considers game’s not the writer’s story but the players. Is this true? Is any story simply the writers or does each reader bring something unique that adds and shapes how the events are understood and interpreted?

Images:

KingsQuest from FreeSci

Warcraft III from Gamershell

As I am preparing to present, I want to make my slides available. I will include a link later to download the full slides, since these are trimmed from the conference presentation for size. Later this weekend, the rest of the supporting resources and analysis will be posted.

Thank you for your interest and please check back on Sunday evening for more resources.

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Kirkland, E. (2005). Restless Dreams in Silent Hill: Approaches to Video Game Analysis. Journal of Media Practice, 6(3), 167-178.

Kirkland tries to balance the ludology and narratology view points when analyzing Silent Hill. Both have merit and add to our understanding.

Ludology focuses on gaming qualities, videogames are games and simulations first and foremost. They are interactive, rule-based systems.

Some game, like Silent Hill, are focused within traditional storytelling and narrative worlds. Sections of gameplay are limited both in control and camera so a player experiences the story in a specific way. The designer makes a deliberate choice in how the scene should play out. Silent Hill also incorporates transmedia storytelling with additional novels, comics, fan art, and fan fiction. The game is a self contained story, but these additions add value and an investment into the larger world. Professional and fan fiction help create a deeper engagement from the player and a richer experience of the game’s narrative.

Silent Hill incorporates traditional media element like location, camera movement, mise-en-scene, sound effects, and score to tell the story and create an experience around the narrative. While Silent Hill contains these traditional narrative element there are other embedded elements that a player experiences and creates in the story through gameplay. Most of key element are contained within the controlled narrative, the exploration gameplay expand the story and reward the player by opening up additional story lines.

Barry Atkins in 2003 used the term “game fictions” for videogames where the player is both the storyteller and the reader. Players are creating the story through their gameplay. While the key narrative elements may remain static, the experience and gameplay are unique to each play through. Thus, creating new experiences each time.

Creating tension in a game often requires restricting the narrative and exploration.

Image from ToTheGame

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Frome, J. & Smuts, A. (2004). Helpless Spectators: Generating Suspense in Videogames and Film. TEXT Technology, 13(1), 13-34.

Suspense requires fear, hope and uncertainty. Games always contain a level of uncertainty as players play. But using that uncertainty for suspense often requires limiting the player’s control over events. There is a battle between cut scenes and game play for storytelling. Helplessness heightens suspense. The helplessness of a cut scene is not necessary for suspense, but it does make the communication of this emotion easier to convey.

Suspense cannot work without an emotional connection. Players/readers need to care about the characters and what happens next. Often putting the character in a situation where the unwanted event is more likely to happen than the wanted one. Other media invoke suspense by creating situations where the outcome looks bleak. Games can do the same with limiting a player’s abilities or increasing a boss’s health.

If games are most successful in creating suspense by limiting a players control, they become closer to traditional narratives when the author/creator has a story to tell.

Image from Gamespot

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Grodal, T. (2003). The Video Game Theory Reader. In J. P. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds..), Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles: Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences (p. 129-155). New York, NY: Routledge.

Focusing on games as stories and applying traditional narrative measures limits to scope of analysis. Videogames are more than stories from other media, they include the gameplay and experiences that create the mental understanding and emotional attachment to the game. Grodal takes a ludologist’s position that are simulations of real life experiences, not stories to be walked through.

Games require more than a passive narrative experience. Videogames require cognitive and motor skills. A player is creating and connecting mental maps and plot points to progress through the game. Grodal would argue that this makes games different than narratives, and he is right. But it makes videogames more engaging as narratives, not more distant from narratives. The player is more invested into the story because they are actively taking part in it. Often times the player is the one shaping events in the story, sometimes major, sometimes minor plot points.

Grodal discusses how players grow into the space within a game world. Games at the outset feel open with a wide range of story paths for players, but as many games progress the actual path may be more confined. There ways in which the gameplay funnels to a certain point in the narrative. The question becomes how interactive is the game and how controlled is the story. What is correct? Where is the balance?

There is a larger discussion of linearity and non-linearity in storytelling and culture, with the strengths and weaknesses that come from a Western viewpoint of linear narrative. That debate is not necessary to this discussion, because regardless of if the narrative is strictly linear or allows for non-linear choices the players reaction. Creating alternative routes and multiple paths gives the simulation of freedom to the player. Videogames can create both a specific story within a world, or a specific world with a variety of stories.

Image from Bioware: Mass Effect

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Mateas, M. & Stern, A. (2006). Interaction and Narrative. In Salen & Zimmerman (Eds..), The Game Design Reader (p. 642-667).

There is a continually give a take between narrative and gameplay in videogames. Gameplay centers on the player interacting, changing, and responding to the game world. Narrative centers on the player moving down a specific path to experience a predetermined story. While there is give and take, the ideas are not mutually exclusive to each other. And Mateas argues that can be and should be a balance between the two.

Mateas discusses a variety of types of narratives, including emergent narratives where the player constructs their own story and meaning from the events in the game world. Emergent narratives are an important piece of MMO worlds. Players are creating and adding story elements into the gamespace either as backstory or to expand upon the characters and events happening within the game world. Emergent narratives are not limited to MMORPGs though, gamers have created side stories within a variety of genres and games as diverse as Grand Theft Auto and Madden Football.

Mateas walks through a brief history lesson on videogame narratives by discussing text based adventure, interactive fiction, and interactive drama. He limits the discussion to the early development of narrative in games tying it specifically to traditional literature.

In 1998, Murray presented three categories to analyze interactive stories and they are still valid for game criticism today:

- Immersion, the suspension of disbelief, feeling of being in the game

- Agency, ability to relate to the character, develop a sense of ownership

- Transformation, as masquerade and as personal transformation

Immersion is a sense and experience that most games strive for. Most players are willing to suspend their disbelief, at least for a time. If the game takes the player out of the experience through gameplay or design mechanics, the immersion can be lost. But players are forgiving. Agency is part of the equation in that forgiveness. Players are able and willing to be taking in and out of a game if there is a strong sense of agency developed. Agency is important not only to the success of gameplay, but to the success of the narrative.

“A player will experience agency when there is a balance between the material and the formal constraints (p.654).” Agency allows for a junction of narrative and gameplay. The story is not only compelling the player forward but the gameplay is allowing and supporting the desire to move forward in the plot and in the game. The player not only understands the how of playing the game, but the why as well.

Images: Crackdown from CrackdownonCrime

Frasca, G. (2003). The Video Game Theory Reader. In M. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds..), Simulation Versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology (p. 221-235). New York, NY: Routledge.

Ludology argues that games use different mechanics and tools to engage people compared to narrative ones. “’Ludologist’ grew in popularity among the game academic community to describe someone who is against the common assumption that video games should be viewed as extensions of narrative (p.222).” Ludology does not cast aside storytelling in games, but contends that games are not held together by narrative. The gameplay, mechanics, and structure of the game create and hold the game. Ludologist’s look at games as a simulation of real world events, experiences, and behaviors. Playing a game of the event is a different experience compared to watching the event. Frasca states that games can convey experiences that narratives cannot. The experience of flying a plane or sneaking through an enemy camp is different in a game than a movie or novel because of the simulated effect of actually taking that action. Players’ experiences are different and the emotions are different based on the difference in medium.

Frasca claims that the multiple endings and resolutions that videogames offer add to the overall emotional experience of the player. He is correct. In a many games, a player knows that if they go back through the game and 2^nd, 3^rd, or even more times that the experience both in gameplay and narrative. Going through a game multiple times is not only a possibility, but for some games it is the only way to unlock all the content, gameplay, and narrative within the game.

“Narrative may excel at taking snapshots at particular events but simulation provides us with a rhetorical tool for understanding the big picture (p. 228).”

Image from Endless Ocean on Gameguru

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Konzack, L. (2007). The Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming. In J. P. Williams & J. H. Smith (Eds..), Rhetorics of Computer and Video Game Research (p. 110-130). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Narratology is storytelling rhetoric; a game from this point of view analyzes it as a narrative format. The closer the game narrative gets to a film or book narrative the higher quality it is. For games that want to tell a story, this comparison is useful and important. If designers are modeling the conventions after other media, should games be analyzed in the same fashion? Are there unique criteria to games?

I would argue that yes, there are unique criteria. Narrative games are important and can be compelling. While they can use the same conventions of movies and books there are additional ones as well. Games have the ability to emotionally engage and invest a player based on their decisions in addition to the decisions of the author/designer/creator. Using a narratological framework is very useful, but it cannot be the only framework applied.

