Week 15 Narrative and Games

Narrative

Narrative is part of a closely related triumvirate of elements:

Story	All the elements which end up being depicted This is not all the events that happen, much in a story might be implied and never explicitly stated.
Plot	•       The chain of causation – which dictates that these events are somehow linked and are therefore to be depicted in relation to each other. •       This is often linear causation but it does not have to be.
Narrative	The order in which events are revealed. This is     certainly not the same as the order in which any real world events may take place.

Events can be revealed in many ways.  Even within traditional media
such as film they can be revealed:

First Hand: Showing – Acted out by individuals in real time, in the correct chronological order, or in flashback.

Second Hand: Revealed by characters who were either directly involved in the event or not.  In chronological order or not.

In Games these devices are obviously available but other ways of revealing events are used.  An example here is the use of scrolls or books, these may provide story, imply plot, or drive the narrative forward.

•          Narrative flows under the direction of the author.

•          Interactivity is about providing the player with the motive power to act.

•          Remember Games Ordering, Do, Show, Tell.

Story	Game
Divergence makes for a less satisfactory story	Restriction makes for a less satisfactory game

Jenkins argues that this means that aspects of narratives tend to be isolated from the computer gameness of games.  They may be delivered in the form of cut scenes.

Not all games tell stories: Tetris, the desire to remove clutter and clear space, the ability to arrange the blocks with speed to get the satisfaction of getting a new high score.

Environmental Storytelling: For Jenkins a better comparison for game narrative is not literature but amusement parks.  This is because amusement parks don’t reproduce the literal work / or the film but instead they provide a set of rules giving a structure and meaning to the experience.