Interactive Narrative - An Uneasy Alliance:
How interactive narratives call for a reexamination of narrative structure
and theory
University of Amsterdam, Humanities department
MA New Media and Digital Cultures
Supervised by dhr. dr. M.D. Tuters Second reader: dhr. prof. dr. R. Boast
26 June 2017
Alexander Sommers
UvA ID: 10146180
<alexander.sommers@student.uva.nl>
Abstract
This thesis looks at the problematic relationship between interaction and narrative, how the two have been combined in the past and how interactive storytelling asks writers and academics to rethink the way in which they view stories. This is done by analysing two different approaches to interactive storytelling, one that tries to adhere to traditional story structure and one that breaks with it. Through this comparison is shown that by moving away from traditional narrative structures, a more complementary combination of interaction and narrative can be found. A combination that can deliver new aesthetics and affects that are unique to this form of storytelling and that can add an extra emotional layer to the sensory and mechanical pleasures and emotions of the ludologic experience. Ultimately this thesis tries to answer the question: how does the problematic relationship between interaction and narrative call for a reexamination of story structure and theories?
Table of contents:
Introduction 3
1. Placement of thesis within larger academic discourse 5
1.1 Ludology vs. Narratology debate 5
2. Defining interactive narrative 8
2.1 Defining narrative 8
2.2 Defining interactivity 9
2.3 Physical and psychological interactivity 10
2.4 The new aesthetics of interactive cinema 11
2.5 Janet Murray’s three new pleasures of cyberliterature 11 2.6 Marie-Laure Ryan’s four forms of narrative immersion 13
2.7 Agency 14
3. Interactive Cinema 17
3.1 Defining cinema 17
3.2 Interactive cinema and the branching-narrative structure 17 3.3 Interactive narratives and Aristotelian story structure 18
3.4 Interactive narratives criticized 20
3.5 Branching story structure reexamined 20
3.6 The nature of narrative vs. the nature of interactivity 21
3.7 The difference in affect 22
3.8 What gets lost through agency 23
3.9 Case Study: Until Dawn 24
4. Procedural Storytelling 28
4.1 Interactivity and Play 28
4.2 Emergent storytelling 30
4.3 Procedural Rhetoric 31
4.4 Procedural Authorship and Facade 32
4.5 Interaction through natural language and physical actions 35
4.6 Case Study: This War of Mine 38
5. Reexamining narrative structure and theory 43
Conclusion 46
Introduction
In January and April of 2017, two articles were published that (while not being directly connected to each other) showed an interesting conflict that has plagued the field of
videogame studies since its inception: can and should videogames be used as a storytelling medium? In January The New Yorker published an article called The Movie with a Thousand Plotlines from Raffi Katchadourian. In it, Katchadourian tries to answer the questions: “Will interactive films be this century’s defining art form?”. Focussing mostly on the ‘sub genre’ of interactive cinema, Katchadourian interviews interactive cinema creator Yoni Bloch, whom sees great potential in the form. Creating interactive stories in the same way as his old ‘choose your own adventure’ books, Bloch sees interactive stories offer a form of immersion that is absent in other media, the immersion of choice. Bloch admits that the medium is still young, and because of this it has not yet found the perfect approach to combining
interactivity and story. However he sees the combination as a recipe for great and unique new stories.
But as optimistic as Bloch is, influential video game scholar Ian Bogost seems less enthusiastic about combining interaction and narrative. He published an article in April called Video Games are Better Without Stories. In it Bogost argues that while video games are able to convey a narrative, other media like film, television and literature are all better suited for stories, so why bother? Bogost states that even the best interactive narratives are worse than middling books and films, and that games obsession with creating interactive narratives stands in the way of more ambitious goals (1). According to Bogost, the obsession people have with trying to create interactive stories, blinds them for the medium’s true and unique potentials.
These two articles are indicative of a discussion that has been going on in video game studies, called the Ludology vs. Narratology debate. The ludology vs. narratology debate centered around video games their potential as storytelling devices, and if they should be studied as such. The discussion essentially ended with both parties agreeing that games have many different facets that are worthy of study and that academics can approach them in many different ways. However although the discussion has died down in the
academic scene, storytellers still struggle to combine interactivity with story.
This has mostly to do with the problematic combination of interactivity and narrative. Interactivity and narrative are two concepts that in many ways try to achieve conflicting goals, pulling in opposite directions of each other. Most interactive films offer interesting experiences, but often their interaction detracts from the narrative, while the narrative
diminishes the interaction. Most video games try to circumvent this problem by splitting the gameplay and narrative in separate sections. Falling back on filmic and literary strategies to convey a narrative, while offering ludic and sensory pleasures through gameplay.
The upcoming thesis does not try to answer if games should tell stories or how they should do it. Instead this thesis will look at the problematic relationship between interaction and narrative, how the two have been combined in the past and how the medium of
interactive narrative asks writers and academics to rethink the way in which we view stories. It tries to show the conflict between interaction and narrative when, applied to a traditional story structure, and how by moving away from traditional narrative structures a more
complementary combination of interaction and narrative can be found. Ultimately this thesis tries to answer the question: how does the problematic relationship between interaction and narrative call for a reexamination of story structure and theories?
To do this, this thesis is build up out of five parts. The first chapter will place the thesis within a larger academic discourse, sketching out the academic field from which it draws most theories. The second chapter will define interactive narratives and the new aesthetics it offers. The third chapter will look at a specific form of interactive narrative called interactive cinema and the way in which this form tries to combine interaction with narrative. This chapter will also go deeper into the criticism that has been formulated around
interactive narrative, and especially interactive cinema. At the end, this chapter will present a case study of the game Until Dawn, which will form an example of the way interactive
cinema works and the critique it has received. The fourth chapter will move away from the traditional story structure of interactive cinema and offer an alternative structure for
interactive narratives. The concepts that are introduced in this chapter will be further illustrated by a case study of the game This War of Mine. Finally, the fifth chapter will show how interactive narratives call for a reexamination of story structure and theories.
1.
Placement of thesis within larger academic discourse
To begin this thesis, it is important to place it within a larger academic discourse or field of study. To get a sense of how the academic field around interactive storytelling is structured. Interactive storytelling as an object of study has had quite some attention since the late 1990’s, with scholars like Brenda Laurel, Janet Murphy and Marie-Laure Ryan studying the ways in which the new possibilities of the digital medium can provide new kinds of narrative. These scholars look at digital media, by taking the structuralist approach of narratology. Interactive storytelling is often linked to videogames, and as such gets frequently
categorized into the field of videogame studies. But this link has also provided some criticism and controversy, which is best portrayed via the so-called ludology vs narratology debate.
