INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE :: Week 2 Questions

Week 2 - Reading

Salen and Zimmerman Games as Narrative Play

1. J. Hillis Miller outlines a handful of components that constitute a narrative: “There must be, first of all, an initial situation, a sequence leading to a change or reversal of that situation, and a revelation made possible by the reversal of the situation. Second, there must be some use of personification whereby character is created out of signs – for example, the words on the page in a written narrative, the modulated sounds in the air in an oral narrative. However important plot may be, without personification there can be no storytelling… Third, there must be some patterning or repetition of key elements.”
   Give one example of a game or film that conforms to this definition of narrative.

Dragon Age Inquisition conforms to this definition of narrative, as the sky more or less explodes, creating an enormous rift that disrupts life as it was in Thedas. Personification appears in the form of the player's character, who is fully customizeable and serves as an avatar/vessel for the player and all the decisions that they make in the game. The key elements in the story appear as snags and quests along the way which are related to the breach in some shape or form. The player must recruit followers, close rifts, and fetch things for NPCs in order to get closer and closer to the goal of closing the breach for good.

2. S&Z refer to types of narrative in videogames, embedded and emergent. Define each of these and give at least one example of each from videogames.

Embedded narrative is a pre-generated story that is interactively told and exists before the player's interaction – the example in the reading suggests Jak and Daxter as two characters who are saving the world. This is crafted interactive story. Emergent Narrative is the experience when the game is played – again referring to Jak and Daxter with their story forming and changing through the player playng the game. This is improvised play experience.

3. In what ways do games combine embedded and emergent narratives?

Games link the embedded and emergent narratives togeter – the embedded gives the player motivation to move forward in the game and gives meaning to any actions that they take, while the emergent provides the challenges and thrills that make the game feel fulfilling and advance the story.

4. How do goals, conflicts, and core mechanics make gameplay meaningful?

The Goal helps the player to judge how far they are in the game and understand the significance of their actions within a narrative context. It describes the nature of player interaction with the narrative context and thus makes the interaction meaningful.

Conflict creates an obstacle for the player to overcome, giving opportunity for narrative events and aids in the player's satisfaction of reaching the goal. It is an element that works against the player's success and tries ultimately to lead to the player's failure.

Core mechanics create patterns of repeated behavior and frame the moment to moment activity of the player. It forces the player to pay attention to the game and to understand and learn what their limits within it are and teaches what they can and cannot do to reach the goal. The player engages with the core mechanics to make meaningful choices and explore their possibilities.

5. In what ways does a “game space” contribute to context, time and causality?

The design of a game space creates events in these concepts of context, time and casualty. Design changes depending on the type of game, but it helps the player to interpret just how they can go about playing the game and offers many possibilities and choices in how they can succeed. The game space contains the embedded narrative qualities to help shape the story and help the player understand and achieve the goal.

6. How do “game descriptors” contribute to a game’s narrative? What are some examples of game descriptors? Are they always effective?

The game descriptors help to identify objects in the game, giving meaning to what might otherwise be (particularly in early games?) abstract shapes on the screen. The narrative descriptor frames the elements inside and outside of the game as objects that communicate the story. These descriptors could be all the objects you see on screen – the player character, identified by the one moving when you touch the controller buttons, scenery, identified by the familiar shapes of walls and rocks etc, enemies, identified by shapes that may be differntly colored to your character sprite, and create a reaction in the form of blood/flashing colors/sounds when they touch you. They may start out as ineffective, but to one conditioned to video games, signs of what approaching figures or shapes are can be more easily identified based on previous games and previously understood 'rules' from them. The game descriptor helps to contextualize objects within the game so that even new players can begin to understand what shapes do which things, and which objects to attack or avoid.

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Week 2 – Video Questions

1. Do you agree with me that The Walking Dead by Telltale Games doesn’t really offer the player meaningful choice? Does it really matter if it does or doesn’t?

