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Jenkins (enacting stories (Most often,when we discuss games as stories,we…
Jenkins
Most often,when we discuss games as stories,we are referring to games that
either enable players to perform or witness narrative events
game critics often note that the player's participation poses a potential threat to the narrative construction, whereas the hard rails of the plotting can overly constrain the 'freedom, power, and self-expression' associated with interactivity
accordion-like structure in much of media including film: certain plot points are fixed, whereas other moments can be expanded or contracted in response to audience feedback without serious consequences to the overall plot
narrative enters games on two levels: broadly defined goals or conflicts and on the level of localized incidents (micronarratives)
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even games that do not create large-scale plot trajectories may well depend on these micronarratives to shape the player's emotional experience
in the case of enacted narratives, the story itself may be structured around the character's movement through space and the features of the environment may retard or accelerate that plot's trajectory
- spatial stories and environmental storytelling
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games fit within a much older tradition of spatial storytelling (has often taken the form of hero's odysseys, quest myths, or travel narratives)
game space never exists in abstract, but always experientially
even in other media, spatial storytelling has been considered lesser than plot- or character-centric stories (e.g. science fiction books)
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environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in at least one of four ways
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- ludologists vs. narratologists
ludology: study of games and game play, rather than framed through the concerns of pre-existing disciplines or other media
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the application of film theory to games can seem heavy-handed and literal-minded, often failing to recognise the profound differences between the two media
particularities of this emerging medium: looking at games less as stories than as spaces ripe with narrative possibility
ludologist are dismissing the value of narrative and do not fully understand the interplay between narrative and games
- generally accepted ideas about games
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if some games tell stories, they are unlikely to tell them in the same ways that other media tell stories
- the model of narrative deployed is too narrow
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focuses more on the activities and aspirations of the storyteller and too little on the process of narrative comprehension
the discussion deals only with the question of whether whole games tell stories and not whether narrative elements might enter games at a more localized level
the discussion assumed that narratives must be self-contained rather than understanding games as serving some specific functions within a new transmedia storytelling environment
do not tell self-contained stories as much as draw upon our previously existing narrative competencies
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in the case of evoke narratives, spatial design can either enhance our sense of immersion within a familiar world or communicate a fresh perspective on that story through the altering of established details
narrative comprehension is an active process by which viewers assemble and make hypotheses about likely narrative developments on the basis of information drawn from textual cues and clues
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within an open-ended and exploratory narrative structure like a game, essential narrative information must be presented redundantly across a range of spaces and artifacts because one cannot assume the player will necessarily locate or recognize the significance of any given element
in the case of embedded narratives, the game space becomes a memory palace whose contents must be deciphered as the player tries to reconstruct the plot
not prestructured or preprogrammed, taking shape through the gamme play, yet they are not as unstructured, chaotic, and frustrating as life itself
in the case of emergent narratives, game spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity of players