1.1 Ludology vs Narratology debate
When academics started to consider video games as an object of academic study around the year 2000, a debate erupted on how this new medium should be approached. The ludology vs narratology debate (as this debate was called) started with the growing concern from a group of academics, that the relatively new field of videogame studies was being ‘colonized’ by other fields of research -like cinema and literature- instead of becoming its own field of study. On the other hand, there were scholars who believed that games could be seen as a new storytelling medium, and as such could also be studied this way. The groups that formed around these two standpoints were later called, the ludologists and the
narratologists.
On the one hand, the ludologists argued that games studies should focus on the study of video games as games, to create a new set of theoretical tools to analyse games in the same way as narratology has created a set of tools for narrative (Frasca 2). This is not to say that all ludologists were against the notion that games could tell stories, or that game studies should solely focus on the mechanics of gameplay (Aarseth, narrative theory 2). Rather the main point of the ludologists was to challenge the uncritical appliance of theories from literary studies onto a new empirical field, and to point towards the unique sensory and mechanical pleasures of gameplay as an object worthy of study (Aarseth, Cybertext 14). To look critically at and beyond video games as a storytelling medium, but not to say that the appliance of narrative theories should be banned altogether. Notable names in the ludology corner of the debate are Markku Eskelinen, Jesper Juul and Gonzalo Frasca (Frasca 2). All three were strongly influenced by Espen Aarseth and his work Cybertext, who is often seen
as the ‘founder’ of the ludology movement within games studies.
The narratologists on the other hand claimed that games were closely related to narrative and that as such they could be studied as text (Frasca 1). To do this narratologists use established theories and concepts, borrowed from literary studies. A clear example of this is Brenda Laurel, who argued that in order to evolve interactive computer experiences as an artform, designers could look at the Aristotelian dramatic experience as a blueprint for new interactive stories (Wardrip Fruin, First Person 1). However narratologists have also acknowledged that games do not have to be solely studied as texts, with narratology
scholars like Janet Murray and Henry Jenkins arguing that games are not a subset of stories and scholars do not have to choose between either/or games or stories (Murray, Last Word 3). Although no academics have proclaimed themselves to be a hardline ‘narratologist’ in this debate, scholars like Brenda Laurel, Janet Murray, Marie Laure Ryan, Henry Jenkins and Michael Mateas have studied and written about video games and interactive media through the lenses of narratology.
This debate ran its course and died down after a few years. The ludology/narratology debate is now mostly seen as one of the growing pains of the new academic field of game studies. Videogame scholar Ian Bogost illustrates this in his text Videogames are a mess, where he argues that the debate was a sort of ‘trick’ to mature videogames as an object of study. The debate was as Bogost calls it: “a move towards a formalist rather than a
functionalist approach to the study of games” (3). What the debate really did was establish formalism within videogame studies. However as Bogost shows, this is only one way to look at games, whereas the ontology of videogames has many different viewpoints (3). Bogost continues by illustrating three other ontological ‘turns’ in videogame ontology, however he ends by arguing in favor of a so called flat ontology. By this Bogost means that videogames (and objects in general) cannot be reduced to being one thing, but that they are an
accumulation of many different aspects (11). By flattening the ontological field, Bogost suggest that all these aspects of a game have the same potential to be of importance, and because of this games can be studied in many different ways (12-16).
Via this flat ontology, Bogost argues that games can be studied both as narratives and as objects of play. However this discussion is indicative of a larger overarching conflict between play and narrative, and whereas the debate around game studies might have died down, the problematic combination of play and narrative is something that game designers and scholars still struggle with. Game designer Ernest Adams illustrates this by arguing that interactive narratives try to combine two forms that are almost polar opposites from each other (Adams 3). Narrative means the reader surrendering to the author, and letting the
author lead the reader into his or her imagination. Interactivity meanwhile is about freedom, power and self-expression. About changing a world through your presence (Adams 3). Adams does not reject the notion that the two forms can be combined, however he does argue that they are opposites from each other. Game designer Greg Costikyan echoes this point by stating that story is the antithesis of games (6). This can be seen in the conflict of demands between the stories and games. As Costikyan argues: “diverging from a story’s path makes for a less satisfying story; restricting a player’s freedom of action is likely to make for a less satisfying game” (1). This is the balancing act that most narrative games try to do, but as Costikyan points out this process mostly leads to compromises on both sides (6).
But even though the combination of play and story seems problematic, game
designers and scholars alike are obsessed by the notion of using games to tell stories. This obsession comes forth out of a desire to express emotions and meaning through the new medium of video games. The possibility that video games as a new medium represent, that they can be used to express stories in a new and unique way. To tell things that are not expressed before, in a way that is impossible in other media.
This thesis explores the concept of interactive narratives. It looks at what
interactive narratives try to achieve and how storytellers have tried to achieve it. It will look critically at how interactivity has been implemented into narratives and how this combination provides a different narrative experience, through different aesthetics and affect. By doing this, the problematic relationship between interactivity and story will be explored and how this forces a new way of looking at narratological concepts.
2. Defining interactive narrative
2.1 Defining narrativeTo start off, it is necessary to define what an interactive narrative exactly is. An interactive narrative is a narrative form that tries to combine interaction with narrative. Let’s first look at each of these concepts separately, starting with narrative. Narrative is a word that is often used in connection to stories or storytelling. It is a term that is mostly used within
narratology, a formalist and structuralist approach to storytelling. This does not mean analysing stories but analysing storytelling, that is, the ways in which stories are told
(Bogost, Videogames are a mess 3). In more formal terms, narratology studies the structure and function of narrative, as a linguistic structure, with its own conventions and symbols (Oxford dictionary). So within narratology, the concept of narrative is used to indicate a certain linguistic structure with its own conventions and symbols. However, this is still a very vague description.
Literary critic J. Hillis Miller describes narrative and its structure in a bit more detail, defining it in three parts. First of all, every narrative is structured in the same way, by starting with an initial situation, a sequence of events that lead to change or reversal of that situation and a revelation or insight made possible by this change (Miller 75). Secondly, the events must have some form of personification, whereby character is created out of signs (Miller 75). The events have to be represented through a medium, like for example language, images, sound or physical actions, and bring characters “to life”. Finally, there has to be some form of patterning or repetition of key elements, a narrative rhythm that shapes the representation (Miller 75).
