Games and Narrative: Theory and Practice


Book Description

This book provides an introduction and overview of the rapidly evolving topic of game narratives, presenting the new perspectives employed by researchers and the industry, highlighting the recent empirical findings that illustrate the nature of it. The first section deals with narrative design and theory, the second section includes social and cultural studies on game narrative, the third section focuses on new technologies and approaches for the topic, the fourth section presents practices and case studies, and the final section provides industry cases from professionals.




Interactive Digital Narrative


Book Description

The book is concerned with narrative in digital media that changes according to user input—Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN). It provides a broad overview of current issues and future directions in this multi-disciplinary field that includes humanities-based and computational perspectives. It assembles the voices of leading researchers and practitioners like Janet Murray, Marie-Laure Ryan, Scott Rettberg and Martin Rieser. In three sections, it covers history, theoretical perspectives and varieties of practice including narrative game design, with a special focus on changes in the power relationship between audience and author enabled by interactivity. After discussing the historical development of diverse forms, the book presents theoretical standpoints including a semiotic perspective, a proposal for a specific theoretical framework and an inquiry into the role of artificial intelligence. Finally, it analyses varieties of current practice from digital poetry to location-based applications, artistic experiments and expanded remakes of older narrative game titles.




Writing for Games


Book Description

Focussing on the independent videogames sector, this book provides readers with a vocabulary to articulate and build their games writing practice; whether studying games or coming to games from another storytelling discipline. Writing for Games offers resources for communication, collaboration, reflection, and advocacy, inviting the reader to situate their practice in a centuries-long heritage of storytelling, as well as considering the material affordances of videogames, and the practical realities of working in game development processes. Structured into three parts, Theory considers the craft of both games and writing from a theoretical perspective, covering vocabulary for both game and story practices. Case Studies uses three case studies to explore the theory explored in Part 1. The Practical Workbook offers a series of provocations, tools and exercises that give the reader the means to refine and develop their writing, not just for now, but as a part of a life-long practice. Writing for Games: Theory and Practice is an approachable and entry-level text for anyone interested in the craft of writing for videogames. Hannah Nicklin is an award-winning narrative and game designer, writer, and academic who has been practising for nearly 15 years. She works hard to create playful experiences that see people and make people feel seen, and also argues for making games a more radical space through mentoring, advocacy, and redefining process. Trained as a playwright, Nicklin moved into interactive practices early on in her career and is now the CEO and studio lead at Danish indie studio Die Gute Fabrik, which most recently launched Mutazione in 2019.




Theory of Fun for Game Design


Book Description

Discusses the essential elements in creating a successful game, how playing games and learning are connected, and what makes a game boring or fun.




Narrativity


Book Description

Defining narrativity as the enabling force of narrative, this is the first full-length exploration of the concept in fiction in English. It develops the notion of a "logic of narrativity", and by this means tries to contribute a new critical strategy to the field of narrative theory. The book also takes issue with a number of critical approaches that have in recent years acquired near-orthodox status in the matter of textual interpretation. Most prominent among these approaches are deconstruction and a particular form of Marxist criticism. The author's own theoretical claims are substantiated by readings of major twentieth-century novels by Conrad, Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Arthur Koestler, and the book concludes with an analysis of an earlier narrative, Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, which illustrates the wider premises of the theory and its applications.




Quests


Book Description

This unique take on quests, incorporating literary and digital theory, provides an excellent resource for game developers. Focused on both the theory and practice of the four main aspects of quests (spaces, objects, actors, and challenges) each theoretical section is followed by a practical section that contains exercises using the Neverwinter Nigh




Engaging with Videogames: Play, Theory and Practice


Book Description

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Engaging with Videogames focuses on the multiplicity of lenses through which the digital game can be understood, particularly as a cultural artefact, economic product, educational tool, and narrative experience. Game studies remains a highly interdisciplinary field, and as such tends to bring together scholars and researchers from a wide variety of fields and analytical practices. As such, this volume includes explorations of videogames from the fields of literature, visual art, history, classics, film studies, new media studies, phenomenology, education, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, as well as game studies, design, and development. The chapters are organised thematically into four sections focusing on educational game practices, videogame cultures, videogame theory, and the practice of critical analysis. Within these chapters are explorations of sexual identity and health, videogame history, slapstick, player mythology and belief systems, gender and racial ideologies, games as a ‘body-without organs,’ and controversial games from Mass Effect 3 to Raid over Moscow. This volume aims to inspire further research in this rapidly evolving and expanding field.




The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory brings together top scholars in the field to explore the significance of narrative to pressing social, cultural, and theoretical issues. How does narrative both inform and limit the way we think today? From conspiracy theories and social media movements to racial politics and climate change future scenarios, the reach is broad. This volume is distinctive for addressing the complicated relations between the interdisciplinary narrative turn in the academy and the contemporary boom of instrumental storytelling in the public sphere. The scholars collected here explore new theories of causality, experientiality, and fictionality; challenge normative modes of storytelling; and offer polemical accounts of narrative fiction, nonfiction, and video games. Drawing upon the latest research in areas from cognitive sciences to complexity theory, the volume provides an accessible entry point for those new to the myriad applications of narrative theory and a point of departure for new scholarship.




A Multimodal Approach to Video Games and the Player Experience


Book Description

This volume puts forth an original theoretical framework, the ludonarrative model, for studying video games which foregrounds the empirical study of the player experience. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to and description of the model, which draws on theoretical frameworks from multimodal discourse analysis, game studies, and social semiotics, and its development out of participant observation and qualitative interviews from the empirical study of a group of players. The volume then applies this approach to shed light on how players’ experiences in a game influence how they understand and make use of game components in order to progress its narrative. The book concludes with a frame by frame analysis of a popular game to demonstrate the model’s principles in action and its subsequent broader applicability to analyzing video game interaction and design. Offering a new way forward for video game research, this volume is key reading for students and scholars in multimodality, discourse analysis, game studies, interactive storytelling, and new media.




Interactive Storytelling


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2022, held in Santa Cruz, CA, USA, in December 2022. The 30 full papers and 10 short papers, presented together with 17 posters and demos, were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions.