Designing Sugaropolis:digital games as a medium for conveying transnational narratives

In this paper, the authors present a case study of ‘Sugaropolis’: a two-year practice-based project that involved interdisciplinary co-design and stakeholder evaluation of two digital game prototypes. Drawing on the diverse expertise of the research team (game design and development, human geography, and transnational narratives), the paper aims to contribute to debates about the use of digital games as a medium for representing the past. With an emphasis on design-as-research, we consider how digital games can be (co-)designed to communicate complex histories and geographies in which people, objects, and resources are connected through space and time

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

From narrative to spectacle: An examination of contemporary theatre performance

Drawing on Debord and Baudrillard, this thesis takes its starting point the shift from text to image dominated representations of the world. It argues the parallel shifts in theatre practice and reception away from work which subordinates itself to textual narrative and towards theatre with foreground the non-textual theatrical elements is becoming more defined in Britain. Within there is a concern with the relationship between narrative, the spectacle and disruptive modes of engagement, drawing out in each chapter a different aspect of the implications for creating and engaging with theatre where the spectacle of society is ubiquitous.The introductory chapter will first outline how narrative can be defined and discuss the significance of experience of reality through spectacular representation looking at how the notion of the spectator and the experience of engagement with theatre have changed, then the following six chapters will address the relationship between the spectacle and virtuosity in performance; the implications for politics of identity and for resistance to the spectacle; the experience of immersion through participation in spectacular performance; and distance through engagement with ironic spectacle, before in the final chapter, addressing theatre which constructs itself as international through multilingualism and new media technology.Each chapter focuses on one or two practitioners examining one of their performances in detail in relation to one of the areas outlined above. This analysis will be based on my own experience as a spectator, research into the companies, their reception in the media and academic writing, and where possible through interviews with members of the company

Performing Both Sides of the Glass: Videogame Affordances and Live Streaming on Twitch

This thesis examines the performative dimensions videogame affordances assume within online, live streaming environments. This approach considers how streamers configure their videogame play in terms of a potential audience, drawing on five semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Australian-based Twitch streamers to analyse how streamers leverage videogame affordances to produce “meaningful moments”. Guiding this thesis is the question of how the player-videogame relationship is maintained, fractured or altered within live-streaming environments such as Twitch

Time and Space in Digital Game Storytelling

The design and representation of time and space are important in any narrative form. Not surprisingly there is an extensive literature on specific considerations of space or time in game design. However, there is less attention to more systematic analyses that examine both of these key factors—including their dynamic interrelationship within game storytelling. This paper adapts critical frameworks of narrative space and narrative time drawn from other media and demonstrates their application in the understanding of game narratives. In order to do this we incorporate fundamental concepts from the field of game studies to build a game-specific framework for analyzing the design of narrative time and narrative space. The paper applies this framework against a case analysis in order to demonstrate its operation and utility. This process grounds the understanding of game narrative space and narrative time in broader traditions of narrative discourse and analysis

Blood Splats and Bodily Collapse: Reported Realism and the Perception of Violence in Combat Films and Video Games

A clear definition of realism is understandably difficult for critics and theorists to agree upon when applied to texts such as the war film or combat shooter, which can have a very direct connection to events that have actually taken place. In this paper, I use textual observation and analysis to advance the concept of “reported realism” as an alternate analytic tool to account for the impression of truth and authenticity produced by specific stylistic components of these representations of combat violence. Drawing upon cognitivist theories of meaning and the imagination (Torben Grodal, Stephen Prince) and neoformalist film studies (Kristin Thompson) this paper points toward some of the significant developments in the evolution of violence in war films as well as the adjacent genre of the first-person shooter video game. I show that the intensified audio-visual detail in contemporary screen representations of war enable film viewers and game players to construct more vividly imagined mental simulations, thus offering a greater affective realism

Professional Counter-Strike: An Analysis of Media Objects, Esports Culture, and Gamer Representation

Esports are growing in popularity at a rapid pace worldwide. In contemporary society, individuals watch esports broadcasts as part of their normal media consuming practices. This dissertation focuses on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which is currently the most recognized first-person shooter esport worldwide and the third most popular game across all esports genres (Irwin & Naweed, 2020). Interested in how the cultural knowledge and experience of esports and gamers who populate the scene are represented in media, I explored professional CS:GO esports broadcasts from two prominent professional leagues, ESL Pro League (EPL) and ELEAGUE. A thematic analysis of textual and audio-visual data from professional CS:GO broadcasts revealed that esports culture is a novel phenomenon, similar to sport, but situated within video games. Using traditional sports metaphors and comparisons, as well as sportscast style match coverage and gameplay reporting, EPL and ELEAGUE illustrate CS:GO as a global sport. At the same time, both leagues emphasize technicity and rely on gamer jargon to frame professional CS:GO as a hybrid mediasport, intrinsically tied to game culture. EPL and ELEAGUE utilize narratives and images to portray gamers as simultaneously geeks and jocks by highlighting players’ traditional sports backgrounds while also describing them as “natural gamers.” Finally, EPL and ELEAGUE represent gamers as young males who are mostly white, offering audiences a limited worldview that supports a dominant social, cultural, and global ideology