As game designer Eric Zimmerman rightfully comments, Miller’s definition is quite general (3). However this also allows the concept to open up to a wide array of activities and experiences that normally would not be labeled as ‘stories’. Books for example are definitely narratives according to Miller’s definition, but so are games, a marriage ceremony, a
conversation and even a meal, as Zimmerman points out (3). This is the ingenuity of Miller’s definition, it is very inclusive, while still giving a clear definition of what narrative is
(Zimmerman 3). It forces researchers not to ask if something is a narrative, but in what ways something can be considered a narrative (Zimmerman 3). By doing this, Zimmerman argues, the concept of narrative is opened up to the invention of new forms (i.e. interactive
narratives), instead of replicating existing ones (3).
2.2 Defining interactivity
But before going too deep into how interactive narrative provides a new narrative form, let’s look at the second concept, interactivity. Compared to narrative, interactivity is a bit more difficult to define. It is often cited as the most defining feature of the digital medium, however most of the time it remains quite ambiguous what interactivity exactly means and why the digital medium is so interactive in comparison to other media (Kiousis 356). Although most people use the term to indicate some form of user feedback, the small details often vary and this can be problematic because it can lead to big discrepancies between academic works (Kiousis 357). Because of this, several academics have tried to look at the different
definitions of interactivity and attempted to formulated a general universal definition. One of the more exhaustive attempts is Interactivity: a concept explication by Spiro Kiousis. In his text, communications scholar Spiro Kiousis reviews numerous definitions that have been formed on interactivity and extracts three important elements that most of these definitions share: technological properties, communication context and user perceptions (372). The first element technological properties, means that interactivity is often seen as a property of a medium or piece of technology. Secondly interactivity is often classified as a relational variable, or a part of communication, hence the communication context. And thirdly, on an individual level, interaction plays inside the mind of the user as perceptions (Kiousis 371). Kiousis argues that most definitions and uses of the concept of interactivity point towards these three elements, but no-one has tried to combine them all together into one inclusive definition (372). In his attempt to do this, Kiousis formulates the following definition:
“Interactivity can be defined as the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many), both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third-order dependency). With regard to human users, it additionally refers to their ability to perceive the experience as a simulation of interpersonal
communication and increase their awareness of telepresence. (Kiousis 372)”
The interesting thing about Kiousis his definition is that it encompasses two different ways of looking at interactivity. The first part of the definition illustrates interactivity as a technical property of communication technologies. However in the second sentence, Kiousis
perceives an experience as being similar to interpersonal communication. In this sense, interactivity can also exist in the user’s mind, where the user imagines human-computer interaction as being similar to human-to-human interaction.
2.3 Physical and psychological interactivity
This notion of interactivity as a psychological process is also echoed by new media scholar Lev Manovich, but in a very different way. Manovich starts out by stating that interactivity is often described as digital media’s most defining feature, however he dismisses this notion. Manovich argues that this idea insinuates that other forms of media, like film or literature, are by definition not interactive. However Manovich argues that all forms of text and art are interactive because they all require the psychological process of interpretation (27). With this argument, Manovich presents a notion similar to the idea that philosopher Jaques Rancière presented in his influential work, The Emancipated Spectator. In this, Rancière tries to refute the belief that spectatorship is a passive activity that must be turned into an active one (279). Instead Rancière claims that spectatorship is our normal situation. By linking what we see with what we already have seen, we learn, teach, act and know. What Rancière shows here is essentially the process of interpretation. Rancière dismisses the notion that passive spectators need to be turned into active actors, because every spectator is already an actor in his or her own story (279).
So when talking about interactivity it is important to make a distinction between two forms of interaction. Verdugo et al. do this by splitting interaction into the two following forms:
1. Contemplative artistic reception: the process of reading and reinterpretation 2. Participative artistic reception: the process of co creation through an active
involvement of the audience (39:5)
However by using terms like ‘active involvement’, Verdugo et al. risk again making a distinction between active and passive, two terms with a lot of connotational baggage. So instead Manovich makes a distinction between the two forms, by labeling them psychological and physical interaction (71). In this distinction, physical interaction indicates a form of
communication between two parties through a mediated channel. Whereas psychological interactions plays inside the viewer's head, in the form of processes like filling-in, hypothesis forming, recall and identification, which we use to comprehend texts or images (Manovich 73).
To come back to interactive narrative, interactive narrative tries to combine narrative with physical interaction through digital media. All narratives are already interactive, since they all require psychological interactive processes. However interactive narrative tries to add to this by creating a mediated environment in which participants can communicate, both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges, between the viewer and the story.
2.4 The new aesthetics of interactive cinema
As argued in the previous chapter, interaction and narrative are not easy to combine. It can even be argued that the two are opposites to each other, mutually exclusive from one another. However since the inception of the digital medium, storytellers have tried to create interactive stories. What do creators of interactive narratives try to achieve? The following part will look at the new aesthetics that interaction can add to storytelling.
2.5 Janet Murray’s three new pleasures of cyberliterature
One of the first scholars who looked at the new aesthetics of interactive narratives was digital humanities scholar Janet H. Murray, who looks at how the digital medium can reshape narratives in her influential and prolific book Hamlet on the Holodeck. In Hamlet on the Holodeck Murray analyses what the essential properties of the digital medium are, and how they can add new aesthetics and pleasures to the traditional satisfactions of narrative. By doing this she tries to imagine the kinds of new stories ‘cyberliterature’ might tell in the future (10). Because Murray sees the computer of the mid-1990’s as the movie camera of the 1890’s, on the verge of being used as a spellbinding storyteller (2). She argues that most technical innovations did not directly produce the literary forms they later got known for, and that this also might be the case for the computer (28). For example the Gutenberg printing press, was invented in 1455 but took 50 years of experimentation before the book became a coherent piece of communication (Murray 28).
Murray identifies four principal properties of the digital medium: participation, procedure, spatiality and an encyclopedic capacity (71). Note how she does not list interactivity as a principal property. Similarly to Kiousis and Manovich, Murray argues that interactivity is a vague term and thus she uses participation and procedure to indicate most of what the term is used for (71). Procedure signifies the computer’s defining ability to execute a series of rules (71). A program is essentially a series of rules or procedures that
the computer can execute, transforming data (in the form of input) according to a system of rules into some kind of output. Procedure is intrinsic to the way the computer works, only through this ability can it execute and represent many different complex processes (Mateas & Stern, Procedural Authorship 1). Participation on the other hand, illustrates the computer’s ability to respond to the input of the user (Murray, Hamlet 74). To register the input of the user as data and to produce an output formed through procedure. As stated before, Murray does not use the term interactivity, but argues that procedure and participation cover all of the ground the concept is used for. Murray argues that most people use interactivity to indicate “the codified rendering of responsive behaviors” (Hamlet 74). The third property spatiality, points out the navigational spaces that computers create (Murray, Hamlet 80). The way in which the computer can simulate dimensional spaces through which the user can move via a symbolic representation of themselves, like a mouse cursor or an virtual
character. And finally the encyclopedic capacity indicates the computer’s ability to store and retrieve vast amounts of information, far more than what was possible before (Murray, Hamlet 83). By being able to store and manage massive amounts of information the computer is able to do new things with information, applications of this can for example be seen in the field of ‘big data’.
