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Category: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration

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22/02/09

10:24:26 Cohérence diégétique et mondes possibles  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, General Theory, 979 words

Sur son blog, Simon Dor se livre à une petite analyse du donjon du château d'Hyrule dans Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Il explique que la lanterne, nécessaire pour progresser dans l'obscurité du donjon, peut être trouvée à trois endroits différents. Je n'avais jamais su que la lanterne pouvait être obtenue ailleurs que dans la maison...en fait, je pense que je l'ai déjà su, mais l'avais oublié. Enfin bref. Sa réflexion sur les mondes possibles et la diégèse du jeu est en lien avec une réflexion que j'entretiens depuis quelques temps sur Illusion of Gaia. En ayant battu le vampire de l'île Mu, le joueur doit désamorcer une bombe qui menace la vie d'un de ses amis. Le jeu lui demande lequel des deux fils il veut couper pour désamorcer la bombe: le fil rouge ou le bleu? En fin de compte, n'importe lequel des deux est "le bon" et la bombe s'arrête peu importe.

Ceci, et l'exemple de la lanterne que Simon donne, démontre une des forces du jeu vidéo, mais de façon plus large, de toute simulation: la cohérence de l'univers diégétique n'est pas obligatoire, tant et aussi longtemps que chacun des mondes possibles engendrés est cohérent de façon interne. Par "univers diégétique", j'entends l'ensemble de tous les mondes possibles. Dans l'exemple d'Illusion of Gaia, sur le point de la bombe, il y en a deux: un monde dans lequel le fil bleu est le bon, et un monde dans lequel le fil rouge est le bon. Dans A Link to the Past, il y en a 3: un dans lequel Link et son oncle ont une lanterne dans leur maison, un dans lequel quelqu'un a placé une lanterne dans un coffre situé dans un souterrain secret pour entrer au château, et un dans lequel la princesse Zelda a été capturée mais on a eu la décence de lui laisser une lanterne dans sa cellule. Ces mondes sont mutuellement contradictoires: que peut-on dire du monde de Zelda pris indépendamment d'une partie donnée? Trois des coffres du jeu peuvent contenir à la fois un roupi ou une lanterne. Dans Illusion of Gaia, on ne peut pas dire lequel est "le bon" fil; les deux le sont, dépendamment du choix du joueur.

Cette dynamique n'a rien de nouveau, et souligne une fois de plus la parenté des jeux vidéo avec les jeux de rôle sur table. Tout maître de jeu minimalement expérimenté a déjà triché sur son scénario. Si je prévois que les joueurs devront explorer un donjon et auront besoin d'une lanterne magique qu'ils trouveront dans la maison d'un brigand, mais que pour une raison ou une autre les joueurs A) évitent la confrontation avec le brigand; B) ne fouillent pas sa maison; C) font à leur tête et se lancent dans le donjon de toute façon, je peux contrevenir à mon scénario sans aucun problème, et ce, de diverses façons: par exemple, s'ils ont évité la rencontre, le brigand pourrait les embusquer à l'entrée du donjon; s'ils l'ont tué mais pas fouillé sa maison, ils pourraient rencontrer un autre brigand de sa bande qui, lui, possède la lanterne; enfin, le donjon pourrait bien ne pas être plongé dans l'obscurité du tout! Alors que j'aurai en tête plusieurs mondes possibles incohérents les uns avec les autres (dans un rapport intertextuel, donc), le monde que je livrerai aux joueurs sera, lui, cohérent, puisque les joueurs n'auront pas eu accès aux autres mondes que j'ai imaginés auparavant.

