Academic Research
HOW CAN GAMES INFLUENCE THE PLAYER’S NARRATIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE PLAYER CHARACTER?
This essay aims to delineate the ways in which video games can use various aspects of all three modes of representation as defined by Felix Schröter and Jan-Noël Thon, such as character design, environmental design, and gameplay to facilitate, encourage, and enhance the player’s narrative experience of the player character. Before presenting a thorough overview of Schröter/Thon and Daniel Vella’s structural models for understanding and analysing the medium-specific representation of video game characters and their interrelation with the player’s various modes of perception, this essay will use previous research on the definition of ‘character’ from a literary-theoretical perspective as a conceptual foundation on which the analysis of characters in the open world action game Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games 2018) and the indie adventure game Journey (Thatgamecompany 2012) will be built. Finally, the development and design process of my own game Sonder will be delineated in light of my research into the ontological status of video game characters, with the analysis of player interviews being used as a metric to determine the success of my endeavour to create a game designed to underscore the player’s narrative perception of the player character.
ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE IN VIDEO GAMES:
HOW ‘WALKING SIMULATORS’ BREAK THE MOULD
Focusing on the pejoratively labeled 'Walking Simulators', or games which emphasise the player's experience of a story over conventional gameplay elements such as combat, this dissertation uses Seymour Chatman's hierarchical narratological model to analyse several case studies that each subvert conventions within the different aspects of narrative - discourse, nodal situations and agency, characters, and setting - to demonstrate the narrative potential of video games as a medium. This will be discussed in reference to Campo Santo's Firewatch, Galactic Cafe's The Stanley Parable, and Giant Sparrow's What Remains of Edith Finch.