I can't take a stand on agreeing or disagreeing about meaningful choice as I'd have to experience the game for myself, but as someone who doesn't set replaying games very high on their list of priorities I feel like it doesn't truly matter whether the game's choices are meaningful. In my opinion, once you know what's going to happen in the story, the experience of replaying it is ruined – you already know what's going to happen and while you might be curious to see what kinds of other choices you can make in the same scenarios, the overall experience of the game will feel diminished as the main plot points of the story driven narrative will not change and thus you can already expect to know what twists and turns the story is going to take.

2. How does The Walking Dead incorporate minimal interactivity to make the player feel like they are driving the story forward?

The dialogue options that your character is given are often under a time limit, making the player feel like they must make a snap decision in order to avoid consequences. The same is true for the game's quick time events when faced with a character's reflex actions or during fight scenes – if the buttons on screen aren't pressed quickly or for long enough, consequences also occur. The game plays on the player's desire to avoid death or harm coming to the character they have played thus far with and continue the progression of the story.

3. How could The Walking Dead have incorporated more player freedom, and how might this have impacted the telling of the story?

As the video mentioned, the player is only in control of certain 'scenes' that occur between cutscenes and dialogue/quicktime events. They do not have the freedom to explore an open world or to make choices beyond the the ones presented in the dialogue options. The video mentions that Clem leaves her gun out in the open and the player is not allowed to retrieve it for the sake of the story, even though the player knows that it is a terrible decision to put the gun down for even a moment. With more freedom, it would be much harder to keep the narrative on track, as the player would be exploring and getting into encounters that they weren't supposed to. The consequence could be similar to those in Bethesda games – where the player is free to do whatever they like at the expense of never progressing or completing the main story, or being left to do whatever they liked once the central 'backbone' plot is complete.

4. What is the tension between “me the player” and the intended actions of “characters” in a game like The Walking Dead?

Sometimes – particularly when the player has experienced the sequence of the game already – the player will want to take actions that the characters within the game would not think of/cannot do due to programming. The player might find the character's current goal or motives unnecessary or would want to do things differently, or the character's actions might create a sort of frustrating tenseness in the player, due to knowing the trope that the character's actions will ultimately cause.

5. The game Until Dawn is an interactive horror film where choices determine who survives. How does the player’s prior knowledge of horror tropes influence their choices?

Many people who have played this game say that it relies heavily on Horror tropes, and that if you know how those work, its very easy to avoid danger/disaster and make it through the game with most of, if not all of the characters surviving. There are 'rules' to a horror film, and characters can all fit into horror stereotypes, many of which suggest that they will die before the end of the game. However, Until Dawn also gives you the option to circumvent what is otherwise predestined within a horror film, as every single playable character can survive.

6. Do you think that choice makes an interactive narrative more dramatic? Are the limited choices in games like Until Dawn and The Walking Dead enough to make these choices meaningful?

The idea of choice, even if it does turn out to be a superficial one can definitely have meaningful impact on the player, as it helps to engage them more with the story and make them feel that the choices that they made had a certain weight or impact on how things turned out. I feel like an interactive game could definitely be considered more dramatic – on one hand the player could make force drama by purposely insighting fights and discord among the characters or making the characters enter situations that anyone with common sense would avoid. On the other, they may choose to avoid dramatic situations by 'playing it safe' – but no doubt the video game accomodates for that and can potentially throw in even more surprising twists and turns at the player in order to constantly keep them on their toes.

7. In what ways might an interactive narrative lack the qualities of “traditional narratives,” such as twists, tropes, symbolism etc… What do interactive narratives offer instead?

The interactive aspect of a narrative means that the set in stone, solid backbone of a traditional narrative is missing due to the free will and choices that the player exerts over it. The story can turn to unexpected places the symbolism and hints are reduced in order to create a deeper sense of mystery and involvement. As the Gamer Maker's toolkit has suggested, however, the interactive narrative can offer the player to direct and form a plot based on their own whims and ideas. It allows the player's imagination to run wild, to create a game out of the game itself by pulling the strings and avoiding or travelling into the common tropes that one expects. It also offers a more immersive experience, as the player feels as though their choices have a direct impact on the story at hand.