These four principal properties can add three new aesthetics or pleasures to traditional storytelling, according to Murray. These new aesthetics are: immersion, agency and transformation. The first of the three, immersion, is defined by Murray as the feeling of being completely surrounded by another reality (Hamlet 98). Immersion can be achieved by simulating the sense of moving into a new world, and the pleasure of learning how to move within it (Murray, Hamlet 99). This is made possible through participation and spatiality, by moving actively through a digital environment we become more immersed.
This active movement also creates a sense of agency (Murray, Hamlet 126). Agency, according to Murray, is “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices” (Hamlet 126). This agency is created through the computer’s ability to allow participation and to react to this participation through its
procedurality (Murray Cyberdrama 10). By allowing users to give input and reacting to this, the computer gives power to the user, making them an active agent in the process. However agency is not just participation or activity, agency can only be achieved when the user is able to take intentional action and see the results of this (Murray, Hamlet 128).
Through immersion and agency the reader can become part of the narrative, and assume a certain role within the story. Thus transforming him or herself in the process, allowing for the user to become something or someone else (Murray, Hamlet 154). But
Murray’s third and final pleasure transformation goes further than the reader’s ability to role play, it also indicates the player’s ability to change situations and to explore alternative versions of events (Hamlet 155). To be able to transform situations into something different.
2.6 Marie-Laure Ryan’s four forms of narrative immersion
Literary scholar Marie-Laure Ryan also tries to define new narrative pleasures that
participation within interactive stories can provide. To do this she also uses the concept of immersion, however contrary to Murray Ryan points out that immersion is not a new pleasure that is unique to interactive stories. Stories have always provided narrative immersion, by engaging the imagination of the reader to construct and contemplate a fictional storyworld (Narrative games 54). This is done in four different ways, which Ryan defines as four forms of narrative immersion that relate to different facets of the storyworld: spatial, temporal, epistemic and emotional immersion (Narrative games 54). These forms of immersion are different from ludic immersion, which videogames provide (Narrative games 53). Ryan describes ludic immersion as “the deep absorption in the performance of a task”, which is separate from the mimetic or narrative content of the game (Narrative games 53). This form of immersion is more a physical activity, whereas narrative immersion is more a mental one. Ryan uses the term ludic immersion as a sort of placeholder for the concept of interactivity.
Ryan states that ludic immersion can be combined with the four forms of narrative immersion, though with some more than others. For example, spatial immersion is the easiest to create in an interactive environment (Ryan, Narrative games 54). Because of the visual and animation abilities of digital media, virtual worlds can be created through which the user can move with a virtual avatar (Ryan, Narrative games 54). Instead of creating and moving through these worlds within the reader’s imagination, digital media can simulate physical movement and the embodied experience of exploring these virtual spaces.
Also epistemic immersion is relatively easy to combine with ludic immersion. Epistemic immersion manifests from the desire to know, to uncover a mystery in a story (Ryan, Narrative games 55). Ludic immersion is best portrayed in detective novels, where much of the narrative pleasure comes for this form of immersion. Epistemic immersion is relatively easy to realize in an interactive environment, by letting the user pick up and investigate objects and interrogate NPC (non playable characters), to learn more about the virtual world that surrounds them.
Temporal and emotional immersion are more difficult to combine with interactivity or ludic immersion. Temporal immersion consists of three narrative effects: curiosity, surprise and suspense. The first two are relatively easy to combine with ludic immersion. When the user can explore a virtual environment, and this leads to unexpected discoveries, the motivation is curiosity and the reward is surprise (Ryan, Narrative games 55). Suspense however is more difficult to combine with interactivity, because it relies strongly on the reader’s or viewer’s inability to act. Suspense is experienced when people foresee two or more possible outcomes to a situation, and cannot wait to see how it works out (Ryan, Narrative games 55). But when the user can intervene and determine the outcome of a situation through action, this uncertainty is lost (Ryan, Narrative games 55).
However Ryan states that the most problematic combination is between emotional immersion and interactivity (56). Narrative has the unique ability to create empathy, or emotions directed towards others. Aristotle recognized this effect in his explanation of catharsis, which he explained as a feeling of purification through experiencing and feeling the tragedy and hardship of fictional characters (Ryan, Narrative games 56). Ryan argues that on the other hand, the emotions attached to ludic immersion are for the most part self-directed ones, which reflect the player’s success, failure and interest in playing a game (Narrative games, 56). Other NPC’s in games are often seen as a means to an end, instead of interesting characters worth investing in emotionally (Ryan, Narrative games 56).
According to Ryan, some games have been able to create emotionally interesting
characters, but only by limiting the player’s participation and agency (Narrative games 57). Because of these reasons, Ryan states that the biggest obstacle interactive narrative has yet to overcome, is combining self-centred emotions that come from active engagement through interactivity, with other-centered emotions of traditional narrative (Narrative games 58). Creating personal and evolving relations between the user and NPC’s, in which the user can interact and feels concerned for his or herself and others.
2.7 Agency
Apart from immersion, a lot of researches have pointed towards agency as one of the essential new narrative pleasures of interactive storytelling. In their text Agency
Reconsidered, computer science scholars Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas, Steven Dow and Serdar Sali analyse agency in video games and the role it plays in immersing the player in digital worlds and stories. Wardrip-Fruin et al. consider agency a phenomenon involving both player and game, which occurs when the player is able to perform the actions
he or she wants to take (1). That the actions which the player wants to perform are “supported by an underlying computational model” (Wardrip-Fruin et al. 1).
