Video Game & Interactive Narrative Studies (TriCo)

Summaries of key research areas in video-game studies with additional references. Includes focused chapters on the following topics: comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games; new perspectives on video games both as art form and cultural phenomenon; explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games; accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games.

Explores the many ways computer games are used today: documenting important historical and cultural events; educating both children and adults; promoting commercial products; and serving as platforms for art, pornography, exercise, relaxation, pranks, and politics.

This expanded and revised second edition of Understanding Video Games provides a comprehensive introduction to the growing field of game studies.

Citing specific examples such as Myst and Lost, Katamari Damacy, Halo, Façade, Nintendo's Wii, and Will Wright's Spore, the book explores the ways in which textual studies concepts-authorial intention, textual variability and performance, the paratext, publishing history and the social text-can shed light on video games as more than formal systems. It treats video games as cultural forms of expression that are received as they are played, out in the world, where their meanings get made.

Essays exploring different ways of experiencing storyworlds build the foundation for a media-conscious narratology that acknowledges both similarities and differences in the ways media narrate.

Hayles’s systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. She develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires new reading and interpretive strategies.

Approaching the idea of virtual reality as a metaphor for total art, Ryan applies the concepts of immersion and interactivity to develop a phenomenology of narrative experience that encompasses reading, watching, and playing. The book weighs traditional literary narratives against the new textual genres made possible by the electronic revolution of the past thirty years, including hypertext, electronic poetry, interactive drama, digital installation art, computer games, and multi-user online worlds.

Any interactive medium whether it be a game or a website is only as good as the underlying narrative that pulls the story or experience together. Mark Meadows explains the key elements that have to be united to develop a successful interactive narrative.