Games with Words: Textual Representation in the Wake of Graphical Realism in Videogames

Much of the videogame industry is based around a model of technological progress, whereby developers, individual videogames, and videogame platforms are lauded as superior based on their engagement with the latest, cutting edge forms of technology. As a direct consequence of this focus, sophisticated graphic-based representations are often employed as a yardstick for technological superiority, as it is a form of advancement that can be discerned by the naked eye. The focus on graphics has a number of consequences: it presents past videogames as inferior realizations that pale before more modern approaches; it favors image-based representation over other representational forms such as text; it enters videogames into a broader, ongoing debate in Western culture regarding mimesis and representations of reality that pit image and text against each other. An alternative to the graphic-dominated history of videogames is a variantological approach, in which marginalized and past forms of representation are not seen as dead ends and failures, but as variants that offer alternative perspectives. To that end, this dissertation analyzes five different text-based variant approaches that present ways of considering videogames apart from the dominant narrative of technology-driven graphical realism. First, the history of the instruction manual illustrates how a text-based paratext functions in regards to videogames, which can be viewed as reinforcing the technology-driven approach to videogames—up to and including technology rendering the manual defunct—but can also illustrate a second history, one which explores how a manual as paratext acts to support videogames through incorporation of other print media forms such as the comic book or the picturebook, through presenting a model of the ideal gamer, and through presenting the manual itself as an object from within the videogame. Second, in the history of videogame technology, the 1980s are a crucial period, in which console systems developed an image-based vocabulary for nascent players to learn, and the text-based videogames of the personal computer looked to literary models to do what the image-based games could not; the 1989 Amiga game It Came From the Desert represents the moment when text and image cease to be competing forms and turn into formations more complementary. Third, in the 1990s, this balance shifts towards image with the advent of 3D immersive graphics, and the dominance of graphic-based realism, as illustrated through DOOM and Myst—though both games not only used text, but depended on it to engage players to enter into make-believe, mimetic games with their respective gameworlds. In the face of graphical realism’s dominance, the 1999 computer game Planescape: Torment stands out as a text-heavy variant, illustrating the ability of textual representation to engage with mimesis-as-make-believe and offer an alternative to graphical realism through self-inscription, the presentation of text, and a gameworld based on the power of belief and words. Finally, a fifth approach to textual variants comes through a consideration of the role of the text-centred artifact the book within videogames, which presents a wide variety of uses including the book as epitext, book as narrative frame, book as menu system, book as found object, and book as allusive structure

Aya of the Beholder

The ways in which virtual environments are constructed and perceived is rarely a direct one-to-one experience. Using the foundational example of Squaresoft’s Parasite Eve (1997), I examine the ways in which real-world locations and approximations of such are represented within videogame worlds. I examine the methods through which videogames can create spaces which evoke the conceptual idea of a given place, both through audio/visual and interactive means, without constructing a one-to-one simulacrum of the location. Thus, the player actively contributes in the transformation of an actionable virtual space into an actualized lived place.           Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, my discussion draws on cinematic semiotic theory, by way of Christian Metz, in association with Wittgenstein’s examination of language as a foundation from which to proceed. These concepts are then incorporated into a broader discussion of theories more focused on videogame studies, such as Laurie Taylor’s Lacanian approach to the videogame avatar and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow, to illustrate how video game locations may leave out large portions of their real-world referents and yet still be identified as said referents by the player. The choices for what to include/exclude are also examined from a socio-political perspective, allowing reflection on what is considered necessary for a representation of a real-world place