Wardrip-Fruin et al. argue that this form of agency can only exist when the players are able to have intention, a concept they burrow from game designer Doug Church. Intention refers to the player’s ability to make a plan and then act on it (Church 3). This is only possible when actions have perceivable consequences, or “a clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player” (Church 3). Church illustrates this by pointing towards the difference between role-playing games and point and click adventure games. In
role-playing games the player is able to form intention, take action and see the
consequences of this action. However adventure games have little intention, instead players have to figure out the designer’s intention by solving a puzzle with a specific answer. Church argues that although sport games have a much more limited story than the other two
examples, the stories they produce are defined by actions that the player can all make intentionally (4). Through these examples Church tries to show how intentional action can figure into the story of a game.
This intention can also be used to steer the player in a certain way. As stated before, for agency to occur, the player has to be able to take the actions he or she wants to take. However this does not mean that the player has to be able to do everything. Through dramatic probability and presenting materials for action or ‘material affordances’ -designs that strongly suggest certain actions- game designers can create intention that is in line with the dramatic structure (Church 3). In this way story and agency do not have to be in conflict with each other, this conflict only happens when game designers attempt to marry stories that suggest certain dramatic possibilities with material affordances that do not go together (Church 4).
To recap, Janet Murray identifies three new aesthetics or pleasures that the digital medium can add to traditional storytelling: immersion, agency and transformation. Immersion is defined as the feeling of being absorbed a fictional world, which as Marie-Laure Ryan points out, can be achieved in different ways. Agency on the other hand is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices. This can be created by giving the user the ability to perform the actions he or she wants to take, which means that these actions are supported by an underlying computational model. This form of agency can only exist when the players are able to have intention, the ability to make a plan and act on it. This does not mean that the player has to be able to do everything, but through dramatic probability and ‘material affordances’, intention can be created that is in line with the dramatic structure.
Now that interactive narrative has been defined, the next chapter will move on to a specific form of interactive narrative, interactive cinema. It will define the ways in which interactive cinema tries to combine interaction with the traditional narrative structure of film and the criticisms that media scholars have expressed towards interactive cinema and interactive narrative in general.
3. Interactive Cinema
3.1 Defining cinema
Interactive cinema tries to combine interactivity with the cinematic form of narrative. However what defines the cinematic form exactly? A Dictionary of Film Studies by Annette Kuhn and Guy Westwell, states that cinema is often used to indicate the medium of film (87). However Westwell and Kuhn state that there is a distinction to be made between cinema and film, with cinema denoting the industrial and institutional aspects of the medium and film denoting film -form, -text, -language, and -style (87). Film is defined as any kind of motion picture or a series of shots edited together (Kuhn & Westwell 87). The medium of film uses a certain form -an established pattern of formal components that give film its distinctive shape and character- to present a film text -or a system of meanings- (Kuhn & Westwell 175-191). The formal components that give film its distinctive shape are among others, mise-en-scene, framing, iconography, shot size, lighting, colour, editing and sound (191). To sum up, film uses moving pictures, in a series of edited shots, to present a text in an established form or style.
3.2 Interactive cinema and the branching-narrative structure
The structure in which most interactive cinema combines physical interactivity with film narrative is called the branching-narrative structure. Instead of the traditional structure of films in the shape of a straight chain of events, interactive cinema introduces a structure like a tree, in which each important plot point fans out into multiple different narrative tracks (Weiberg 2).
Film scholar Nitzan Ben-Shaul describes this as an evolving film narrative in which at different points in the film, the user can shift to other ‘film narrative trajectories’ (Ben-Shaul, Hyper-Narrative 9). For example, at an important plot point the film might show a forking road and ask the audience which way the protagonist should go. This is the most used and recognizable form of interactive cinema. A form which combines film with the story structure of old ‘choose your own adventure’ books. On the other hand there are also interactive cinema projects that do not insert interactivity on a narrative level, but combine it with cinematography, editing or mise en scene. However for the sake of limiting the scope of this research, this thesis will concentrate on interactive films that allow interaction on a narrative level.
The reason that the branching narrative model is so popular as a story structure for interactive stories is because it gives the writer a framework that limits the interactivity. In their text Interactive Films and Coconstruction, computer science scholars Renato Verdugo, Miguel Nussbaum, Pablo Corro, Pablo Nuñez and Paula Navarrete try to imagine the possibility of an interactive film that delivers total freedom, or unlimited interactivity (39:5). With unlimited interactivity users have absolute agency and can control the plot as they wish. However if everything is possible and anything can be experienced, there is no specific story anymore to be told. The user has absolute control over the storyworld and can only create their own stories. According to Verdugo et al. this shows that the term interactive stories is in some ways an oxymoron; interactivity is the opposite of narration (Verdugo et al. 39:5). A story can only be told by taking away the agency of the reader and guiding them through a certain narrative experience. In interactive stories, interaction and story are always in conflict, the story always limits the interaction and vice versa. So in order to tell a story, interactive cinema has to limit interactivity through a narrative framework like the branching narrative model.
3.3 Interactive Narratives and Aristotelian Story structure
What the branching narrative structure tries to do is to implement interactivity into a
traditional Aristotelian story structure. This is the same method that Brenda Laurel advocates for in her book Computers as Theatre, and gets further explored in Michael Mateas’s A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games. In Computers as Theatre, Laurel argues that in order to evolve interactive computer experiences as an artform, designers could look at the Aristotelian dramatic experience as a blueprint for new interactive stories. Laurel starts by explaining that Aristotle analyzed drama in six different categories, each corresponding to different elements of a play (Laurel 49). These six categories are: Action, Character, Thought, Language, Melody (Pattern) and Spectacle (Enactment) (Laurel 49-50). These categories are related to each other through two causes, a material cause and a formal cause (Laurel 49). A material cause indicates the relation between an object and the material out of which it is created (Mateas 23). The formal cause on the other hand, implies the goal behind an object. To illustrate these causes Mateas gives the example of a building, with the bricks and mortar forming its material cause and the architectural plans its formal cause (Mateas 23). In Aristotle’s view of drama, the formal cause is the author’s intention or authorial vision of the play (Mateas 23). This cause runs from action down to spectacle, in which all the different categories have its formal cause in the previous category. For
example, the author tries to convey a thought through a plot, the plot determines the characters that have to be in the play, a character’s thoughts are determined by their personality, the language that is spoken is determined by the characters thought, etcetera. On the other hand, the material cause of a play, is the audience’s view of it (Mateas 23). This cause runs from spectacle back to the first category action. The audience sees the spectacle and through this they see the pattern (or actions) and language of which this spectacle is build up. Based on these actions and language the audience can understand the characters’ thoughts, and through these thoughts they can understand who the
characters are. Based on this the audience can trace the categories all the way back to the last one, plot, where they can understand how everything works together and what the formal cause of the play is. Through interpretation the audience traces the chain of material cause to retrace the chain of the formal cause (Mateas 24).
