36 | 2006

Browsing 36 | 2006 by Subject "narrativity"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Article
    Computer Games as Narrative: The Ludology versus Narrativism Controversy
    Ryan, Marie-Laure (2006) , S. 1-1/276-297
    Is the concept of narrative applicable to computer games? Are games therefore part of literature? Or do they need their own methodological approach and institutionalisation? In chapter 8 of her book Avatars of Story Ryan investigates the battle between narratologists and ludologists and explains why a game may not be a story but can be a machine for generating stories, why the narrative in a game often is only an affective hook disappearing once the player is absorbed in the fire of the action, and why on the other hand some times the game is just a ludically organized system for storytelling.
  • Article
    Event-Sequences, Plots and Narration in Computer Games
    Jannidis, Fotis (2006) , S. 1-24
    Starting with the debate between ludologists and narratologists this essay tries to show that there is a narrative aspect in computer games which has nothing to do with background stories and cut scenes. A closer analysis of two sequences, taken from the MMORPG Everquest II and the adventure game Black Mirror, is the basis for a distinction between three aspects of this kind of narrative in computer games: the sequence of activities of the player, the sequence of events as it is determined by the mechanics of the game and this sequence of events understood as a plot, that is as a sequence of chronologically ordered and causally linked events. This kind of narrative is quite distant to the prototypical narrative which is the basis of most of the narratology. But actually all media, not only computer games, need their own narratology.