C'est là indiscutablement une force dont les jeux vidéo peuvent tirer profit. Cette force peut être exploitée de diverses façons par les scénaristes et designers. Ils ne sont pas tenus d'offrir un univers diégétique syncrétique, mais peuvent exploiter toutes les possibilités de variation sans se limiter à la construction classique et à l'impératif de cohérence qui régule les autres médias traditionnels construits sur le mode du récit. En clair: la simulation ajoute une couche supplémentaire, la variabilité propre aux labyrinthes multicursifs (dixit Espen Aarseth, 1997: Cybertext). Faire l'expérience d'un roman ou d'un film, c'est faire l'expérience d'un objet fini dont l'auteur a tracé un parcours à travers un fouillis d'idées et de possibilités:

This formulation places the opposition between database and narrative in a new light, thus redefining our concept of narrative. The "user" of a narrative is traversing a database, following links between its records as established by the database's creator. An interactive narrative (which can be also called "hyper-narrative" in an analogy with hypertext) can then be understood as the sum of multiple trajectories through a database. A traditional linear narrative is one, among many other possible trajectories; i.e. a particular choice made within a hyper-narrative. Just as a traditional cultural object can now be seen as a particular case of a new media object (i.e., a new media object which only has one interface), traditional linear narrative can be seen as a particular case of a hyper-narrative.

(Lev Manovich, "Database as a Genre of New Media")

Cette couche supplémentaire (celle du système génératif, réservé à l'auteur dans les expériences linéaires) n'est pas régie par les mêmes règles que la couche d'expérience directe, celle des différentes manifestations du système. La dernière doit être cohérente à l'interne, la première n'a aucune obligation de la sorte. Si l'on accepte le postulat que le jeu vidéo est une simulation, il convient de poursuivre le raisonnemment: la simulation n'est pas un récit, mais une machine à engendrer des récits.

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28/11/08

17:09:28 Narration in the Video Game - Master's thesis published  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Game Studies, 147 words

The English translation of my master's thesis has just been published by VDM Verlag, as part of their print-on-demand series. The full title reads Narration in the Video Game. An Apologia of Interactive Storytelling, and an Apology to Cut-Scene Lovers. I didn't get the choice to not put up a subtitle, so I did my best to come up with one. In the end I kind of like it. It is indeed a defense of interactive storytelling, but not going the cut-scenes way.

The book is available pretty much all around the web (for instance, http://www.amazon.com/Narration-Video-Game-Dominic-Arsenault/dp/3639091396/), but the price is likely to prohibit some serious distribution. You could always request that your local university library buy a copy. Rest assured, the full text in PDF format is staying on this here website, so there's no need to get into a download frenzy.

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24/05/08

10:21:48 Jeux vidéo et réincarnation?  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, General Theory, 847 words

J'ai récemment vu passer un courriel sur une liste de diffusion d'une personne qui s'interroge sur le rôle que joue la réincarnation dans les jeux vidéo. Jean-Paul Lafrance en a déjà résumé le propos sur le blogue d'Homo Ludens. Avant même de répondre à la question, à savoir si les jeux vidéo font la promotion de la réincarnation comme conception de l'après-mort et ont un effet réel sur les joueurs qui expliquerait en partie la montée en popularité de cette croyance dans la société, je ne peux m'empêcher de questionner l'à-priori qui donne lieu à ce questionnemment:

« Dans plusieurs jeux vidéo, le personnage doit mourir et renaître des centaines, voire des milliers de fois afin de mener à bien sa mission. »

Valérie Dagrain souligne, en réponse à cette question, que cette réincarnation est en fait liée à des choix techniques: pour proposer au joueur de recommencer, si le personnage meurt, il doit nécessairement renaître. Effectivement. Et quelle conséquence peut-il bien y avoir lorsque l'on affronte des bandits avec des mitrailleuses, des trous sans fond, et que sais-je encore, autre que la mort? Dans tous les jeux où l'avatar est menacé dans son intégrité corporelle, la mort se pose comme conséquence nécessaire d'un manque de performance. Soit.

Mais au-delà de ça, il me semble y avoir quelque chose de plus fondamental, comme une erreur de catégorie. C'est ce que Jesper Juul mettait en lumière (indirectement) avec sa discussion de Donkey Kong au DiGRA 2005:

Why does Mario have three lives? [...] we could technically argue that Mario has three lives because Donkey Kong is a Hinduist game with reincarnation. But in actuality, players (the ones I have asked) explain the three lives with reference to the rules of the game: “Those are the rules”, “otherwise it would be too hard”.

