Rules.of.Play.Game.Design.Fundamentals [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Narrative Tensions

Using other media as starting points, we may learn many things about the construction of fictive worlds, characters…but relying too heavily on existing theories will make us forget what makes games games: Such as rules, goals, player activity, the projection of the player's actions into the game world, the way the game defines the possible actions of the player. It is the unique parts that we need to study now.—Jesper Juul, "Games Telling Stories?"

The intersection of the terms "narrative" and "game" has been surprisingly contentious in the study and design of games. In recent years, scholars and students of literature, film, and electronic narrative forms such as hypertext have gravitated toward the study of computer games. As disciplines outside of game design have studied games from the perspective of their own fields, debates have arisen over who has the right to make statements about games and narrativity, and exactly how to make such statements. These turf wars are symptomatic of the difficulty inherent in studying external media in the context of one's own discipline. Jesper Juul is correct in reminding us of the danger of relying too heavily on existing theories, particularly theories borrowed from other fields. For example, using literary theory to argue that all games are (or aren't) narratives ultimately doesn't offer much utility for game design.

Discussions of games as "interactive narratives" predictably fall into polarizing debates about linear vs. non-linear storytelling, of games as stories or stories as games. Some say that games and narrative are mutually exclusive concepts; others that some games are narrative whereas others are not. Consider the following excerpts from an online discussion of games and narrative by game designers/theorists Greg Costikyan and Brenda Laurel:

Greg Costikyan: A story is best envisioned as "beads on a string," a linear narrative; a game is best envisioned as a triangle of possibili-ty,with the initial position at one apex, and possible conclusions along the opposite side, with myriad, ideally, infinite paths between initial state and outcome. To the degree that you try to make a game more like a story by imposing arbitrary decision points, you make it less like a game.

Brenda Laurel: I don't think the interactive game changes the popular understanding of what a story is. In popular culture, people talk about characters and worlds in relatively media-independent ways. In common speech, the name "story" actually refers to the central bundle of potential created by characters, worlds, situations, histories, and so forth, rather than to a specific instantiation (for example, Star Trek, Care Bears, Myst).[1]

While both Costikyan and Laurel make compelling points, the question underlying each of their statements is whether or not games are narratives. Our position in this schema is that the concept of narrative offers just one way of looking at games. Again, the question is not if games are narrative but how they are narrative. It is certainly possible to categorize all games as narrative objects—or as non-narrative objects—but as game designers we must ask how can we use such an understanding to generate meaningful play.

Over the last few years, several models regarding games and narrative have emerged. In "Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives," Jesper Juul summarizes these trends by identifying three arguments writers and scholars commonly make supporting an intrinsic connection between games and narrative:

The first argument offers a holistic view: we use narratives to make sense of our lives, to process information, and tell stories about a game we have played. Therefore, no genre or cultural form (including games) falls outside the idea of narrative.

The second argument centers on the story context provided by a game's opening cinematic or textual introduction. (You are in a galaxy far, far, away . . .) Backstories position a player in the context of a larger story; a player's action in a game is the means by which the larger story is realized. In Super Breakout, for example, the backstory written in the program instructions places players within a one-man spaceship, hurtling through the deep blackness of space, faster than the speed of light. The player encounters a mysterious force field, which blocks his way. Can he pass through it or will it destroy him? This text provides a narrative context within which the player acts, blasting away at the force field in order to resume his journey. Without this con-text,a player's actions in the highly abstract game of Super Breakout might lack narrative motivation. Although his actions certainly have interactive meaning—one pixel interacts with another, one action has a discernable and integrated outcome —they lack a designed experiential context within which these more formal meanings are framed as a story.

The third argument, that games share some traits with narratives, is exceedingly broad. This argument holds that games, like narratives, have quest structures, are experienced linearly, offer reversals of fortune, and contain other elements common to some, but not all narratives.

According to Juul, all three of these approaches have been used to justify a narrative approach to understanding games. Directly or indirectly, they all form a part of our own investigation of games as narrative play. However, unlike the approaches Juul summarizes, we are coming to the questions of games and narrative from a game design orientation. In previous chapters, we have framed and re-framed games from many points of view. Seeing games as information, conflict, pleasure, or meaning can help game designers to design meaningful play. The same is true when we look at games as narrative play.

[1]

RE:PLAY: Game Design + Game Culture. Online conference. 2000. <www.eyebeam.org/replay
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[2]Jesper Juul, "Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives." Gamestudies.org