Now to add interaction to this model, it has to expand. Because Aristotle never took into account stories that add active participation from the audience. To allow for this, Mateas argues that the user has to be added to the model, as a character who has control over his or her own actions (24). However this inclusion has some major consequences, introducing two new causal chains, in addition to the material cause and the formal cause (Mateas 24). On the one hand, the player’s intentions become a new causal chain, running parallel to the formal cause chain. The player has thoughts, which are expressed through language and actions, which form patterns and produce spectacle. But the user is never completely free to take any action, they are limited to the available actions that the interactive story presents. This can be done through something called affordances, suggested actions that are
presented in such a way that they seem to ‘cry out’ to be taken (Mateas 25). Thus the user’s actions are limited by material resources, which creates another causal chain called the material for action, which runs parallel to the material cause from enactment to plot (Mateas 24). Furthermore the user’s actions are also restricted from above, by the plot that is created by the author (Mateas 24).
Laurel and Mateas present here a method to incorporate interaction in traditional narrative structures, by combining the classic Aristotelian drama experience with
interactivity. The method that Laurel and Mateas lay out is used by a lot of interactive narratives, especially in interactive cinema and branching story structures. By introducing interactivity into traditional storytelling new possibilities and aesthetics are available, but this has also led to criticism. The next part will look deeper into the criticisms that media scholars have expressed about interactive cinema and interactive narratives in general.
3.4 Interactive narrative criticized
Interactive narrative has been heavily criticized by new media scholars, especially the ‘sub-genre’ of interactive cinema. Video game researches like Jesper Juul have tried to disassociate the term from the medium of video games, arguing that computer games and narratives are two very different phenomena and that any combination of the two faces huge problems (Clash, 1). Also film scholars like Kevin Veale, Andrew Polaine and Nitzan
Ben-Shaul have argued that interactivity clashes with some crucial aspects of film narrative. The upcoming part will look at why interactive narrative has been heavily criticized by media scholars, and what its biggest problems are.
3.5 Branching story structure reexamined
In his book on interactive storytelling, game designer Chris Crawford criticizes commonly used strategies for creating interactive stories, among which the branching narrative structure. According to Crawford, the problem of branching narratives is twofold. Firstly branching stories tend to grow exponentially (Crawford 124). For example, in its simplest form a branching story splits at every story junction into two separate branches. However this way, branches grow exponentially. The first level has two different states, the second level four, the third level eight, and so on. By level ten, the story will have 1024 different story states. From a writer's perspective these stories quickly become difficult to manage
(Crawford 125). For the user to have all this choice, the writer has to create a lot more content, a big part of which will not be experienced by the user. Secondly Crawford points out that stories are full of choices, both big and small, and that most choices are not binary but have a wide array of decisions (125). These choices help to define character, showing the way a character operates and how he or she interacts with others. This kind of fine detail is structurally almost impossible in branching stories, so what is left is a design that is too much work for the writer and not fleshed out enough for the user (Crawford 125-126).
To solve this problem, some interactive stories use a structure which Crawford calls a foldback scheme (also called the detour narrative by Verdugo et al.) (126). The foldback scheme reroutes the consequences of decisions back to pre determined story points, so that branching story paths first divert but then convert again, to end up in the same place.
Through this structure, the writer is able to give the user story decisions, without exponential growth of the story and requiring a lot more additional story material (Crawford 126).
because it merely tricks the player into thinking they are making choices (126-127). If every choice ultimately leads to the same result, the choices become meaningless (Crawfor 127).
3.6 The nature of narrative vs. the nature of interactivity
In his text Can narrative films go interactive? film scholar Nitzan Ben-Shaul asks if the user’s personal engagement can be increased by making cinema interactive, due to the the higher potential of interactivity to captivate the user’s attention (150). To do this, Ben-Shaul mostly focusses on branching narratives that allow the user to shift the course of the film’s narrative trajectory. He states that in order to understand how cinematic narrative can engage the viewer in deep, sustained attention -and why the interactive cinema experiments up until now have only led to frustration and shallow distraction- we have to understand the
cognitive, affective and sensual human faculties that play an important role in experiencing a cinematic narrative (152). According to Ben-Shaul, Cinematic narrative is able to provide a deep, cognitive, affective and sensual rewarding engagement because it uses strategies like closure and coherence (153). But interactivity works, by its very nature, in an opposite way, offering non-closure and centeredness. Because of this, choices and plot points in
interactive narratives become arbitrary, there is little coherence or closure and the whole notion of narration becomes meaningless (Ben-Shaul, Can narrative go interactive 153).
However Ben-Shaul also states that this does not mean that the ‘nature’ of digital media prevents it from creating engaging narratives. Nor should it refrain from trying to replicate narrative cinema, in order to achieve this form of engagement. But these elements have to be adapted to the distinct nature of digital media, and its nature has to be used in a way that correspond to the aforementioned cognitive properties (Can narrative go interactive 155).
To illustrate this, Ben-Shaul looks at the uncritical implementation of interactivity in interactive narratives. Traditional narrative engages the audience because it offers unknown and often unexpected narrative twists (Can narrative go interactive 158). However when the user is able to change the course of events, it takes away the unexpected, thus damaging the narrative engagement. Because of this, Ben-Shaul suggests that interaction should serve to maintain one narrative, instead of changing it (Can narrative go interactive 158).
This can for example be done by creating a protagonist with whom the player identifies, and who the players has to help to successfully traverse the narrative through interaction. Through this method, the player’s interests and goals are aligned with those of
the protagonist, thus turning the interaction into a complementary action that is carried out within the borders of the narrative (Ben-Shaul, Can narrative go interactive 158). 1
Film professor Bernard Perron goes a step further than Ben-Shaul, and states that interactive cinema is an oxymoron (239). According to Perron, it is impossible to tell a narrative by putting the storytelling in the hands of the spectator (239). The term interactive cinema is an oxymoron because the linearity of a film narrative goes against the nonlinearity of interactivity (Perron 239). The branching-story structure that interactive cinema so often uses, presents a form of interactivity that is closed, or as Lev Manovich puts it, “the user plays an active role in determining the order in which already-generated elements are accessed” (40). So while these films suggest the freedom of choice, it only presents an illusion of interactivity (Perron 239). Thomas Elsaesser illustrates this as the player being able to go anywhere, as long as the writer was there before him or her (Elsaesser 217). In this way, the interactive film creates the same illusion of freedom as the ‘conventional’ story does, at every plot point in the narrative there is the suggestion of an open future, even though everything is planned and set in advance (Elsaesser 217).