’Feel It, Don’t Think: the Significance of Affect in the Study of Digital Games

As a discourse, digital game studies is still in the process of formation, charting its terrain, defining its terms, and formalizing its methodologies. Even at this early stage, however, the field has already accrued a number of important grounding assumptions and embedded paradigms. Key among these is linear or Albertian perspective, which functions as a structural model for gamespace, and, to a large extent, as an epistemological model for the discourse that studies it. Digital gamespace is a derivative of Renaissance pictorial space. It is designed by and for subjects that belong to a culture of visuality, and know how to ‘read’ an image and to order its space rationally. To date, this visually biased, structural/semiotic angle has tended to dominate the methodological side of game studies. Structure – rhetorical, narrative, taxonomical – is a key concern in much current research, with games scholars calling for the construction of unified vocabularies, taxonomies, rhetorical strategies, and definitions in the field of games and game design. Structural and semiotic approaches have also been used to theorize the experience of gameplay itself, with linguistic and rhetorical models brought to bear on the issue of enjoyment in gaming, and psychoanalytic frameworks used to investigate the relationship between player, character, and gamespace. Approaches to gaming and interactivity remain incomplete, however, "if they operate only on the semantic or semiotic level, however that level is defined (linguistically, logically, narratologically, ideologically, or all of these in combination, as a Symbolic)." (Massumi 27) As any player knows, the rush you get from a good game is not confined to the space of the screen; it is a subrational, bodily thing as well, involving phenomenological or affective dimensions which cannot be programmed into a game, but which are nonetheless vital to good gameplay. Affect is key to the perception of images, and to the notion of meaningful interaction with them. While this is true of any image, it is impossible to ignore in digital games, where the user engages dynamically with moving images. What is lost in structural or semiotic approaches is precisely this sense of image perception as an embodied ’event’. Most games researchers are players as well, and the field of game studies is underpinned by a shared – if not yet widely acknowledged – recognition of digital games as rule-based systems that players interact with on an affective plane, in real space and time. Nonetheless, the notion of affect has yet to be theoretically unpacked to any significant degree digital games researchers, and there is little concensus in the field regarding the definition of the term, which is widely used as a synonym for emotion. As it will be understood here, however, affect is not the same thing as emotion. Affect is a way of describing the ’feel’ or intensity of a game, and as such it differs from the sociocultural capture or qualification of this intensity – the manifest content (narrative, symbolic, emotional, or otherwise) of a game. Affect refers to the unquantifiable features of a game – those phenomenological aspects of interactivity that are difficult to describe and to model theoretically, but which nonetheless make a game come alive. While narrative and structural approaches have much to reveal about the content of a game, they are far less articulate when it comes to discussing gameplay in affective terms. As console-based action and FPS games, pervasive games, and other more ’active’ genres become more popular amongst games researchers, however, they bring with them new methodological requirements. The following discussion addresses some of these requirements. Drawing on the theoretical approaches of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Brian Massumi, and examining a variety of digital games and platforms ranging from the cerebral (online chess) to the physically involving (Eye Toy), it looks at interactivity along affective lines, in terms of the embodied nature of image perception and the player’s material relationship to digital technologies. Works Cited: Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2002

o uso de padrões musicais na construção do medo em jogos survival horror

UID/EAT/00693/2013Os jogos de survival horror constroem uma série de interacções simbióticas e sensoriais com os jogadores através da relação entre o design da narrativa e a utilização da música e sonoplastia durante a acção no ecrã – a música é utilizada para canalizar diversos estados emocionais aos jogadores, bem como instruções sónicas ao experienciar estes produtos (Roberts: 2014). Este trabalho pretende examinar, através de um caso de estudo prático e interactivo com participantes com diferentes níveis de experiência, como é que os mesmos percepcionam a música, a sua construção e aplicação na jogabilidade de quatro videojogos de subgéneros distintos, observando também os estados emocionais que decorreram desta experiência, procurando cruzar com outras formas audiovisuais que utilizem métodos semelhantes na construção do horror e medo no espectador.publishersversionpublishe

The impact of Nintendo’s "for men" advertising campaign on a potential female market

In order to emphasize the maturation of their hand-held console and increase its appeal to an adult market, Nintendo's UK advertising campaign for the Game Boy Advance SP drew explicitly upon 'lad' culture and a tongue-in-cheek appropriation of cologne advertising. In this campaign, the lead and most prominent promotional advert for the device used an image of the Game Boy with the tagline "For Men". This paper outlines why Nintendo's decision to present the Game Boy as a male accessory prompted exploration into its potential impact on the female market. Much of the emerging research field examining female participation in game cultures had at that point tended to focus its attention on exploring the experiences of different female groups with a variety of software titles and its associated communities. In contrast, this paper addresses participants' perceptions of the gaming industry and its relevance to them as a (potential) consumer by taking a hardware device as its focus. This was achieved by conducting a series of focus groups, with a range of both experienced and inexperienced female game players, during which participants were asked to engage with the hand-held device and experience both its single and networked game-play capabilities with the game Legend of Zelda. The findings address participants' awareness and views on the extent to which gaming is coded male and its ramifications for their participation in game cultures

Heavy Hero or Digital Dummy? Multimodal Player–Avatar Relations in Final Fantasy 7

