Worlds at our fingertips:reading (in) <i>What Remains of Edith Finch</i>

Video games are works of written code which portray worlds and characters in action and facilitate an aesthetic and interpretive experience. Beyond this similarity to literary works, some video games deploy various design strategies which blend gameplay and literary elements to explicitly foreground a hybrid literary/ludic experience. We identify three such strategies: engaging with literary structures, forms and techniques; deploying text in an aesthetic rather than a functional way; and intertextuality. This paper aims to analyse how these design strategies are deployed in What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow, 2017) to support a hybrid readerly/playerly experience. We argue that this type of design is particularly suited for walking simulators because they support interpretive play (Upton, 2015) through slowness, ambiguity (Muscat et al., 2016; Pinchbeck 2012), narrative and aesthetic aspirations (Carbo-Mascarell, 2016). Understanding walking sims as literary games (Ensslin, 2014) can shift the emphasis from their lack of ‘traditional’ gameplay complexity and focus instead on the opportunities that they afford for hybrid storytelling and for weaving literature and gameplay in innovative and playful ways

An analysis of persistent non-player characters in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007: a case for the fusion of mechanics and diegetics

This paper describes the results of an analysis of persistent non-player characters (PNPCs) in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007. Assessing the role, function, gameplay significance and representational characteristics of these critical important gameplay objects from over 34 major releases provides an important set of baseline data within which to situate further research. This kind of extensive, genre-wide analysis is under-represented in game studies, yet it represents a hugely important process in forming clear and robust illustrations of the medium to support understanding. Thus, I offer a fragment of this illustration, demonstrating that many of the cultural and diegetic qualities of PNPCs are a product of a self-assembling set of archetypes formed from gameplay requirements

Heritage destruction and videogames:ethical challenges of the representation of cultural heritage

Representations of historical or cultural sites in videogames have always been contested by videogames scholarship, arguing that historical games often court controversy. This paper examines the history of the National and University Library in Sarajevo, particularly the destruction of the site and how it has been represented with different meanings across various media. The second part of the paper will analyze the representation of the library (post-reconstruction) in the videogame, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2’s Act 2 (called ‘Ghost of Sarajevo’), in order to raise issues about the ethical challenges of the representation of a heritage site that has not only been destroyed and reconstructed, but that it is part of a national heritage.The analysis shows that there are important pressures derived from the ways in which videogames represent heritage which has gone through a process of destruction, and how videogames adapt a historical event following formal videogame conventions. The paper concludes by pointing out the benefits of studying cases such as the National and University Library in Sarajevo, as well as new avenues of research regarding the representation of contested cultural sites in videogames

Games and literary theory conference, 2013 : conference review

The Department of English of the University of Malta collaborated with the Institute of Digital Games (University of Malta) to hold the First International Conference on Games and Literary Theory. It ran from the 31st of October to the 1st of November 2013, and was held at the Old University Building, Valletta, Malta. The event proved to be an overwhelmingly smooth and positive experience for all involved. One of the event’s particularly positive aspects was its structure – only one panel at a time with two or three papers each – which admitted fewer papers than is usual for such conferences. In doing so, it gave space for, and indeed generated, a healthy debate after each paper was delivered, allowing both speaker and audience to immerse themselves in the topics at hand.peer-reviewe

Minimum game plans : eco-design and low-tech fabrication in studios

This paper looks at eco-design and low-tech fabrication in studio

Emergence and playfulness in social games

Social Games, built and played on social networks such as Facebook, have rapidly become a major force in the world of game development, and the top social games today claim more players than any other online game on any format. As social games begin to mature from their roots as simple playful social toys and into the products of big business, the patterns and mechanics used in the design have begun to be formalised. In this paper, it is argued that experimentation and playfulness is still a very important part of the play experience and a valuable source of fun. As game designs explore the space opened by the new genre of social games, it is vital for designers to leave “gaps” in the design to allow for playful and serendipitous experiences to emerge from the activities of the players. To support this argument, Caillois’ classification of play is used as a lens through which social games can be examined. Examples of paidic, playful and emergent play are presented from popular social and offline games, and a detailed case study of paidic play in a new social game is presented from the designer’s perspective. Interviews from participants to an open trial are discussed, and their experiences in creating their own playful experiences and goals within the formal structure of the social game design are explored

Heritage destruction and videogames:a pervasive relation

This paper examines the history of the National and University Library in Sarajevo, and particularly the destruction of the site and how it has been represented with different meanings across various media. The second part of the paper will analyse the representation of the library (post-reconstruction) in the videogame Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2’s Act 2 (called ‘Ghost of Sarajevo’), in order to raise issues about the ethical representation of a heritage site that has not only been destroyed and reconstructed, but that it is part of a national heritage

Can We Programme Utopia? The Influence of the Digital Neoliberal Discourse on Utopian Videogames

This article has a dual purpose. The first is to establish the relationship between videogames and utopia in the neoliberal era and clarify the origins of this compromise in the theoretical dimension of game studies. The second is to examine the ways in which there has been an application of the utopian genre throughout videogame history (the style of procedural rhetoric and the subgenre of walking simulator) and the way in which the material dimension of the medium ideologically updates the classical forms of that genre, be it through activation or deactivation. The article concludes with an evaluation of the degree in which the neoliberal discourse interferes with the understanding of utopia on behalf of the medium and with its imaginary capabilities to allow for an effective change in social reality

Constant's Nomadic City

In the period 1954-1974 the Dutch artist known as Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuys, 1920-2005) elaborated a series of artworks and writings depicting a future urban agglomeration: New Babylon. Stretching over the whole globe, New Babylon hosts wandering individuals who freely move around the interactive space of the hyper-city without any fixed abode, or any reference to an established culture and habits. As the progressing automation of all productive activity allows the people to dispose of free time without any limitation, the main activities of New Babylonians are of a ludic kind. After a concise introduction, this article concentrates on the written work accompanying the project, by focusing on two recurring key terms: “nomadism” and “play”. These are the “travelling concepts” (Bal 2002) surfacing in a number of texts by other authors, diverse in scope, disciplinary field, and date of composition. Next to Deleuze and Guattari’s Nomadologie (Mille plateaux, 1980), Edouard Glissant’s Poétique de la Relation (1990), Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1938), the net of relations among texts outlined in this article comes to encompass also Dutch authors such as Menno ter Braak (1902-1940) and Simon Vinkenoog (1928-2009), with the aim of reconnecting New Babylon with its Dutch background, too often underplayed in scholarship on this subject. Urban planning, social trends and the development of counter-cultures in the Netherlands in the Fifties and Sixties offer a better insight into Constant’s internationally revered artwork