Week 3

This week we dove into a lot of readings that focused on narrative and whether games can tell stories. I found this idea to be quite challenging and often confusing and controversial (!) because, in my opinion, I do believe that games can be narratives. Especially adventure games that require a lot of the game to be told through a story. While I do understand the concept of time and space and how they work very differently in games and how the player has the freedom to move around and discover things at their own place, the narratives in games contain all of the important elements in a narrative: plot, characters, point of view, setting, theme, conflict, and style.

Point of view: Although the point of view can change based on the character you choose, this point is still important and should still be considered in the argument about games as narratives.

Over the weekend, as I was scrolling through Tik Tok, I came across a live video being broadcasted of a girl playing the game, Beyond: Two Souls, and I became completely engulfed by this game. At the point that I reached this live video, the girl wasn’t even playing the game. She was letting the narrative play out and just wow! As a noob in the game world, I didn’t realize such deep games existed that played out like a movie. Naturally, I spent the next 30 mins Googling what this game was and how can I play? Unfortunately, it’s only available on Playstation and Windows. According to Wikipedia, “Beyond: Two Souls is an interactive drama and action-adventure game, requiring the player to move and guide the character into interactions with objects and other non-player characters in the scene to progress the story.”

Despite being a video game, Beyond: Two Souls premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, marking only the second time the film festival recognised a video game. David Cage, writer and director of the game, explained that game development studios should provide “interactive storytelling” that can be played by everyone, including non-gamers.

(Source: Beyond: Two Souls)

I feel OBSESSED. I want to play this game so bad. I’m just crazy enough to find a refurbished Playstation 3 just so I can buy this game. Or borrow a Windows laptop from someone!

Even if games are as interactive as Beyond: Two Souls, but can also be debuted at a film festival, it still contains all of the elements of a game: goal, rule, mechanics, genre/theme, objects, style, community, etc. Regardless of the level of interactivity it requires, a story was still written for each character and every possible outcome. I strongly agree that games can tell stories.

Throughout our reading from this week, I saw a couple of references to the game, Second Life, which made me think a lot about a scene from The Office when Dwight explains how this game isn’t a game at all but a virtual environment without winners or losers, and how his life was so great that he “literally wanted a second one.” Based on this, I can also argue that maybe Second Life isn’t a game either. Without a reward factor, how can this be a game? What is the goal?

Second Life and this clip from The Office supports how users make decisions in games based on their own morals and values and how the avatars we choose are merely a reflection of us, or rather a reflection of the player. Dwights avatar in Second Life not only looks like him but he also works as a paper salesman but can fly. His character in this game is a perfect example of how the avatars we choose not only represent us but also our desires.

Really interesting papers and articles from this week! I enjoyed all of them.