This article analyses the player-avatar relation in Final Fantasy 7, drawing on multimodality theory to analyse textual structures both in the game and in the discourse of player-interviews and fan writing. It argues that the avatar is a two-part structure, partly designed in conventional narrative terms as a protagonist of popular narrative, and partly as a vehicle for interactive game-play. The former structure is replete with the traditions and designs of Japanese popular narrative, oral formulaic narrative and contemporary superhero narratives; and is presented to the player as an offer act – a declarative narrative statement. The latter is a construct of evolving attributes and economies characteristic of roleplaying games; and is presented to the player as a demand act – a rule-based command. Though these two functions separate out in the grammar of player and fan discourse, it is their integration which provides the pleasure of gameplay and narrative engagement

Studying Games in School: a Framework for Media Education

This paper explores how media education principles can be extended to digital games, and whether the notion of ‘game literacy’ is an appropriate metaphor for thinking about the study of digital games in schools. Rationales for studying the media are presented, focusing on the importance of setting up social situations that encourage more systematic and critical understanding of games. The value of practical production, or game making, is emphasized, as a way of developing both conceptual understanding and creative abilities. Definitions of games are reviewed to explore whether the study of games is best described as a form of literacy. I conclude that games raise difficulties for existing literacy frameworks, but that it remains important to study the multiple aspects of games in an integrated way. A model for conceptualizing the study of games is presented which focuses on the relationship between design, play and culture

RUNNING SCARED: FEAR, SPACE, AND AFFECT IN AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT

Most contemporary 3-D video games provide a wealth of visual information to players to help them navigate the in-game virtual space. Maps, compasses, beacons, and other visual guides are often necessary components of gameplay that help players feel confident and powerful within the virtual world. Conversely, the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent uses its claustrophobic configurations of space to reduce the player’s visual and auditory awareness. In this paper, I analyze how these disorienting configurations of space threaten the player’s sense of individual autonomy by restricting their ability to maintain a safe distance from the dangerous monsters within the game

Restless Dreams and Shattered Memories : Psychoanalysis and Silent Hill

This paper applies psychoanalytic frameworks to the survival horror franchise Silent Hill, a series which is itself informed by psychoanalytic themes. Concerns include the construction of game space as maternal womb, cinematic sequences as primal fantasies, and the representation of memory across the games within a psychoanalytic context. The horror genres' preoccupation with monstrous mother figures is evident in boss battle adversaries, the depiction of gamespaces as bloody «maternal caves», and in narratives concerning characters' searching for their parental origins Distinguishing between videogames' playable sequences and cinematics as conscious and sub-conscious aspects, cut-scenes are analysed as reproducing primal fantasies, serving to explain protagonists' backstory and situating play within narrative contexts. Such moments intrude into the game, marking transformations between the ordinary world and the abject Otherworld, or heralding the emergence of psychoanalytically-resonant monstrous creatures which the protagonist must destroy. Finally, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is examined as a game which, even more than others, foregrounds the series' explicit reference to psychoanalytic preoccupations, engaging with contemporary understandings concerning the relationship between memory, media and fantasy.En el presente artículo se aplica el marco de estudio psicoanalítico a la serie de survival horror Silent Hill, ella misma basada en temas psicoanalíticos. Entre los asuntos tratados cabe mencionar la construcción del espacio del juego como un vientre materno, las secuencias cinemáticas como fantasías originarias (Urphantasien), así como la representación de la memoria durante las partidas en un contexto psicoanalítico. El interés del género de terror por las figuras maternas monstruosas es evidente en los adversarios que combate el jefe, en la descripción de los espacios del juego como sangrientas «cuevas maternales» y en los relatos sobre la búsqueda que emprenden los personajes para hallar su ascendencia. Distinguiendo entre secuencias jugables de videojuegos y secuencias cinemáticas como aspectos conscientes e inconscientes, las cinemáticas son analizadas como reproducciones de fantasías originarias que sirven para explicar el pasado de los protagonistas y emplazar el juego en contextos narrativos. Tales elementos irrumpen en la partida, señalando el paso del mundo ordinario al abyecto Más Allá (y viceversa) o anunciando la aparición de monstruosas criaturas de resonancias psicoanalíticas que el protagonista debe destruir. Finalmente, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories es estudiado como un juego que, incluso más que otros, pone en primer plano las referencias explícitas de la serie a cuestiones psicoanalíticas, entroncando con las interpretaciones contemporáneas acerca de la relación entre la memoria, los medios y la fantasía