J'ai tourné cette question pendant quelques jours et j'en suis revenu à mon mémoire de maîtrise, où pour expliquer la façon dont le récit fonctionne dans le jeu vidéo, j'affirmais qu'il faut considérer le récit comme un fil que ma performance vient dérouler (p.72-73). La mort de l'avatar est un essai raté, un événement qui sera mis en isolation et écarté de la séquence du jeu. L'expérience du joueur (une suite d'essais ratés qui font qu'un niveau est répété une dizaine de fois) n'est pas l'expérience de l'avatar (qui, chaque fois, approche le niveau de la même façon, comme si c'était la première). L'avatar ne meurt pas pour être réincarné.

S'il faut 12 vies au joueur pour progresser au-delà de son niveau, il serait inexact de dire que l'avatar meurt et est réincarné 11 fois. Chacun des essais ratés est écarté. Sinon, comment expliquer que l'avatar agit exactement de la même façon (s'il y a une cinématique au début du niveau repris) les fois suivantes? S'il était mort et réincarné "pour vrai", il aurait des connaissances supplémentaires qui le pousseraient à agir différemment, les ennemis qu'il a tué seraient morts, les objets qu'il a amassé seraient encore en sa possession, etc. Il apparaîtrait farfelu de conclure de cela que les mondes vidéoludiques font la promotion du compostage puisqu'ils se régénèrent lorsque l'avatar meurt, ou que les personnages sont en vérité des acteurs conscients de jouer des rôles (qu'ils connaissent leur propre statut fictionnel!) et que c'est pour cela qu'ils répètent les mêmes actions.

Tout joueur comprend, instinctivement, qu'une tentative ratée est un "reset", que le joueur aura à recommencer la séquence échouée. De cela découle la conclusion que s'il a fallu 12 vies au joueur pour amener son avatar à la fin du niveau, il n'est pas mort et réincarné 12 fois, mais simplement, les 11 premières tentatives n'ont pas eu lieu - dans le monde fictionnel, s'entend, puisque le joueur, lui, a bel et bien perdu 11 vies. Voir la distinction de Juul entre niveau des règles et niveau de la fiction (Half-Real), ou la mienne entre niveau matériel du jeu et niveau du contenu (mon mémoire, p.33).

Que conclure de ce mélange des niveaux? Je ne suis pas en sciences des religions et je ne sais pas à quel point la figure de la réincarnation est malléable. Peut-être en ai-je une idée trop fermée, trop précise. Mais il me semble que ce genre de considérations devrait être réservé pour les cas spécifiques de jeux qui traitent explicitement de la réincarnation, comme Soul Blazer ou Final Fantasy VII. Et dans ces cas, la réincarnation ne concerne pas les opérations ludiques "au jour le jour" ("mourir et renaître des centaines de fois pour parvenir à la fin"), mais sont des thèmes traités dans le scénario de façon ponctuelle et spécifique.

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23/09/07

00:42:36 Review: Doors and Perception by Espen Aarseth  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Game Studies, 1888 words

Here is my opinionated review of Espen Aarseth's recent contribution to a journal based at the Université de Montréal. Note that "opinionated" means I am not going to summarize the paper, but rather I will share what I understood and the reflections it inspired me. I'll start with the full formal reference, in case any one is googling for the page numbers or something:
Aarseth, Espen [2007]. "Doors and Perception: Fiction vs. Simulation in Games", in Intermédialités. Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques, no.9: "jouer", Spring, p.35-44.

The premise is that the concept of "fiction" is often used as a given when referring to games, and it is not questioned - or defined by the authors - enough. The crux of the argument is that because video games are participatory/interactive/a configurative practice rather than merely passive/interpretative, we cannot label them as entirely fictional because they are interacted with in game events, and these events are very real. This follows a bit on Jesper Juul's Half-Real thesis that games are both fictional and real, in that slaying a dragon is a fictional event but also a real event because it means winning the game, acquiring new powers or resources, etc.

