Games and Storytelling: Understanding Games

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Games and Storytelling Understanding Games

• Frans Mäyrä
• Research Director, PhD
• Game Research Lab
• Hypermedia Laboratory

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Birth of Game Studies, or Ludology

• Games are ancient, but academic study of them is
  rather recent phenomenon
• But there is some Stewart Culin Games of the
  North American Indians Games of Chance Games
  of Skill (1907), H.J.R. Murray, A History of
  Chess (1913), Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens A
  Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938),
  Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games (1958), The
  Study of Games (Elliott M. Avedon Brian
  Sutton-Smith, eds., 1971) modern game studies
  (2000gt)
• No prior research is no excuse any more

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Many lines of games history
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Games as a cultural phenomenon

• Games are based on play behaviour, which has
  ambiguous and complex nature
• Action that takes place in tension between a)
  fixed rules and structures, b) free improvisation
  and creativity
• According to Johan Huizinga, play is older than
  culture, but culture is also based on play

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Different varieties of games

• According to Roger Caillois, there is the basic
  distinction ludus/paideia (more structured
  games/more free games play forms)
• In addition there are four basic categories
  (agon, alea, mimicry, ilinx)
• Ranging from competitions to games of chance,
  from masks role-play to games of action
  vertigo, the range of games is vast

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Definitions of play game

• Play is a free activity in which one
  proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time
  and space according to fixed rules and in an
  orderly manner (Huizinga)
• Game is an interactive structure of endogenous
  meaning that requires players to struggle toward
  a goal (Costikyan)
• Focus on the magic circle the mental act of
  framing (this is just a game, I am just
  playing effects a magical act of imaginative
  liberation)
• Or games are what game designers create (Salen
  Zimmerman)

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Gameplay and game thematics

• The core of game can be located at its
  gameplay (the rule-bound interaction), but
  there are also other important aspects of games

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Towards ludology

• Games were long allowed to enter academia only as
  interactive fiction/narratives
• Partly a question of cultural value literary and
  visual arts were perceived to have such merits
  that e.g. Pong (Atari, 1971) did not have
• At the end of 1990s some literary and cultural
  scholars started to see the need to study games
  as games, i.e., from their own starting points,
  rather than with the criteria of some other form
  of art

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Simulation vs. representation?

• Gonzalo Frasca has emphasized the differences in
  the fundamental character of simulation as
  compared to representation
• Simulation does not only represent objects and
  systems, but also models their behaviours
• Whereas representation is chosen and defined by
  the artist/creator, a simulation allows for
  experimentation by the user

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Ludology vs. narratology?

• At the early stages, ludology was positioned by
  some as a counter-reaction towards the dominant
  narratological views
• The storytelling potentials of games were
  strongly rejected a game is not a story (but
  players can use games for storytelling purposes)
• Today, most games scholars would see the
  situation as more multidimensional
• There are games that are more toy/tool-like
  they are strong in simulation but some games
  are rather linear, and are thereby pre-scripted
  vehicles for authorial expression

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Story vs. game world?

• There is difference between plot, story, and
  intrigue (dramatic/dynamic tension)
• In order to have a narrative, there needs to be
  both narrator and narratee games do not
  naturally fit into this kind of structure (e.g.
  Tetris and other more abstract games)
• Where games can have storylines as potentials,
  they all can be seen to have a game world
• A game world is the space that is imaginatively
  entered when gameplay starts

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Example the world of Tolkien

• J.R.R. Tolkien, a philologist and an Oxford
  professor, orginally created his Middle-Earth
  in order to give background to the invented
  languages he had been working on from his youth
• Similar to the folktales and mythologies Tolkien
  admired, Middle-Earth was an endless process of
  creation, addition and alteration, rather than a
  fixed and unified collection of stories

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From a world into a game

• Tolkiens work has made a profound impact on both
  fantasy literature and game design
• Entering the world of fiction has got various
  implementations
• Early role-playing games (e.g. DungeonsDragons,
  TSR, 1974) combined a fantasy setting with the
  gameplay mechanisms adapted from miniature war
  games
• Advent, Angband and others took the world
  exploration aspect as the focus of gameplay

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Story-driven Tolkien-adaptations

• The Hobbit by Beam Software, 1982 (a C64
  classic)
• A text adventure, gameplay based on a parser with
  rather good vocabulary
• The plot of the novel broken into multilinear
  task-structures

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Current range of LOTR games

• Action adventures Fellowship of the Ring
  (Surreal, 2002), Two Towers (Stormfront, 2002),
  The Return of the King (EA Games, 2003)
• Strategy War of the Ring (Liquid Ent. 2003)
• MMORPG Middle-Earth Online (Turbine, under
  development)
• In addition a range of board games, traditional
  war games, role-playing games etc.

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Focus cinematic action with a LOTR theme
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Focus strategic action with a LOTR theme
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Focus exploration, character advancement and
community creation with a LOTR theme
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Conclusions

• Both at the core gameplay level, and at the
  secondary (e.g. thematic) level, there are
  extensive range of alternatives
• Typical game genre characterisations are
  combinations of core and secondary elements, e.g.
  space shooter, fantasy RPG, or military
  strategy
• Gameplay is an act that takes place in the
  crossing of contexts those of different kinds of
  games and those of various kinds of players