Konzack also describes the ludology field of game studies, which was created as a response to the narratology framework. Ludology holds that games do not need to have any narrative to be a good game. They operate on a rule set, not story elements. Ludologists also feel that in a game, the story is always a second to the gameplay. The story may help hold the game progression together, but the gameplay is the reason to continue to move forward.

The ludology prospective is useful and directly applies to some games. Players do not play Tetris for the story. Even popular games like the Mario franchise by Nintendo are better suited as game and criticized on gameplay rather than story. Has anyone tried to finish a Mario game just to see if he will rescue Princess Peach? Players play because of the level design and other gameplay elements.

But limiting videogame analysis to an either / or is short sighted. Videogames can and should be both. Movies exist both as spectacle and drama. No one worries if Spider-man, the Transformers, or Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow will save the day. People flock to the theaters to see how it will happen. The action drives the movie forward.

Videogames can and should, as a maturing medium, take on a variety of purposes and formats. Books have always existed for a variety of purposes. Fiction and non-fiction serve different purposes for the reader. Videogames have to potential and should be analyzed with such concerns in mind.

Images from:

Sibera from Gamespot

Tetris from Neoseeker

Transmedia:

Stories within the game are not / should not be limited to the game. Transmedia storytelling allows stories to be told across a variety of media (Star Wars, Matrix), each providing a piece of the larger story. No longer autonomous, enriching the readers/players/viewers’ experience.

Transmedia storytelling adds value to the standard texts the students interact with. It opens them into a larger world where they can add and enhance the narrative and their interaction with it.

“Game designers don’t simply tell stories; they design worlds and sculpt spaces.” p.674

The environment is just as important to the story and the experience. Helps reinforce story’s message and mise-en-scene. Environmental storytelling, spatial stories, allow for exploration over plot development, and broad goals/narrative are constructed by the players actions. Rather than assuming that player freedom takes away from the narrative, spatial stories use the exploration to create the narrative. Jenkins states that the struggle between performance and exposition is not unique to videogames. Action films use a thin narrative as the glue to hold the action set pieces together. But the limited narrative gives the player/viewer an understanding of the context and the meaning behind the action. Action for the sake of action is fun, but shallow. Action within the confines of a story creates tension and excitement.

“Game designers struggle with this same balancing act – trying to determine how much plot will create a compelling framework and how much freedom players can enjoy at a local level without totally derailing the larger narrative trajectory (Jenkins, p.680).”

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students. Next week I'll this series up with some discussion and literature on what this change in narrative engagement means for our students and why we should engage with it rather than fight it.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Game Design as Narrative Architecture. In Salen & Zimmerman (Eds..), The Game Design Reader (p. 670-687).

We cannot strictly use film theory to analyze games, since there are differences. But in general there is a lot that can be learned by comparing storytelling in games to other forms of media. Before any comparisons, Jenkins establishes some ground rules for videogames and narrative.

• Games do not have to tell stories, some try some don’t
• Games that try to tell stories often depend on traditional narrative experiences
• How characters react, our understanding of situations, conforming to narrative expectations
• Games as narrative are not locked into form, stories do not need to come at the cost of gameplay; nor does gameplay come at the cost of stories
• The narrative is larger than just the formal story, it includes the player’s emotions, decisions, process of playing
• Games that have stories to tell can do so in various ways

“Game designers don’t simply tell stories; they design worlds and sculpt spaces.” p.674

The environment is just as important to the story and the experience. Helps reinforce story’s message and mise-en-scene. Environmental storytelling, spatial stories, allow for exploration over plot development, and broad goals/narrative are constructed by the players actions. Rather than assuming that player freedom takes away from the narrative, spatial stories use the exploration to create the narrative. Jenkins states that the struggle between performance and exposition is not unique to videogames. Action films use a thin narrative as the glue to hold the action set pieces together. But the limited narrative gives the player/viewer an understanding of the context and the meaning behind the action. Action for the sake of action is fun, but shallow. Action within the confines of a story creates tension and excitement.

“Game designers struggle with this same balancing act – trying to determine how much plot will create a compelling framework and how much freedom players can enjoy at a local level without totally derailing the larger narrative trajectory (Jenkins, p.680).”

Pictures by Gameboomers