On the whole, I am grateful that Aarseth wrote this piece because it addresses very valid issues, brings a meaningful contribution to the study of games, and pushes us forward. I agree with his premise and with his conclusion ("[...]instead of the common notion that game worlds are fictional, we should start to see them as composites where the fictional element is but one of the many types of world-building ingredients" p.44). But I disagree (or I misunderstood) the middle section.

Smaug, Onyxia, and Onyxia
In true gamer fashion, Aarseth descends deeper into the dragon's den. While we can say that Smaug (Tolkien's dragon from The Hobbit) is a fictional character, a dragon that is fought in Everquest has to behave like one and be fought.

"One dragon is clearly fictional, but the other is simulated. One is there to read about, or watch on a TV or movie screen, the other is there to be played with. One is made solely of signs, the other of signs and a dynamic model, that will specify its behaviour and respond to our input. It is this model behaviour that makes it different from a fiction since we can get to know the simulation much more intimately that we come to know the fiction." (p.37; no emphasis added)

This is where I am starting to disagree. Why does the addition of a second system of significance changes Onyxia (a mighty dragon from World of Warcraft) into something different from Smaug? Is she not both a fictional dragon just like Smaug and something else (a powerful end-game boss with 1,100,000Hit Points, of type X, with attacks A/B/C, etc.) when viewed in another frame? WoWwiki (a wikipedia-type site hosting information on the game) sure seems to think so. Onyxia is both a game token, as described on the Onyxia (tactics) page, and a fictional character (on the Onyxia page). After all, Onyxia would not be fictional during a cut-scene (in which there is no question of behaviour and reactivity: we see only what we're meant to), and then not or not fictional anymore but something different after the cut-scene: the fact that we consider her to be the same entity during and after the cut-scene testifies that she keeps existing as a fictional character and that a new layer is simply added to her afterwards.

Aarseth then goes in-depth with an example he knows well: the labyrinth. He uses the labyrinth in Kubrick's The Shining, which is fictional in the film, but in reality just a few props carefully filmed and pieced to create the illusion of a real place. What he concludes from this is problematic:

"in The Shining we see a clear example of a maze that does not exist. It is completely fictional, e.g. unlike, say, the labyrinths of games, which are real labyrinths. For what constitutes labyrinthicity? If a 2D drawing or a painted or tiled floor can be a proper labyrinth (and they can, since labyrinths do not come with specific height requirements) then a 3D virtual labyrinth in a computer-simulated world is a real labyrinth, since it can be navigated by the same rules as the one at Hampton Court." (p.41)

Now, I don't know as much about labyrinths as Aarseth does, which may be the source of my confusion. The problem I have with this argument is that it seems to stem from the specific word "labyrinth" itself. What constitutes labyrinthicity? Maybe the word is too broad and undefined. Is not a labyrinth a mental construction, a concept more than an object? Someone lost in a government building on his first day on the job may very well think of it as a labyrinth, but then not anymore a few weeks later.

Aside from that, Aarseth's example aims to demonstrate that objects in video games are real rather than fictional objects because they function like real ones. But this would not hold if we were to take about any other object or action I can think of off the top of my head - a video game rifle is a representation of a rifle, a building is a representation of a building, etc. Reloading the rifle is done by pressing A, and looking around, by moving a joystick. The labyrinth seems to be the interesting exception rather than the exemplum, for the concept of a labyrinth carries in itself a definite set of rules of behaviour - namely, that it must be navigated, that one cannot climb its walls, and so on. By contrast, most objects only carry rules of existence - a gun may imply a trigger, but it can be used to fire, to whip, to threaten, or to bargain, among multiple other possible uses. No video game object can behave like a real-world object, because all video games have rules defined by an author, and that author cannot possibly program every single usage possibility. Consequently, a gun whose bullets I cannot unload and then slice with my knife to gather raw gunpowder, or a gun which never ceases functioning even after I swam in water with it (assuming it is supposed to use gunpowder like an antique six-shooter) is no more "real" than a gun painted on a poster, or Lucky Luke's in a comic book. And if I disagree on that point, I have to disagree on the question of doors too.

