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Ludology
Narrative vs game... Eskelinen argues that we should think of narrative and game / interactivity as entirely different things.
He says:
“A sequence of events enacted constitutes a drama, a sequence of events taking place a performance, a sequence of events recounted a narrative, and perhaps a sequence of events produced by manipulating equipment and following formal rules constitutes a game.�
Sure we might question the unproblematic application of traditional narrative theory to games as texts, but we might also wonder whether his categorisations here don’t circumscribe the definition of narrative a little too much? Is drama not narrative? And, this definition of game (manipulating of equipment, formal rules) could easily describe the process of making a video. Maybe ‘making media’ is a form of game?
Tags: game ludology narrative narratives-4
Useful concepts for talking about games and play
Caillois' very influential book has a very useful set of concepts which gives us the tools to talk about play and games in an analytical way.
He defines paidia and ludus as contrasting tensions in all games: paidia is the open-ended, freeform, spontaneous, joyous, improvisational, exploratory nature of play; ludus, meanwhile, capture the rules-based structures that many games are based around.
Alongside this 'spectrum', we also have categories or 'classes' of games: agon - games of skill; alea - games of chance; ilinx - vertiginous risk-taking; and mimicry - performance, acting out, part-playing.
Of course, many games and much play may intermingle aspects of any or all of these categories. Chess may by pure agon, while poker mixes agon and mimicry (poker faces and strategy) and alea (the random shuffling of the cards) and maybe even ilinx (the thrill of the gamble).
Crucial reading for grasping basic tools to understand play, and essential to understanding later approaches to ludology.
Tags: game ludology narrative narratives-4 play
Imagine a Brechtian Epic Videogame
People who like videogames, such as those of us who celebrate interactive media and the participatory web and the interactivity of computer culture, don't really like to be reminded of the reactionary critics of videogames who rail against the violence, and accuse violent games of encouraging and conditioning us into acceptance of extreme violent behaviour and ultimately leading the more vulnerable types into some kind of copy-cat action. Campus shootings, child pornography - all these are uncomfortable reminders that mediatised experiences often mask subterranean kinds of perversity.
Costikyan notes the violence in role-playing games (he isn't even specifically talking about videogames as such), and remarks that they are "unintellectual, even anti-intellectual, and tend to emphasise combat and violence at the expense of exploration of human issues."
In this context, Costikyan offers a imaginative case study of a role-playing game – Bestial Acts – in which he proposes a game in which the only ‘honest’ solution to intolerable moral dilemmas is to ‘act in vicious, brutal ways’. Instead of role-playing games as entertaining diversion, he proposes a role-playing game which is an emotionally harrowing ordeal. Imagine if your first person shooter, instead of rewarding you with progress every time you kill a non-player-character, instead stopped the gameplay and demanded to know why you had committed the awful act of murder against someone with a family? This, Costikyan suggests, is the Brechtian drama which is absent from the performances we engage in today.
As an immense fan of Brecht and of games, it is an arresting thought: what would Brecht do? What medium would he work in? Where are the Brechts of today?
Tags: alienation brecht epic game media-effects narrative narratives-3 narratives-4 verfremdungseffekt videogame violence
Analysing cybertext
Cybertext sounds like it ought only to refer to brand new works of literary endeavour that are inscribed in digital media. On the contrary, Aarseth considers the notion of cybertext in the wider context of literature, film - indeed any artefact which can be 'read' in some way.
Ergodic literature, Aarseth argues, refers to texts which require non-trivial work on the part of the user / audience / reader. This leads us to the notion of 'aporia' or challenge - such as puzzles which require solutions in order for the reader to progress.
Cybertext itself is a text which requires some kind of calculation in order for it to be manifested - this may be reflexive in that the text itself alters in response to the calcuation (which may be done by the users themselves, or by the algorithms which generate the text).
Aarseth uses these concepts to clarify and pull apart various terms which are often sloppily used: 'non-linear', 'multilinear', 'unicursal' and 'multicursal'.
Essential reading for the groundwork in understanding interactivity and narrative.
Tags: cybertext ergodic interactive narrative narratives-4 non-linearity text