3.7 The difference in affect
Media scholar Kevin Veale presents in his text “Interactive Cinema” is an Oxymoron, but May Not Always Be an argument that builds upon Perron’s notion of interactive cinema being an oxymoron, but also showing how interactivity and film might be combined in another way. Veale states that the viewer’s inability to intervene or participate within the events unfolding in the text, is essential to the cinematic experience (3). He illustrates this by comparing a film experience in the cinema with the same text at home on DVD. Even the slightest increase in agency that a DVD provides (being able to pause, reverse and fast forward) changes the experience in a big way, influencing aspects like the build up of suspense in a film (Veale 3). According to Veale, if such a small adjustment can have major consequences for the experience of the text, “then thecontextual difference between films and games must be proportionally larger (Veale 3). Interactivity changes the form of engagement, and this produces a different affective tone than film experiences (Veale 3).
Affect according to Veale, is “the non-cognitive component of a subjective experience”, which is distinct from emotions (4). Affect works through cathexis, which manifests itself in the viewer or user becoming invested in the text (4). In the context of a
1 A critical side note, Ben-Shaul’s example does limit the player’s agency severely by only allowing for
video game, this investment works through the player experiencing the game as a lived space with its own rules. This is realised through two forms of immersion, diegetic
immersion, which is similar to being ‘lost in a good book’, and situated immersion, which is created through the player being able to act within a story environment rather than upon it (4). This new form of immersion creates a new form of affect, which Veale calls a feeling of responsibility (5). Responsibility comes forth out of the possibility to make choices, and the user being responsible for the consequences of those choices (5). Responsibility is a powerful affect, because feeling responsible for other characters is an important component of relationships (5). Veale presents here an affect unique to interactive media, that is created through the player’s agency in the diegetic world, and that cannot be found in traditional cinematic stories. By doing so, Veale suggests that interactive narrative should not try to produce the same affects as cinema, but create affects that are unique to the properties of the medium and its narrative style.
3.8 What gets lost through agency
However by introducing agency and responsibility, interactive media loses an affect that is important within cinematic stories, the affect called empathy. This is the main argument of computer science scholar Ken Perlin’s text Can There be a Form between a Game and a Story?. Perlin argues that traditional stories work only by virtue of the reader setting aside his or her right to make choices, his or her agency (13-14). Instead we experience the agency of the characters in the story. We change our perspective to that of the protagonist and we experience his or her thoughts and emotions (13). This is the power of traditional stories, the possibility to walk into somebody else's shoes. However interactive media, like for example video games, do not force the user to give up their agency. On the contrary, they depend on it (14). Because of this, protagonists in video games like Lara Croft or Link, are often blank slates, which the player embodies to move through the virtual world. Perlin argues that these protagonists have little character because they lack their own agency, what the player experiences during these narratives is mostly his or her own agency (15). Or as media scholar Birk Weiberg puts it, “a protagonist who is solely dependent on the player’s will cannot have a soul” (3). This is problematic according to Perlin, since story is all about conveying character (15). Plot, which most interactive stories focus on, is merely a structure device to take the reader on a vicarious emotional journey with the characters (15).
Design researcher Andrew Polaine echoes this point, by stating that when interactivity simply gets applied onto a traditional narrative, the story usually suffers (152). Either the
user’s agency is very limited, so the characters can act in a way that conveys personality and tells a story, or characters become flat and boring to allow for the story to go in multiple different ways (Polaine 152). This shows again a ‘theme’ that emerges throughout most of these critiques, that interaction and narrative pull in opposite directions (Polaine 153). By integrating interactivity into narrative, the traditional relationship between author and
audience gets changed (Polaine 152). Narrative is temporal and authoritarian, because it is arranged in advance by the author, whereas interactivity is semi-authoritarian, partly
designed and partly dependent on the user's input (Weiberg 4). In response to this, Weiberg ends his essay with the question how interactive cinema can “overcome linear narration and deconstruct the author’s authority without forcing the user to assume the responsibility and not always pleasant duty of co-authorship” (7).
3.9 Case Study I: Until Dawn
The following section will analyse an object of interactive cinema, the interactive horror adventure game Until Dawn. Until Dawn was created by game studio Supermassive games, led by director Will Byles and lead game designer Nik Bowen and released in 2015 on the Sony Playstation 4. Until Dawn presents itself as an interactive horror film that is heavily inspired by ‘80s and ‘90s slasher-films, a subgenre of horror films made popular by movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974), Halloween (John Carpenter 1978), Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham 1980) and ANightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven 1984). Slasher-films mostly revolve around a group of people (mostly teenagers) who get hunted and murdered by a psychopath. With Until Dawn Byles and Bowen try to take the horror film experience and make it interactive, with the player’s choices influencing the fates of the main characters. This is done by using the cinematic form of storytelling and
combining it with a branching story structure.
Until Dawn tells the story about a group of eight teenagers who reunite in vacation lodge on the fictional Blackwood mountain, to commemorate the disappearance of two of their friends one year before. Quickly the teenagers find themselves under attack by a masked psychopath, who picks them off one by one. To survive, the group has to stay alive until sunrise for help to arrive and to escape from horrors that are hunting them. In the game, the player takes control of eight different characters, seeing the story unfold through different perspectives. The game switches between these characters at specific plot points during the narrative.
sections in which the player has to navigate one of the characters through a virtual space. In these sections the player can search for clues that fill in the backstory and has to find a way to progress the story. On the other hand there are cut scene’s in which the navigational freedom is taken away, and the action unfolds in scripted scenes. During these scenes, there are plot points where the player has to choose between two branching story-paths. Additionally the player has to pass so called ‘quick-time events’, button-prompts which the player has to react to within a limited amount of time to be successful. Failing at these quick-time events results in the in-game character failing at a certain action, which in the most extreme cases can result in the character's death.
Until Dawn embraces the branching-story structure to create an interactive horror film, promising to dynamically change the story depending on the player’s choices. Interestingly enough the game tries to balance the feeling of suspense with the dramatic agency that is possible through interaction. Traditional horror cinema engages the viewer through the buildup of suspense and the offering of unknown -and often unexpected- twists. However as mentioned before, when the user is given the ability to change the course of events, this form of engagement is broken. Until Dawn tries to solve this, by presenting a lot of choices with unknown consequences.