Doors and Perception
Aarseth's example of doors and perception in Return to Castle Wolfenstein is illuminating, regardless whether we agree with him or not. He writes:

"[...] here is the strange thing: only some of the doors in the game actually work as doors should. Most of the doors are merely textures on the walls that look like doors, but whose function is purely decorative. Other doors actually do behave in a door-like manner; they can be opened, closed, seen through, walked through and fired through." (p.42)

There is indeed an ontological divide between the doors-as-wall-paintings and the doors-as-doors, which can easily be justified by delving into the deeper workings of a video game: the code. In simplified speech (for I do not master any programming language), the doors painted on walls are simply, as Aarseth says, textures on a wall. They are, on the level of the code, simply walls (rectangular polygons with a simple collision box overlay) on which a texture such as "fakewoodendoor01.jpg" is applied instead of "woodenwall01.jpg". Besides this difference, this fake door is a wall. The "real", operable doors, on the other hand, are programmed as events: typically, if the player presses a certain button in front of the door, then the processor loads an animation file ("openwoodendoor01.something") showing the door being opened, and the wrapped collision box follows the position of the door accordingly to let the player get through the doorway.

However, Aarseth tells us that the difference between these two doors is that the fake, painted door is fictional, while the operable doors are not:

"So if the first type of door is fictional, what is the second type? Is it also fictional? If we conclude this, then we are clearly looking at two very different types of fiction, with only the first type being similar to fictional phenomena in all other media. For the sake of well-conceived theory, it makes more sense to conclude that there are both fictional and non-fictional doors in these games, and that the non-fictional doors are virtual, a mode of existence that is neither fictional nor real." (p.42)

In my mind, there is no question that both of these doors are fictional, and that the ontological divide is that the painted door is only fictional, while the operable door is both fictional and simulated/virtual. As I am a strong proponent of what I call gaming theory, my reasoning can be easily explained by putting ourselves in a player's shoes. If a player directs his avatar in a corridor and comes face to face with two doors, he will naturally expect to be able to open them. Now in reality, under the game's fictional representation layer, one of them might be merely painted while the other operable, but the player cannot know this. Both doors are perceived as equal fictional representations, until the player, say, goes in front of the left door and sees no action possibility popping up. At this point he will know that the left door is only a fictional object, and not a simulated door. If one of the doors was fictional while the other was not, then the player would never have perceived them both as doors. It is no coincidence that Aarseth deems it a "strange thing" that some doors should function as doors and others not; he expects them all to open and behave like doors precisely because they are all equally fictional.

Virtuality and simulation
Aarseth introduces the word "virtual" as an equivalent of "simulated", and posits this in a three-part ontological divide: some video game elements are fictional, which would be mimetic only in appearance, others would be simulated or virtual, which are not fictional and are mimetic only in behaviour, and yet others would be real, in that their effect goes beyond the game itself ("I won!", "I sold my EQ account for 500$!", etc.) The ensuing discussion of money in MMOG's is a good illustration of this.

In short, the major difference in our views concerns the "stacking" of multiple layers, and the major problem I have with this text is whether there really is something ontologically different about fictional objects "posing for flavor" and others being functional. It seems that for Aarseth, it makes these objects "not fictional, virtual", while for me they are rather "fictional, and then virtual" (not "in then" as a marker of consequence or primacy, but simply as an additive layer. I could say they are "virtual, and then fictional, and then..."). While I have noted many disagreements, I have enjoyed reading the text, and there is a lot of punch efficiently packed in there.

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24/04/07

23:24:29 Narration in the Video Game  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Gaming Log, 296 words

I just put up the English translation of my master's thesis on video game narration, narratives, storytelling, interactive fiction, storygame, film-game, interactive story - you know those. Not that it covers everything, but these words are so enthusiastically flung across the room in every direction that you can't quite figure out what's happening anymore, so you end up blindly hitting at the whole pack. Yes, that is almost exactly the description of what happens when you play Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (just add frustrating, uncontrollable camera movements - or lack thereof - and headless NPC allies that throw themselves in bottomless pits and you're getting there), both yersterday and today. Not that I wanted to, but hey, Science's a harsh mistress.