One example of this is during one of the many chase scenes, in which one of the characters is chased by the psychopath. The character flees into the basement and here the player has to make the choice whether to keep running or hide. Based on this decision, the character escapes or gets captured. These sort of choices introduce a kind of interaction that adds to the feeling of suspense rather than breaking it. By giving the player the power to choose between two choices with unclear consequences suspense is maintained, because the results of the action are revealed later. Furthermore these choices add Veale’s affect of responsibility to the narrative experience. The player feels responsible for the actions on screen, because they are consequences of the choices he or she has made. This affect of responsibility adds to the level of immersion the user feels while experiencing the narrative.
However, these instances do not give much agency to the player, since the user cannot act with intention. As discussed before, in order to have intention, the player has to be able to make a plan and act on it. This is only possible when actions have perceivable consequences (Church 3). But this works in the exact opposite way of narrative engagement like suspense and twists, that rely on the unknown and unforeseen (Ben Shaul, Can
narrative go interactive 158). Until Dawn tries to have both, by offering choices that seem to have clear consequences, but then turn out very differently. One example of this, is during a torture scene, where one character (Chris) has to choose between killing the girl he loves
(Ashley) or killing himself. Whether the player chooses one or the other, the narrative always ends up with both characters still being alive in a surprising twist. However later on in the story, if the player chose to kill Ashley, Chris will end up dying because of her. This way, the game tries to combine the sense of agency and responsibility, with the suspense and surprise of a horror narrative. But when the player cannot foresee or rely on the consequences of their choices, the interaction becomes less meaningful.
Furthermore, only a select number of choices have actual consequences at all. To make sure that the narrative stays manageable and does not become over-encumbered by the exponential growth of story branches, Until Dawn makes heavy use of the foldback scheme (Crawford 126). Meaning that most branching story-paths get rerouted back to pre-determined story points. An example of this is in the middle of the story, where a character called Sam is chased down by the psychopath. The player’s choices influence whether she gets captured or not, but both these story branches get rerouted back to the same story point. Sam discovers that the psychopath is one of her friends and the whole situation is a practical joke. Moreover some choices are rerouted immediately, with one situation asking the player to choose between two characters for one to die. But regardless of the choice, the right one always gets killed and the left one stays alive. As mentioned before, this foldback-scheme creates the illusion of choice, whereby the player is tricked into thinking that their input will have vastly different outcomes. This is not to say that these interactive moments have no purpose at all, because as long as this illusion remains intact, it can create more immersion.
Funny enough, it is in the places where the player can truly influence the narrative, that the problematic relationship between narrative and interaction show. One of the main selling points of the game is that the player’s choices decide who lives and who dies. This is true for all eight characters, every single one can die at certain points in the narrative, depending on the choices of the player. However this does create a narrative problem, because this system often breaks story- and character-arcs. One particular example has one character called Emily cheating on her boyfriend Matt at the beginning of the story. Every player gets to see the set-up for this story-arc -regardless of their early choices- however depending on their choices after this, they might never see the pay-off. This is the same for most of the story-arcs in the narrative. Depending on the choices that are made, these arcs may or may not get any closure. Because of this, the story lacks coherence, which is a direct consequence of the interactivity.
The same is true for the character-arcs. During the narrative the player takes control of eight different characters. All of these characters are given clear personalities at the start
of the story, based on stereotype characters in the horror genre. However this
characterization gets broken as soon as the player takes control of the character. The player no longer experiences the emotions and thoughts of the character (the character’s agency) but experiences their own agency. This creates a disconnect, a character who at first acts one way, can suddenly act very differently depending on the player’s choices. Because of this, the characters often lack coherence, acting a certain way when they are controlled by the player but acting completely different when not. The interactivity also negates any character growth or character-arcs. Because the choices these characters make are bound to the will of the player.
Until Dawn shows the problematic combination between interactivity and traditional story structure, both pulling the narrative in different directions to an uneasy middle ground. As an interactive experience Until Dawn remains too closed off, allowing the player only to go wherever the writers have been before (Elsaesser 217). It presents a very restricted form of interaction, where the player can choose between a number of already-generated stories. It gives the player barely any agency. Making it difficult to act with intention, to maintain suspense and making certain choices irrelevant by rerouting back to pre-determined story points. By doing this, it creates the illusion of agency to generate an affect of responsibility. However the choices that do have a lasting impact, often break the coherence and closure of the narrative. Showing characters that are inconsistent and have no story arc. This way, Until Dawn shows the balancing act that interactive cinema tries to perform between interactivity and traditional story structure, and the problems most of these objects run into.
The next chapter will look at another way of combining narrative with interactivity, and how by moving away from traditional story structures a more complementary
4. Procedural storytelling
4.1 Interactivity and playThe previous chapter has shown that there is a lot of criticism directed towards interactive narrative and especially the way in which interactive cinema combines interaction and narrative through a branching story structure. The core issue in most of these criticisms, seems to be the contradictory relationship between interactivity and narrative. To better understand this relationship, it can be illuminating to analyse a certain form of interactivity, the interactivity of play.
Interactivity and play are two concepts that are often connected to each other, especially in regard to digital media and one of its most popular cultural forms, the videogame. Literary scholar Marie-Laure Ryan argues that interactivity, when used to entertain, is always a form of play (Narrative games, 45). However all forms of play are interactive, but not all interactivity is a form of play. So to see in what way the two concepts are related and where the differences lie, it is important to first create an understanding of what play exactly is.
Any definition of play has to start with the ‘grandfather’ of the study of play, anthropologist Johan Huizinga, and his groundbreaking work Homo Ludens. In Home
Ludens Huizinga describes play as “a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy and the consciousness that it is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life’ (28). Huizinga’s definition presents a lot of essential aspects of play, for example its free and voluntary nature, and that it takes place within certain restrictions, borders and rules. Furthermore Huizinga notes that play is different from ‘normal life’, and the exact opposite of ‘seriousness’. However in the dutch version of the book, the distinction between ‘spel’ as a noun (game) and ‘spelen’ as a verb (play) remains very vague, with Huizinga mostly using the word ‘spel’ to indicate both. Because of this, his definition of play can easily be mistaken for a definition of games, since it does not
differentiate between game and play (Salen & Zimmerman 75).
Man, Play and Games by french sociologist Roger Caillois is in many ways a direct response to Huizinga’s work (Salen & Zimmerman 76). Caillois does try to differentiate between play and ‘game-play’ by creating a spectrum, with on the one hand paidia and on the other ludus (27). Caillois defines paidia as “a word covering the spontaneous