So for her sake I endured the repetitive gameplay, boring mechanics, uninventive environments, flat-lined events, dismissive tactics, petty excuses for storytelling, kindergardened puzzles, whimsically random nonsense of planet-eating, world-destroying, armor-breaking magical masks made of vortexes of a billion stars - not sure why it was important anyway; I think the writer just liked the sound of those words strung up together, regardless of their meaninglessness - to finish off this piece of........gooey spidey-web. It took 23 hours I think and sadly, I can't get a refund for those. But at that point just the fact that it didn't take any longer to finish it is a blessing. All in all, it was a most excruciating experience and I hope all the game discs in the world get lost in a kids' pitchfork party so they may be fiercely scratched to uselessness. Or even better, that they get thrown in a vortex of a billion stars. Or something equally ridiculous so we remember only that idiotic joke of a fate while the game itself sinks away abandoned.

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27/02/07

22:16:28 Thesis translated!  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Game Studies, 94 words

A quick post to let you know that I finished translating my thesis in la langue de Shakespeare. It is currently being reviewed by native English speakers for translation fixes, typos, and other bugs, so it'll be up when they're done. If in the meantime you'd like to get a copy of the PDF, just write me (at the address displayed on the top-left corner of the screen. Yes, it is drawn in MS Paint. Gotta keep those spambots out, plus it gives my site an 0ldsk001 feel.) and I'll mail it to you.

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24/11/06

13:13:12 Thesis defended!  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Game Studies, 237 words

It's been a while since my last post. I defended my Master's Thesis on Wednesday, though the word "defend" might be misleading as there weren't any attacks or questions. It went extremely well and I am really happy to have received good comments and insightful remarks on the points I covered in those 100 pages. I am deeply honored that the jury marked it as "Excellent", which means they believe it is part of the 5% best theses of the discipline. That strengthened my belief that the work I had done was good, and now I am going to start translating it into English and eventually publish it here, send it to Gamasutra, etc. I had a party yesterday with some friends and lots of alcohol to celebrate, and am going to a partii this afternoon (with some Guitar Hero 2 as an added bonus). I can't wait to try the other games in WiiSports (I only played Boxing so far).

On another language-related issue, I have started translating this whole website to French by popular demand. So expect a few broken links to pop up in the new version. The blog itself won't be translated though, but I might start blogging half-and-half posts, or a one/off thing. I will definitely respond in french to people who comment my posts in french (see Cindy's comment on the first "Hello world" post for an example. Your French is good, Cindy!)

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30/10/06

09:29:54 Rediscovering FF II US/4J  

Categories: Storytelling, Fiction, Narration, Gaming Log, 289 words

I downloaded a ROM of Final Fantasy II US / 4 Japanese (the one on the SNES with Cecil and Rosa) yesterday. As I started playing I realized it was an (what I assume is a fan-made) English translation from the original Japanese "Hardtype" version. For those of you unfamiliar with the FF saga, Square made FF4 in Japan and then went under the butcher's knife (read: the Nintendo censors and technical limitations of cartridge space) to release it in the US, labeling it "Final Fantasy II" since game no. 2 and 3 had not been ported outisde Japan.

Final Fantasy II is the first RPG that got me really interested in the genre (at age 10/11 or so). I have played it numerous times and know it pretty much by heart. But now I get to play it as it was originally meant to be, with uncut dialogue and characterization. And it's incredible. It feels like a totally different game! Like...I didn't even know Cecil had been taken in and raised by the king when he was young. That changes a lot of things.

I also experienced a personal victory since I tackled FF2 in my master's thesis. I explained that the game's rules and formal aspects convey a narrative idea that is barely hinted at by the game's script. But actually it is actually very clear and central to the story in the japanese original. It's a really interesting and perhaps unique precedent in gaming history. I had the opportunity to play a game with a stripped-down plot and "fill in the blanks", as the saying goes, with the game's formal aspects and rules system, and then I had confirmation by accessing the original, expanded plot. The theory seems to work!

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